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Brimstone - Favourite Photo of 2016

Week 1 - Here we go!

Starting this week the first opportunity to showcase your favourite shots of 2016! Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos - just to make it easier to organise and keep everything on track so that we can enjoy this throughout the winter months? Of course our overseas members are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants. As like last year details of locations, dates, times and circumstances would be welcome as would any accompanying stories and anecdotes or other observations of behaviour and interesting other points.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

I always enjoy photographing Brimstones early in the spring but have chosen one from later in the year, because of the brilliant colour of this against-the-light view.
Mike

Except for those first few weeks at the end of March and beginning of April, this is never really a target species but they will always attract my attention if the opportunity presents itself and it did a fair few times this year. I can't pick just the one fav so here's a selection: An egg laying female who couldn't be stopped at Denbies, my best yet upper wing shot on another spring trip to Denbies, courting couples aplenty and then late summer whilst searching for Brown Hairstreak at Shipton Belinger a beautiful backlit female fattening up for winter

I didn't see the Brimstone too many times this year which is surprising, I usually see them at Gait Barrow and get my shots there but this year it didn't seem to be in great numbers so it wasn't until I went to Mere Sands at Southport that I managed any shots, the one shot I really like though I took in Blean Woods in Kent on the the 13th August, when I took a shot of the female Brimstone on a Teasel ( I think that's how you spell it)
I took the other shot from a distance because I loved all the plants surrounding the Butterfly, it felt like a photo I could look back on and enjoy on a winter's day Goldie

I think that's a remarkable 'distant' shot, Goldie, and a reminder that close-ups aren't the only way to photograph butterflies. I love the way the colour is echoed in the sunlit leaves. It needs to be made into a really large print to be appreciated to the full

There's plenty of buckthorn in the hedgerows between the fields that surround my village so the trick is providing nectar to attract these lovely critters over the wall and into the garden.

Bluebells seem to be an early favourite - but I've found the key to many summer visits is to plant the UK-native perennial sweet pea Lathyrus latifolius which seems to be completely irresistible. Usually they pop up in ones or twos but on the day this photo was shot in early August I had as many as 5 individuals at once in my small plot in rural Notts.

Brimstone.
I have no problem seeing their cousin, the Cleopatra, but I have to move north to find Brimstones so they can be classed as slightly exotic for me.
A short trip up to the Drôme départment in the Spring provided the opportunity for an encounter. Chris

Few things can beat a Brimstone on a bluebell. Here's one from Swansea on 13th April:
...although they are a welcome site irrespective of the plant they're feeding on:

The first of my favourites this year has to be the only Brimstone caterpillar I've photographed, seen at Bentley Wood amongst the PBF and SPBF in May. The second was a brand new example from Botany Bay seen when looking for second brood Wood Whites at the end of July. Finally, one of a whole cloud of the species on a patch of willowherb late on an August afternoon up at Allerthorpe in Yorkshire. You can see two others in the background. Dave

The only Brimstone I photographed this year. Holme Fen 13th August

A couple of shots from my back garden in Stevenage earlier in the year.

At one point I counted 16 larvae on the one buckthorn plant. The adult Brimstone probably developed from one of these larvae.

ATB

Peter

Hello all.
Posted a couple of Brimstone shots from the past season, the first is my 1st butterfly (of any species) of the year taken late March in the Orlestone forest,Kent,also my first
picture taken with my new( well 2nd hand) camera,the second from around the same time,and it wouldn,t win any prizes !,but this individual showed double spots on the hindwing ,something I haven,t seen before.

The only one of the first trio of favourite photo species that I saw this year, Brimstones can be a bit hit and miss around my local patch and I actually saw more than usual in my garden during the spring but this was counterbalanced by fewer whilst out and about.
I didn't see that many later in the year although they popped up in ones and twos at most places.
Cheers,

Neil

Brimstone

This was my favourite Brimstone shot of 2016 as it was taken at my Duke Site on the last day of April. By then the season should really have been flying but it was so late that I was still trailing behind with only a handful of species seen. This wasn’t my first Brimstone, or my last but it is my fave as it reminds me of the joy on that day of finally catching up with a range of species and my first Dinghies and Grizzlies of the year. It suddenly felt like the season had started… Have a goodun

Wurzel