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Marsh Fritillary - Favourite Photo of 2016

Week 10

Week 10 and the Wurzel Christmas is now starting to move at a pace, the house is decorated and the Tree is up. However it has brought home to me the fact that I am suffering butterfly withdrawl symptoms as when I look at the silver bows on the tree I just see open wing underside views of Purple Hairstreaks

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

On what has become an annual pilgrimage, I visited Wurzel's Wiltshire Hill on 29th May (with the man himself in residence). There were good numbers of Marshies around, though many were taking on the "greasy" look that gave them one of their former names. The freshest were probably this mating couple, and I also like the other one perched on the dandelion. Dave

Hello,
My aim for next year is a perfect cop shot.
This species always seems to adopt messy gymnastic poses and they keep moving around. I would like to get one nicely aligned wedding photo.
South of France in April: same pair: Chris

I was fortunate to be in West Cornwall in late May which unlike most of England was dry and sunny. A highlight of the trip were the Marsh Fritillaries especially my first sight of a female laying.
The pair display distint differences in the hind wing underside, something I had not noticed before.
The final photograph shows the typical flora in this lovely place.

This female found on Fairwood Common at the back of Swansea Airport on 9th June was nice:

The only example of this species that I photographed in 2016, top and underside views of the same butterfly, one of a couple of worn individuals seen at Cuil Bay on the shore of Loch Linnhe in early June.
Cheers,

Neil

Regular readers may recall (from what I just said on the Lulworth thread) my mission to see every one of the 'British' species during a single visit to a single site in France in late May.

Well here's a Marsh Fritillary from that particular excursion. (Yeah, I know this is mainly copypasta from the earlier submission but it's late and I'm busy a lot in the day and blah, blah, blah..., sorry.)

Marsh Fritillaries are certainly one of my favourite british Butterflies, and after the thriving (admittedly illegally released) population close to me was wiped out by the council mowers, I made the trip to Cotley Hill to get my fix this year. I was extremely glad I did, a stunning, completely empty place, with the full compliment of classic downland species to add to the Marsh Frits.

Marsh Fritillary

This was taken on a recce mission to my Marshie site on the way back from the Bath Rock and Gem Show. It’s my favourite chiefly as it helped to cheer me up after a morning of walking round lots of crystal stalls and the promised ‘Rock’ was purely geological in nature and in no way related to the musical genre. It also became my favourite as it is one of the best underwing views that I’ve gotten of this species as it lacks the usual annoying piece of grass that always seems to accompany shots of this species.
Have a goodun

Wurzel