Show us your butterflies...

[Towlersonsafari]

Thank you @TonyQ and @Zim Girl  they are a lot easier than birds in flight-although butterflies in flight-that is an idea i wonder if I can persuade Jane I really need a £1000 plus lens.......

Actually it is, to my ignorant eyes, surprising just how many different species of butterfly there are in the UK and often how bried their lives as adults are.the Black Hairstreaks we saw at he start of June have now mostly all gone

[TonyQ]

My eyes are very ignorant as well . It is interesting that our human perspective sees the caterpillar phase merely as preparation for real life as an adult butterfly. I suppose it is difficult to get our head round the idea of existing in three distinct forms during our life.

[Towlersonsafari]

I wanted to show this picture partly beacuse it is a new species for me to photograpg, a Ringlet butterfly, common in the local woods, but mostly beacuse when I looked at the photo, it seems to have been grabbed by a largish spider!

Edited July 27, 2019 by Towlersonsafari

[lmonmm]

Wow....

[Lyss]

Gulf fritillary/Passion butterfly (Agraulis vanillae)

Photo taken Feb 2019 at Black Point Wildlife Drive, Titusville, FL, USA.

 

This was probably the first animal I photographed with my Nikon 3500 using the 70-300mm kit lens I got as part of the deal.

f/6.3, 1/800, ISO 160

 

1/800, f/6.4 300mm ISO 140

Edited July 30, 2019 by Lyss

[Towlersonsafari]

On a trip to the nearby Wood Walton Fen-part of the Great Fen project to link up to smaller reserves I manaed to photograph a very common butterfly, the Meadow brown and  perhaps clearer photos of the large skipper, Brimstone  and the Ringlet, which was very keen to take minerals from Jane's hand. Brimstone is apparently an alternative name for sulphur hence the name of the butterfly

[Towlersonsafari]

And this is i think, the Large  White which has the black edge to the forewing,  -female-which has 2 spots on each forewing

[TonyQ]

@Towlersonsafari you are getting really good at this - excellent photos!

[Towlersonsafari]

You are very kind @TonyQ

[Towlersonsafari]

Some very faded very small butterflies from our local nature reserves first the Brown argus, then the Holly blue

[Towlersonsafari]

And after watching Butler get run out deep breath and another male holly blue from the garden

[Zim Girl]

I am really impressed @Towlersonsafari, great pictures.  Most butterflies I see never stay still at all, especially the 'brown' types. 

[Towlersonsafari]

Thank you @Zim Girl   .Having read up about it, the best time is early morning when they are sluggish, and some are easier than others.Standing still at a good site and letting them come to you,, watching what they are up to are all advised-some though are really annoying when they pretend to land and then fly off! I have an ambition to photograph them in flight-but suspect i will fail.It has exposed my terrible ignorance about UK butterflies though

[Towlersonsafari]

We recently went down to Somerset and Wiltshire to do some Aardvark tickling ( which is great fun) and went round Ham Wall nature reserve and saw this comma butterfly, so called because of the white mark on its underwing. It overwinters .We also found one feasting on blackberries

[Towlersonsafari]

We also saw another  common butterfly the Small Tortoiseshell-although now much less common

[Zim Girl]

18 hours ago, Towlersonsafari said:

We recently went down to Somerset and Wiltshire to do some Aardvark tickling ( which is great fun) 

 

Please explain @Towlersonsafari!!!

[Towlersonsafari]

Well @Zim Girl  Jane's christmass presnet to me-or one of them cos i'm a big kid- was a "meet the Aardvark experience at Longleat, which is a bit cheezy but great fun-we got to meet 3 Aardvark, feed them mealworms, have them stand on our feet and indeed tickle them-it is not until you meet them socially that you realise how big they are!  I was thinking of posting a few photos!

I have to confess to once tickling a warthog at Africat and also to having my beard tickled by a Cyberman (not a euphemism honest) -we could start a new thread-animals we have tickled?

[Zim Girl]

Oh do post some pics!!

[Zim Girl]

I saw this butterfly resting on the ground in our back garden.  I spotted the white 'c' on the underside of it's wing and identified it as a Comma remembering @Towlersonsafaripost above.

 

 

 

 

 

[Towlersonsafari]

Splendid stuff @Zim Girl until last year I had no idea why it  was called that

Edited September 22, 2019 by Towlersonsafari

[Towlersonsafari]

Possibly the last photo of this year a Clouded Yellow. Mostly seen as migrants from Europe, I think about this time of year.Apparently some years there are explosions and in World War 2 a clound of these was so large it was picked up on British radar!

This one-and about 8-10 others-were the product of a female or females laying eggs last year (or earlier this year)-they are fast and low  flying and in sunlight appear almost orange. One couple had come 120 miles to see them

Edited September 22, 2019 by Towlersonsafari

[Towlersonsafari]

Yesterday and Today we went in serach of a butterfly I have never seen before-being rather new to trying to find out about them, and today managed some nearly decent photos of the rather splendid

Marbled White, which of course is a memebr of the browns not the Whites-it is beauiful especially, to my mind the rather Rennie Mackintosh underwing-there is also, only beacuse I have never seen such a thing, one shot with the  swollen Thighed Beetle-a male- which is one of the False Blister beetles!-and nearly a decent in flight shot-so close!!!

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by Towlersonsafari

[offshorebirder]

Nice ones @Towlersonsafari.

[Zim Girl]

Lovely pictures!

[Towlersonsafari]

So continuing the new  to me  butterfly theme, the Dark Green fritillary, a fst flying butterly that biefly paused to share a thistle with a bee.Call Dark Green, apparently because it is darker-the black spots- and greener-the slight green tinge on the underwing,- than the High Brown fritillary. the Fritillaries were described but not named in about 1590 (according to Peter Marren's wonderful book (Emporers Admirals and chimney Sweepers)  around the same time as the Fritillary plant was named, and both may have somethin to do with the Roman name for a chequered gaming board. Also a 6 spotted Burnet moth (its got 6 spots)