A Review of Butterfly adventures 2011 June 20 - 3rd July

The end of June & July was the start of an amazing period of butterfly sightings, travelling hundreds of miles from Cheshire up to the lake district and down to warwickshire and Worcestershire in search of species i had never seen.
Starting off with my first ever trip to Arnside knott in cumbria on 20/6/11  my first ever sighting of a dark green fritillary :)

                a magnificent species!     i then shot my first Northern brown Argus ,a tiny butterfly!   lol

Next on the species list to be found on this incredible day was the Grayling , i have seen them plenty of times but never managed a shot.  they where all over the steep shale slopes basking in the sun!   lol

 

Another new species - the Small pearl bordered fritillary was next on this eventful day :)

 

I then travelled up to the lakes and into Borrowdale searching for dragonflies, and shot this beautiful Dark green fritillary!

The following weekend i was back at Arnside to hopefully see the High brown fritillary.

here is a newly emerged specimen!

and as a comparison a Dark green fritillary

and a Small pearl bordered fritillary

What a wonderful place to visit on a summers day!!! 

The next weekend trip was July 3rd , the Warwickshire butterfly conservation Trip to Oversley wood to hopefully see the elusive Purple Emperors !

I got there early after a 2 hour drive!    and after just 10 minutes i saw my first ever White admiral, then my first Marbled white and small skipper !   Amazing!

They are stunning!

and a small skipper/marbled shot :)

I then met up with the group on the hunt for the Emperors, very soon afterwards we found Silver washed fritillarys

    This is when Gill arrived, late as usual !   just in time to shoot

  a newly emerged Purple hairstreak ! a very rare sight

The Purple Emperors did not show themselves, so all the group split up and went separate ways around the forest!

almost immediately i found one on the path in front of me! Wow!   it flew around a bit then landed so i could get the shots i wanted!

 

After this amazing morning, i spent the whole afternoon with Gill watching Purple Emperors flying around the tree tops in the congregation area pines ! which may seem strange, but was actually one of my best memories of 2011! 

 and watching newly emerged Red Admirals in the woods!

 what an super end to a simply fantastic day!

all images taken with canon 5d2, 100mm L macro lens.