Marbled whites at Ryton wood meadows july 15th

I finally got a chance to go and see one of my favourite species, the Marbled Whites.  last year i saw them at Oversley wood and Deans green meadow.  but this year i decided to go down to Ryton wood meadows near Coventry to see them, and hopefully see Silver Washed Fritillarys also.
Arriving at the Butterfly Conservation reserve i parked up and made my way into the meadow, it was quite breezy but the sun was out and i should not have any problem finding a few Marbleds :)
                                     
                                                                      The Meadow

i soon found a few flying but could not get near them, they also perch in the long grass which is going to make it much more difficult to get a decent shot!    then i found a mating pair perched on a single stem, Yay!  perfect, but with the breeze i just couldn't get all the wings in focus!  arghhh      but its not too bad.

                                                 and i managed to get them on my finger :)

Making my way across the meadow there where loads of them, but chasing them through very long grass just didn't work!  sigh.  but i had fun trying  haha   but i did get this small skipper shot.

I got to the top corner where there is a large clump of shrubs which made a good wind break, and amongst these beautiful pink mallow flowers, i found another pair of marbleds :)

                                                     what a beautiful image they make

 i may as well get the mpe-65 out and shoot a portrait also :)  this image is five frames focus stacked to increase depth of field.

I am now entering Ryton wood itself now , after all the recent rain it is very much flooded on all the main tracks,  i have never seen a wood so bad in summer, Ever!!!!!!

the long straight glides hopefully will have both Silver washed fritts and white admirals , but after over an hour i still haven't seen any!  this is not looking good. then suddenly i got a fleeting glimpse of a White Admiral , But that was all!   never mind.  making my way back to the meadow i came across a Silver washed fritillary nectoring, a quick change to my 70-300 lens i managed this one shot , not that good but at least i got it  haha   these are the largest uk Fritillary , stunning to watch flying down the glades in mature woodland. maybe i should have gone to Oversley where a good population of silver washed are present.

and very soon afterwards i came across a Comma , i have seen very few of these this year so far.

i went to get closer and it FELL on to the ground playing dead!   amazing  lol.   i picked it up to get a closer look.  superb camouflage

Back onto the meadow to find some more Marbleds, the sun had gone behind ever increasing cloud and they were low down in the grass making good pictures impossible!   these two are the best i managed , but did watch a few females scattering eggs which was good to see.

the end of a really frustrating trip , i did see a few new species for the year but not too many good images taken.    never mind, loads more trips to go on over the next few weeks :)


                              all images taken with canon 5d2,100mmL & mpe-65 and 70-300is