Wood Whites in Wyre forest May 28th

After all the fun with shooting the fritillaries the previous sunday in the Wyre forest, after being given a map of the Hurst Copice area of the forest where Wood Whites are to be found , they are a delicate species of butterfly that are quite rare and very localised in there habitat.  think this is the only place in the forest where they can be found. It is another species i have never seen so seemed like a good idea for a return visit to this beautiful forest. i asked  Pete if he wanted to come and picked him up on the way , he has not been to the wyre before.
we arrived at the small parking place and started walking down this track , it appears to be about a mile or 2 to the area on the map i have been given.

We come to the Piggery, and talk to the locals for a while ,but they dont seem interested in what we asked them!   lol

 

Eventually we came to a sharp left hand bend which was marked clearly on the map, just where the stream crosses over, this was the area we wanted.  almost imediately i spotted our intended target, the Wood White!  Yay!  but couldnt get a pic , even after chasing it around for a few mins! 

There were loads of light brown day flying moths, i managed this backlit image which looks quite good :)

  moving around to the stream, there were a few butterflies fluttering and feeding on the wild flowers.  here is my first image of a wood white :)

Beautiful delicate butterflies , with a very fluttery flight!   we soon found quite a few along this short path , it is getting quite warm in the sun now , not good for photographing white butterflies though!

While i was chasing a few around along this path trying to get feeding shots, Pete had found one perched up in the shade of a group of trees and had taken a load of shots,   here is my image of that individual specimen which just sat in the one spot not moving!  wish more would do that!

Moving back to the corner which is in full sun , near to where above image was shot, two whites were basking in the sun!  not ideal conditions but i managed a couple of images , this one must have emerged this morning  , the wings still have not fully expanded and the sun is catching on them:)

After shooting this one , i decided to try and find a few fritillaries to shoot , up the path in full sun quite a few pearl bordereds where flying , this one perched for a few moments on bracken frond :))

Then i found one on the ground and it crawled onto my finger!  Yay

Then it stayed fairly still and i placed it onto a pale stone on the ground to take some high magnification portraits with the mpe-65 macro lens , taken at f7 and used 5 frames to focus stack to increase the depth of field!

With this done, i thought it might be a good idea to shoot a Wood White with same magnification , just need to find one that will stay put!   lol     i started moving back towards to "corner" when i found along the left side of this image one feeding on a pea flower!

Then i found another one that looked quite sleepy!  lol  after shooting its full view

i then moved it to another better perch, well not that good ! , but at least it was stable so i could hold the stem in my left hand while resting lens barrel on my hand so all the frames are fairly well aligned for the focus stack to work!

I spotted a few Dingy Skippers , this is the only image i got!

so after a really sucessful day ,we made our way back up the track,  said goodbye to the pigs:D  but they didnt really seem interested in us!  haha

Then , walking down a large glade between huge trees , a BAT appeared flying in broad dalylight!  AMAZING to see!  stupid thing!    lol  it flew around for about 5 minutes !

The end of the day, a really great days shooting!

all images taken with Canon 5d2, 100mm & mpe-65 macro lens

Pearls of the Wyre Forest 13 th May

One of the Main butterfly species i didn't get around to seeing last year were the Pearl Bordered Fritillaries .  so as soon as i heard they where emerging, a bit later than expected due to the unusually cold weather we have been having the last few months!  A trip to the Wyre forest on the Worcestershire/Shropshire borders ,the area around Bewdley i headed for.  i had been sent a map with the best areas marked for the PBF s so that was a great help as the forest is about 6000 acres! 
After a 96 mile journey i arrived in the forest at about 9 am , the best area was only about 10 mins from car park  , so not too bad, but would i find the butterflies?  as they had only just started emerging the numbers where unknown, but the sun was trying its best to shine , but was still quite cold and windy!


                  What a beautiful forest!    Bluebells all around glistening in the early morning sun :)

I soon found the Pipeline area and started looking, almost immediately i spotted my first ever PBF :)

I was expecting them to be bigger!!!!!    presuming they would have been larger than the "small pearl bordered"  Weird!  go figure that one out!   newly emerged ,scales glistening in the sunlight!  bright sun not the best for photographing butterflies!

And one feeding on Bugle.

Now, having shot a few of my main target species , I'm off for a walk , i took a path off the pipeline and found a wonderful bluebell area!

and one of our most beautiful butterflies, the Peacock which is so overlooked in favour of less common species!

I made my way down to an area called "Dowles brook"  in the hope of seeing a few more species . the stream runs through the centre of the forest and water always attracts different species and flowers.

A Crab spider feeding on a march fly:)  shot with mpe-65 macro lens.

                                                   And a shield bug on a bluebell flower :)

                  and a close up shot of one of the many wild flowers that cover the forest floor!

feeding on the wild flowers were quite a few Beeflys , amazing to watch hovering effortlessly while feeding!

Making my way back towards the first area , i crossed a small bridge at the bottom of the valley and there, resting on one of the wooden handrails on the bridge was a Nursery web spider , so i just had to take its photo :)  

I made my way back up the steep track ,  where a few PBFs feeding on Bugle and Dandelion flowers all along the path edges which was great to see , very flighty though but did manage to get this single shot:)              looking back down the steep track.

  I came past the Bluebell area , its always really great to walk through a bluebell wood at this time of year, spring at its best :))

Now i was back at the main pipeline area , this is where large water pipes are buried which carry water from wales down to the midlands area.  the large open glides created a superb habitat with bracken and the violet flowers that the PBF caterpillars feed on .

While the sun was out it remained quite windy and cool, but the fritillaries where still feeding  and flitting in and out of the main ride. 

I suddenly noticed something  small and brown fly past me,  it turned out to be a Dingy skipper, the first one i have ever seen Yay!  it appeared they had very recently emerged and where fairly easy to follow, but i found them very hard to get decent photographs of!

                                To finish of the days shooting , a couple more PBF shots :)

I had really enjoyed my first visit to this beautiful forest , and i think it will become one of my favorite places to shoot , even though it is quite a long way from home!   i had not got the images of the butterflies i was hoping for , but that just means another visit very soon:)))

                                shots taken with canon 5d2, 100mmL and mpe-65 macro lens