Silver Studded Blues at Prees Heath pt1 july 1st

With the British summer still not taking place!   again ! , the beautiful silver studds at Prees Heath were quite late emerging , think these are my favourite blue butterfly.   news that a few had been seen in the last few days,so i decided to go and have a look.  it was cold, dull, breezy and rain forecast so not really a promising day for photography.  But there is always a chance of getting that "special" shot , and as it turned out this was one of those days :)

Arriving at the car park early , i shot this lovely poppy flower first , the petals looking a bit crumpled!

i walk through on to the airfield site ,  the bell heather is in flower and looking very nice, will shoot it later.  coming to the first main roosting area, i notice no silvers, not a good sign :(  walking down through the silver birch trees into the central area next to the old runway ,i soon find a few low down in the long grass stems, the low light levels and combined with a strong breeze making it very hard to get sharp images!  this one is not too sharp !

this is the area they emerge in , black ants are everywhere and help the butterflies out of the ground. see last years blog

Another perched male silver stud , beautiful species :)

i have had a good look around and not seen any emerging which is a shame, i really wanted to photograph the ants cleaning the emergent butterfly. but will come again next week.  i find this grasshopper sitting on a single grass stem , which looks rather nice!

then i find yet another male sitting on the bell heather , makes a great image.  You can see the "Studds" standing out very well in this specimen, bright blue spots in the bottom edge of wing.

and an open wing shot in the heather

 

Now its time to get the mpe-65 lens out and shoot a couple of  high magnification images, these two are both focus stacked from 8 frames to increase depth of field.

one of the thistle flowers that are quite common here!

Then, i found this male silver studd which looked like it was playing with a red ant!   i have never noticed red ants here so was quite surprised to see one, and i watched its interaction with the butterfly for at least 15 minutes.  it kept walking around and climbing on the butterflies face! 

 This image is probably one of my favourites of the year so far , both ant & butterfly eyes are in focus , and the ant looks like it is facing off the butterfly :D

Something really special about this one!

and a crop showing more detail , notice all the blotches on the butterflies eye , most probably from overnight dew or rain.

That was superb image to finish of the morning :)   might be my fav image of the year!

all images shot with canon 5d2,100mmL & mpe-65 macro lens

Arnside Knott Butterflies & others june 25th

Its nearing the end of June, and its still cold and wet most days , but with a dry sunny day forecast i just had to drive up to Arnside knott in cumbria to see if the butterflies had emerged , it is a very good site for some of the rarest endangered species in the country!  namely the High Brown fritillary and the Scotch Argus .  its still too early for them to be emerging this year with it being so cold , but the Small pearl bordered fritillarys and Dark Green fritillaries should be flying , and the Northern Brown Argus also, so it will be worth making the trip :)
Arriving at Arnside at about 9 am , everything was soaking wet , must have had a lot of rain overnight!   and my boots need re proofing! Arghhhhh

  i decided to take a look at the lower terraces first which is normally a very good area , on climbing down to the lowest terrace i heard a squealing and then a Young deer foal ran towards the wire fence being chased by a large dog!   the sound was horrific as the dog tryed to catch it!  the foal squeezed through the fence and walked towards me, head down but obviously looked frightened to death!!!!!  meanwhile 2 adult deer where running around frantically looking for the foal and the dog then chased them off!!!!!!! i could see no sign of the dogs owner!  totally irresponsible but it is national trust open access land  , when i told the warden he said nothing can be done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   i was quite shocked after witnessing this event.

This area is mainly bracken  and the Fritillaries love to rest on the fronds :)  But NOT today!

  My first Dark Green Frit of the year , a stunning newly emerged specimen :)

           This is the area of bracken that they are perching on , its not very sunny so the fritts are not showing very well. as with most fritillaries they only fly when warn and sunny.

There were a few of these DGs flying and i noticed a Small pearl bordered frit shortly afterwards , which i started chasing through the bracken until it settled and i managed this shot :)   By this time, both my feet were totally soaked!  Arghhh

After about half hour i decided to go and have a look at another area, i made my way through the wood to Heathwaite meadow , a beautiful area with loads of wild flowers , including orchids :)

This is a very good area to see the Northern Brown Argus butterfly , a different species to the "Brown Argus" which is found in the midlands and down south.  it was quite breezy and was very difficult to shoot these tiny butterflies perched on thin grass stems :D  this is the best i could manage.

a few more flower pics , what a beautiful place:)))

and another marsh orchid species

My first Meadow Brown image of the year, quite late emerging this year !

and a 6 spot Burnett moth

Time to carry on walking now, time to climb up the Knott itself:)    great views from here now, looking over to the cumbrian fells :D

Climbing up to the top , there is a stone viewpoint with etched metal plaques with all the mountains named.

walking through a small wood to an area which has the Small Pearl Bordered Fritillaries, on this slope and a little higher up amongst the heather and thistle flowers

i came across a Small Pearl Bordered fritillary perched up on a grass stem , really difficult to shoot in the breeze but did manage these images , i really like the light in this one.

and another closer view

After shooting this  a quick walk around the area looking for other subjects to shoot , here are a few of the local inhabitants :)

Beautiful orange Cranefly

Horsefly

Grasshopper.

And a Wood Ant, there are numerous colony's of these all over the knott!  shot with mpe-65 macro lens.

 

Great views from up here, the knott is surrounded on 3 sides by water!

 

I soon came across this mating pair of small pearl bordereds

and perched beautifully :)  what a stunning butterfly!

Then perched on a non native invasive plant "orange hawkweed" which is being removed from the knott. it will take over if left unchecked!  shame as it is beautiful!

And to finish , a high magnification portrait shot with mpe-65 :)

i will be back very shortly as the High Brown fritillaries will be emerging anytime now!

All mimages canon 5d2, 100mm L macro & mpe-65 macro lens

Oversley wood and Deans Green Meadow Butterflies july 10th 2011

Way back in the summer i went on a trip down to Oversley wood near Alcester ,  Hoping to see a couple more Purple emperor butterflies , but i don't think any had been seen in the preceding week!  There are plenty of silver washed fritillarys , and as i had never managed a decent shot of this species at least i would have a good day !


As i arrived in the car park, guess who had just arrived ?  Gillian .she had not said she was going,  so i had good company for the day:)

Here is the info board in the car park.

The weather was perfect, warm ,sunny calm  but there were very few butterflies of any species showing which was very odd and  disappointing.  the silver washed fritillarys were flying but not in good numbers!  after walking halfway around the circular path that runs all way around the wood we found two pairs of silver washed  almost simultaneously!   chasing them around was good fun!  eventually i managed to get close to a pair and they climbed onto a branch i was holding, unfortunately my feet were entangled in brambles again, seems to happen alot to me!   and i could not move. Gill took a few shots of the pair and i managed 2 frames single handed before they flew off again!

After another half an hour chasing them, We gave up!!!

In the oak trees behind where i shot this image there were a few Purple hairstreak butterflies,  i took this long shot with 70-300 lens before Gill decided to try to shake them out of the tree! Which unsurprisingly Didn't work!  they just flew higher up!!!!!! lol

Along the edges of the path i found quite a few longhorn beetles and ladybirds on the wild flowers.

Shot with 100mmL macro

Shot with mpe-65 macro lens

I then managed a few Silver Washed Fritillary shots, but could not get a good background!

A male

 and a female

We made it to about half way around the circular path seeing very few butterflies, until finding a holly blue feeding on dung on the path!   i managed one not very good shot before it flew off!   they have a habit of doing that! lol

On the way back to the car park, i found a beautiful Peacock !

WE then decided it was not worth going any further, Gill asked if i would like to go to Snitterfield bushes and then Deans Green Meadow which are not too far away.  sounded like a good plan to me, new sites are always good to visit!.

Unfortunately at Snitterfield  we saw virtually nothing, one fleeting glimpse of a white admiral and nothing else!  so of to deans green which is near Henley-in-Arden  next where large numbers of Marbled Whites are to be found!

Deans green was amazing site!  thousands of bush crickets and grasshoppers everywhere!  Meadow browns, gatekeepers and Marbled whites in extremely good numbers.

Here is a gatekeeper feeding on a thistle flower.

And a Marbled white,which are rapidly becoming one of my favorite species :)

Here is Gillian shooting grasshoppers !   note her technique resting lens on the knee while holding grass stem in hand to keep stem steady!       a true pro !   :)

and here is a shot of an adult Roesel's  bush cricket  macropterous form (long-winged). , first time i have seen this species, really striking colouration!

And a sub adult with its large wing buds!

And another Marbled white, really like the light in this image!

Here is a female wings open shot!

That was the end of another really enjoyable adventure!

all images shot with canon 5d2, 100mmL macro lens, mpe-65 macro lens and 70-300 is zoom.