Butterflies

After such a wet spring and summer, It's good to see some butterflies around at last. A lot of  Small Tortoiseshells around the north Wirral coast, all in really good condition. They have been a declining species over the last few years, hard to believe yesterday as they were everywhere.

Meadow Brown

Meadow Brown

Small Copper

Small Tortoiseshell

Small Tortoiseshell

 

Butterflies

A few butterfly shots taken in my garden over the last couple of days.


Holly Blue

White-letter Hairstreak

Comma

 Meadow Brown

Butterflies

I have been trying to get some decent shots of Orange Tip Butterflies over the last week. They have been hard work as they don't settle very often, when they do it is usually only for a few seconds and more often than not they aren't photographable. So after a lot of time and patience and I have three reasonable images.

Another species that has been in my garden is the Holly Blue, a little more obliging than the Orange Tip in that it settles more often, it hasn't been openening it's wings though.

A common species at this time of year is the Speckled Wood. In the next shot is the UK variant, the last two are a couple taken in Mallorca, you can see that they are much more orange than ours.

Speckled Wood (Mallorca)

Spanish Insects

I have just spent eight days in Mallorca intensively photographing birds and anything else wild that appeared before the camera with my good friend Rich.
We had hoped for an assortment of migrant birds, which should have been in abundance. There were however, very few. The weather was very warm and clear so possibly the migrants were passing straight over the island. There was still plenty to photograph though and not one hours sunlight was wasted.  With many thousands of bird images to sort through, I thought I would get the few insect shots I took out of the way first. 

A couple of Dragonflies starting with a Red-veined Darter

A female Black-tailed Skimmer

A pair of mating Blue-tailed Damselflies

The impressively large Swallowtail Butterfly

It was shame this tiny Green Hairstreak Butterfly had damaged wings.

Brimstone Butterfly

I was really pleased to spot this Brimstone Butterfly, apart from it being a very obliging subject it was in perfect condition, a lot of Butterflies at this time of year have very worn or damaged wings, but this one looked very fresh. I spent at least 45 minutes with it until my son finally managed to drag me away.

 

A bit of Macro Photography

At this time of year bird photography becomes a little quiet and so out comes the macro lens.  I don't usually go out with the intention of photographing anything specific, it's more of a case of whatever I come across, I only really dabble as macro photography is an art in itself. Here are a few of my recent attempts.

Hoverfly

Common Blue Butterfly

Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly

Red Admiral Butterfly

Six-spot Burnet Moth

Brown Argus Butterfly

Honey Bee