I have a little list....redux

Back in 2013 I added a post about missed butterfly opportunities.  Time moves on and the last couple of years have actually been very productive in terms of filling a few gaps.

Lets start with holly blues, Celastrina argiolus.  Double brooded, with spring and summer variants, they were prolific during summer in the Plymouth area last year, and, for the first time, I actually managed to get some good shots.  They tend to be a little skittish and my lens combination of choice with the EM1 Mkii was the 40-150mm f2.8 and 1.4x teleconverter to give me both excellent working distance; fast, accurate autofocus; and sharpness wide open.

One was even good enough to land to feed on the potato flowers in my back garden.  60mm macro for this shot.

With the number flitting around I'm hoping the spring brood will be equally prolific in 2024 and I can get shots of the darker spring form - and maybe a few shots with wings open.

I'd already found a couple of locations for small coppers, Lycaena phlaeas, in the Plymouth area and had a few shots post 2013 but I was delighted to find that they'd also moved into the no mow area 100m from my house and that yielded a number of good shots.

Attractive little things, they share a habit with their distant cousins the common blue, Polyommatus icarus.

There is a walk up to the moors at Shipley Bridge, near Buckfastleigh in Devon.  Paved, it's an ideal day out for Maria on her mobility scooter.  Once out of the wooded area and on open moorland I had my first sighting of the lovely small pearl bordered fritillary, Boloria selene.

Here's the male:

And the female:

I'm still looking for green hairstreaks and walled brown butterflies - but that's all part of the fun.  2024 maybe?

I have a little list....

...of butterflies I've never managed to get good photos of despite them being local.  For example, there's a few fritillaries that I've seen but never captured up on Dartmoor; green hairstreak - I can't seem to find the local populations; wall brown - I haven't seen a good specimen with camera in hand since my film days; and the small copper, which keeps eluding me despite being locally common.  Part of it lies in not being in the right place at the right time but sometimes it comes down to pure luck.  Sometimes it's bad luck.

The Holly Blue butterfly, Celastrina argiolus, is common enough locally.  I see it most years, fluttering around the hedgerows in search of its holly and ivy host plants.  Small, pretty - and always, it seems, tantalisingly out of reach.

Until the 5th of June this year.

I walked outside, camera in hand, and disturbed a Holly Blue feeding on my perennial wallflower.  It flew off before I could get a shot.  Another disappointment.  And then, 30 minutes later, it came back to feed on the wallflower.

Now was my chance.  I had the Tamron 90mm macro and 25mm extension tube on the 600D camera, flash on, AV set and everything ready.  I maneuvered into place.  The butterfly was feeding on the far side of one of the wallflower heads.  I quickly took a couple of shots as insurance, even though its head was out of sight.

Holly Blue butterfly, head hidden behind a flower of Erysium 'Wlaburton's Fragrant Star'

I'm glad I did.  Rather than - as I expected - move to a position where the whole butterfly would be in view it simply flew off.  And never came back.  Still, I suppose it's better than no photograph at all. 

I've been more fortunate with another couple of butterflies that were also on the list.  One recent day out, albeit in two different locations, yielded decent shots of a male Orange Tip and a Small Heath.

Orange tip butterfly, Anthocharis cardamines, male

Orange tip butterfly, Anthocharis cardamines, male

Small heath, Coenonympha pamphilus

 But I still want that Holly Blue.

As always, click the pictures to embiggen.