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Marian’s Butterflies Photographic list for 2011 (1 Viewer)

madamcoolpix

a.k.a. Madam Butterfly
Hi, Butterfly’s lovers!!! :hi:

Just thought of starting this thread to follow track of how many Butterflies I manage to photograph properly during the season, and at the same time it gives me the chance to share my country beauties with all of you.

My Butterfly season started in middle January with a gorgeous male Brimstone fluttering at my work grounds. Then I spotted a Small White in the first week of February and a few days later a Red Admiral while I was walking along Oviedo streets. But in all these occasions I had no camera with me.

My first photographic chance arrived on February the 19th, with this slightly worn out Peacock (I assume it's a winter survivor) flying up in the trees, my fourth Butterfly of the year, which was kind enough to land in the catkins for a moment.

So, this is number one:

1. Peacock (Inachis io)
 

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Thank you for the nice words, Allen and Darrell, very kind of you!!! o:) Here there is an update!!!

In the first weekend of March I went to Madrid to visit my sister and both had a couple of great days at El Pardo and Rivas Vaciamadrid, both places in the outskirts of the city. The weekend was nice and relatively warm for March, and insects were starting to move: Shieldbugs, Hoverflies, Wasps, Bees… ando of course a few Butterflies! o:)

In El Pardo we found the Bath White of the first pic already “sunk in sweet dreams” in the late afternoon, it simply didn’t care about us and our cameras! :eek!: And next day in Rivas, we spotted the first Speckled Wood of the season but the pictures turned out bad. :-C A Large White appeared as well but flying too high to do anything about it with the camera. On the contrary, a cooperative Red Admiral and Small White gave me a marvelous chance to photograph them in the flowery trees! :bounce: There they go the three pictures:

2. Bath White (Pontia daplidice)
3. Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)
4. Small White (Artogeia rapae)
 

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Oh, thank you a million for your words, Mike, what a surprise to see you around here, I didn't know you like Butterflies too!!! o:) Sorry to be so late thanking you but I've been sooooooooo awfully busy at work these last weeks that I couldn't come to BF at all.

This update is from almost a month ago, a beautiful spring-like March day in one of my favourite patches in the outskirts of Oviedo. Lovely day for Butterflies, I wasn't expecting to see so many different: Speckled Wood, Brimstone, Cleopatra Butterfly, Green-veined White, Holly Blue and Comma Butterfly. But only the Speckled Wood was willing to stop long enough to let me take a picture. Better this than nothing! |=)|

5. Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria)

It's the continental variety, quite different from the British subspecies.
 

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Great thread Marian. Will be fun to watch your butterfly season. Love that speckled wood! Great to see your spanish variety, with it's much different colours.
Joe
 
Looking forward to your summer Butterflies, i shall be in your area myself in June, i have a week in Asturias and a week in Cantabria looking for Moths and Butterflies, cant wait..
 
:bounce: Lovely to see you around here, Joe!!! And thank you for coming and having a look, hope you enjoy what I have to show during the season!!!

And you, Trekker, thank you too for your visit here. So you are coming to Asturias? WOW! o:) Hope the weather behaves and you have a fantastic holiday. Are you going to Picos de Europa National Park? Plenty of good species there, but maybe June is a bit too soon for the highlights. If I can be useful giving you information or anything, don't hesitate to ask!

And another update now! ;) After many days stuck at work and unable to go out finally I got a chance last weekend and rushed to one of my patches to see what was moving around. I was expecting the Orangetip to be flying around and it didn't disappoint! :bounce: Other Butterflies seen were: Wood White, Brimstone, Speckled Wood, Peacock, Red Admiral, Holly Blue, and a super surprise, the Sooty Copper, a Butterfly I always find at the end of the season, I've never seen one in April! :eek!: As it's not one of the typical species I'm adding this view showing both sides:

6. Sooty Copper (Lycaena tityrus)

But this was the only Butterfly in relaxed mood to be photographed, all the others seemed to have been feeding on caffeine, dashing about in a frenzy! :storm:
 

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A new update!!! o:) This is from yesterday, I took my loyal little Coolpix to work and during a break I found a Green-veined White feeding on the Daisies and Buttercups. This is the view I could get while it was fluttering among the flowers:

7. Green-veined White (Pieris napi)

Really, you never know when a chance can arrive for a pic… that's why my Coolpix and I are inseparable! :-O
 

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Sure I will, Helwa Dulce Doux g/f!!! o:) And thank you for your visit... I wondered if you would find this thread sometime, thrilled to see you did!!! :bounce: Hope you enjoy it!!!

I cross my fingers for the weekend, I'll be out and I'd be over the Moon if I can photograph 2-3 more species...
 
hello marian
that is a nice photo of the green veined white this evening i was lucky enough to get
a settled holly blue feeding on the nectar of the white flowers of the bridal wreath
in my back garden when i get the chance to upload it onto here i will .

coal tit.
 
Thank you for your words and your visit here, Coal Tit, hope you enjoy this thread and your Butterfly season, and good luck with your garden beauties!!! o:)

On the other hand, did I say I'd be over the Moon with 3 more Butterflies? Well, I'm OVER SATURN because I got more than 10, WOW!!! :bounce:

I've spent all the weekend in a sort of photographic marathon about Biodiversity in Tablas de Daimiel National Park (Ciudad Real, C Spain), with other 20 people, the aim was photographing as many species of plants and fauna as possible, to ID everything later and to know better the Biodiversity of the place. Of course, I concentrated on birds and Butterflies, but got as well several Dragonflies, Spiders, Hoverflies, etc.

I only got home yesterday and I have hundreds and hundreds of pictures to check, but as a starter I'm leaving you with a few common species. As soon as I process more images I'll add them here:

8. Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus) (The one in the picture is a female)
9. Large White (Pieris brassicae)
10. Brown Argus (Aricia agestis cramera)

This last Spanish subspecies is sometimes considered a separated species.
 

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Thank you, Cristian!!! o:) And, yes, please, do it, it would be great to see the species from Eastern Europe and to know how they evolve through the season... there is not much information about it here and I think it would be very interesting to see... and very beautiful and colourful! ;)

And I'd be on cloud nine if I can help you in any way!!! o:) Really, I don't know much about Eastern species but hope to be able to help with my books...

Cheers! B :)
 
Well, here I am with another update! o:)

After checking the Butterflies pictures from last weekend I've decided to be a bit selective and I'm not going to post all I got. I have a picture of a Painted Lady but it was quite wretched, so I prefer to wait for another oportunity in the season. And I got a pic of a Moroccan Orangetip (one of my aims during the weekend) but it's too bad and I shouldn't count it.

After this selection, this is the second part of my findings in Daimiel:

11. Western Dappled White (Euchloe crameri)
12. Mallow Skipper (Carcharodus alceae)
13. Wall Brown (Lasiommata megera)
14. Sooty Orangetip (Zegris eupheme)

I'm mega-chuffed with the Sooty Orangetip, the season is short for it and this was almost my only chance to find one! And good for the Western Dappled White too, it's not in its nature to pose so nicely.

Hope you like this set! o:) Another one coming soon!
 

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Well, Darrell, I don't know what to say... most of my Butterflies pictures are no good, what appears here is the selected stuff after loads of failures... the beautiful demons are not easy! ;) I think practice makes a lot to get better results, and aproaching from behind, very very slowly, so they don't notice the movement (that's what usually scares them away).

And here you all have another update! o:) After the Daimiel adventure I spent a couple of days in Madrid, to look for the Provence Hairstreak, another specialty I was longing for finding, as I only saw it once. But it seemed the season was over for it, simply there were no traces of it, sniff! :-C

Still, I could photograph other Butterflies and these are the new ones, all in "grounded mood" :)-O), fancy that:

15. Queen-of-Spain Fritillary (Issoria lathonia)
16. Small Heath (Coenonympha pamphilus)
17. Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas)
 

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