Skipper I.D. Cheshire (1 Viewer)

[davids]

Hi

Can anybody confirm the i.d. of this skipper? Based on the first photo I thought it might be an Essex but looking more closely at the second photo I think it is just a Small.

Thanks

David

 

[aeshna5]

Looks like Essex to me as the underside of the antennae look inky black.

 

[davids]

Looks like Essex to me as the underside of the antennae look inky black.

Thanks. I wasn’t sure in the second photo whether the left hand antenna showed some brown on the underside. I should have said in my original post it is a rare but spreading species in Cheshire.

 

[Owene]

Decent shot of both antennae and scent gland. Definitely Essex for me

I know it is technically a spreading species but I think a lot of it is just under reporting. When people did proper surveys around us they found it was present almost everywhere that had small skippers at all

 

[aeshna5]

Thanks. I wasn’t sure in the second photo whether the left hand antenna showed some brown on the underside. I should have said in my original post it is a rare but spreading species in Cheshire.

Females are certainly trickier to ID.

 

[cheshirebirder]

Thanks. I wasn’t sure in the second photo whether the left hand antenna showed some brown on the underside. I should have said in my original post it is a rare but spreading species in Cheshire.

We found quite a few on the Dee-side of the Wirral yesterday ( including Burton Mere ) . I hadn’t realised that they had colonised our area before - I remember having to travel to the Suffolk area to photograph them back in the day.