Dark Green Fritillary - Favourite Photo of 2016

[Wurzel]

Dark Green Fritillary - Favourite Photo of 2016

Week 4 - Normal service has resumed...

Week four and another opportunity to showcase your favourite shots of 2016! Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos - just to make it easier to organise and keep everything on track so that we can enjoy this throughout the winter months? Of course our overseas members are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants. As like last year details of locations, dates, times and circumstances would be welcome as would any accompanying stories and anecdotes or other observations of behaviour and interesting other points.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[millerd]

My favourite DGF was seen down in Devon in the Heddon Valley within a minute or two of its close relative, a splendid HBF. Seeing them so close together it was possible to see the difference, but harder to pinpoint exactly what it was: the DGF had an overall more rounded appearance?

Dave

[Goldie M]

It was the 12th of July at Arnside Knot when I finally saw the DGF, it was slightly damaged but I'd not seen it since 2014 so that didn't bother me
I remember the many times I'd visit Gait Barrow and seen the DGF in abundance but I've not seen it there for quite a while, may be I've just visited at the wrong times but I don't think so , it's not just the DGF that's scarce there but the Dukes and the High Brown are also suffering. I nearly got a shot of a High Brown this year
but I was speaking to a man there who said they were being attacked every time they flew by a large Dragon Fly and were damaged, I waited for a while but they didn't show again but the Dragon fly's were every where
could this I wonder be responsible .Goldie

[bugboy]

This is one of a run of pictures I took at Box Hill when I stumbled across a writhing mass of Fritillaries, two males had discovered a mating pair and were desperately trying to muscle in on the action, all very sordid! It was also the first time I'd managed to find a mating pair of Dark Greens

[David M]

A species I largely missed out on due to being abroad.

Probably the best was of this rather aged female taken at Alun Valley, near Bridgend on 23rd July:

[Neil Freeman]

I did not see that many Dark Green Fritillaries in 2016, this being a species that I will usually encounter when I am on my trips to see something else.

The first was when we stopped off for a couple of nights at Arnside on our way back from Scotland in early June and I found a couple of fresh individuals up on Arnside Knot.

Dark Green Fritillary - Arnside Knot 10.06.2016

I also saw a number of DGFs later in June on the Great Orme at Llandudno and again in early August when I saw a few raggedy individuals on a return trip to Arnside.

Cheers,

Neil.

[Wurzel]

Dark Green Fritillary

This was taken during the first week of July at my Larkhill stop-off site. I saw my first DGFs here last year but they were always far too flighty, never stopping and always disappearing almost as quickly as they arrived. However this year I started investigating further along the path and almost stumbled across this individual and for once it didn’t just fly off into the sunset. Instead it was content to take nectar giving me my first shots of a Larkhill DGF and hence the reason it is my favourite.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[IAC]

Probably one of the most exciting days of 2016 involved just the one, at first, Dark Green Fritillary on the Lamberton coastal path on the South East Scottish coast. They are almost impossible to pin down in bright sunshine. One of the most active Butterflies? Well, yes... there are moments though when the Dark Green drops its guard. Its like a pattern that you observe in order to win.. how can I explain. If anyone here plays video games of any kind, there is always a formula involved in beating that end of level Boss..its the same with Butterfly photography at times, and especially with a species like the Dark Green, in full sunshine, in the middle of the day!! The Hawking Butterfly is relentless..up and down a set pattern...the same plants are tested...air sniffing for female scent...more Hawking....using the breeze as an escape and an aid to scent navigate on the upstream...its fascinating, yet exhausting, and just when you give up the ruddy Butterfly decides to take a break a good 50 yards away...you close in...its off...more hawking. After an hour you finally begin to see a pattern emerging. I almost felt that I was at one with the Butterfly by then...every time the Dark Green perched I was there..and after a short while my memory card was filling up. I had found that day what I had believed to be a very decent Butterfly...until that is the love rival appeared!! A dashing orange flame fresh from the chrysalis, twice as fast, twice as wary. A new code to crack I set about getting this one in front of the camera lens....another hour passed...in the end I could hardly pull myself away..I kept going back for more when I should have quit long ago. So here is just one of the bazillion photos I managed to get of a species I had very few of before that day.

Iain