Brown argus or common blue (f)

[Soulou]

Hi
I am a newbie here and I was hoping somebody could help me identify (or confirm) a couple of sightings.

The first I am hoping is a small blue. It was the tiniest butterfly I have ever seen. I am familiar with common blues and chalkhill blues and it was smaller than those. There was kidney vetch a few metres away which I believe is their larval food source.

These next two I am not sure whether they are female common blues or brown argus. I have seen female common blues before and the brown colour was less vivid and there was a powdery blue in the centre but this could be due to age. Unfortunately I did not get a good photo of the underwing which I understand can help with identification. These two were particularly beautiful I thought.

For background, these were all seen yesterday in a wildflower meadow nature reserve just south of Cambridge.

Thanks

Sue

[Trev Sawyer]

Hi Sue,
I think you've identified all the butterflies correctly. The three shots at the bottom are all Brown Argus and there is just enough of the lower underside wing to see the position of the spots which can be used to tell them apart from Common Blues. Did the Small blue in your top photo come from the same area near Cambridge or did you mean only the Brown Argus?

[David M]

Small Blue and Brown Argus nailed on for me!

[Soulou]

Thank you both. That's made my day. I have not seen these two species before and it's always nice to spot something different.

Post edited to remove details of location.

[Trev Sawyer]

Edit: You might like to report these sightings to your local branch of BC.

[Soulou]

Wow. I will definitely report it Trev.

I have certainly never seen one before so I am quite excited about seeing it anyway but it would be really great if they were setting up home in the area having been absent.

[Trev Sawyer]

See below

[Trev Sawyer]

PS: I've sent you a PM.

Trev

[Soulou]

When I first move to the area as a child in the seventies, all that land belonged to the Plant Breeding Institute and later Monsanto which is some sort of agricultural development company. I recall it being a sea of yellow oilseed rape on all sides which I wouldn't have thought the Small Blue wouldn't have been keen on with having a sole larval food source, but who knows.

[MikeOxon]

Welcome to the site, Soulou, and an interesting post. Small Blues are always a good find, as they live in quite small colonies that are often not easy to find.

Although your underside shot may not be a great photo, it does show the pair of spots forming a 'colon' [ : ] mark, which is characteristic of Brown Argus, so that shot alone would be sufficient for ID

Some bird experts once identified a very rare bird from a photo of mine that I almost threw away because I thought it was something common!

Mike

[Soulou]

Thanks Mike,

I am afraid my photographic skills leave a little to be desired. I have hundreds of shots of empty flowers/branches/leaves where my target critter would have been had I been a bit quicker. I will try and pay more attention to the underside in future, but in the case of the Brown Argus, I just thought it was a fresh female common blue. It was only later, when I was trying to identify the Small Blue, that I spotted a photo of a Brown Argus and thought "hold on a minute, I've seen some of those as well".

All in all, I was pretty pleased with my afternoon's work.

Sue