Small White - Favourite Photo 2019

[Wurzel]

Small White - Favourite Photo 2019

Week 18

It was feeling like the season was just about to start proper – and then the storm hit! Oh well at least there are a couple more weeks of the Favourites threads…

Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos as then it will be easier to keep track of things? Of course our overseas members are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants. As in previous years 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

[MikeOxon]

Like my earlier post of Green-veined Whites, this photo was taken during a search for Brown Hairstreaks along the Roman Road at Otmoor, Oxon.

It is one of several photos of this butterfly that I took at the time, which indicated how rapid changes in lighting can make a dramatic difference to the shot. For this one, the angles were just right for the lighting to emphasise the pattern of veins on the underside of the wings.

Roman Road, Otmoor, Oxon - 23rd August 2019
Olympus E-M1 Mk.ii with 100-400mm lens - 1/320s@ f/7.1 ISO 640

Mike

[bugboy]

First up a nice backlit female

another female, this time with a special guest appearance from a baby crab spider

and finally a 'spot the butterfly'

[Goldie M]

I saw a rather delicate Small White on 23rd of April at Reculver Kent , I've seen them there before and they always seem more delicate than the later one's, all my other shots were taken once again in my back Garden on 3rd/6th August Goldie

[David M]

This species was poor in number early in the year, but late summer and early autumn saw them rebound, with plenty (including this lovely female) pottering round the dunes at Port Eynon, on 14th September:

[Neil Freeman]

The spring brood were very thin on the ground around my patch in 2019. The female below, seen in my garden in early May was only the second one I had seen up until then.

Small White - Coverdale 06.05.2019

After that I didn't see another one until we went north in early June and I saw a few around the Arnside and Silverdale area.

Small White male - Warton Crag 09.06.2019

In contrast, the summer brood was far more numerous and I suspect these were supplemented by migrants.

During our visit to Dorset in early September they were everywhere in especially large numbers but as is often the way with large numbers of common species I didn't take many photos of them

Small White female - Kimmeridge Bay 02.09.2019

Cheers,

Neil.

[Wurzel]

Small White

This was taken in mid August in a garden of a ramshackle and tumble down Cellist’s barn conversion. This odd setting was one of the reasons for my choice of it as my Favourite the other being that I liked the close up view of the head and legs.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

..The female below, seen in my garden in early May was only the second one I had seen up until then.

She's quite something isn't she, Neil? Almost bereft of black apical markings. Proof that the summer brood is far more heavily marked than its spring equivalent.

[millerd]

The second-commonest butterfly seen on my local patch in 2019 (after the Meadow Brown), comprising 12% of all sightings during the year, and spanning the period late February to mid-October. I am aware that because of its ubiquity across all types of habitat I may well have under-recorded it too.

Interestingly, the first one of the year appeared exactly one year ago today - certainly my earliest sighting of the species in what were record-breaking temperatures.

All a bit different twelve months on...

Dave