Holly Blue - Favourite Photo of 2013

[Vince Massimo]

Week 8.

Here is the opportunity to post your favourite photo(s) of a particular species taken in 2013 (or the last time you saw one!).

This is part of a series of topics which will grow over 20 weeks throughout the winter, eventually covering all 59 species which are regularly found in the British Isles. The intention is to showcase three species per week (in alphabetical order), so please wait until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos. Our overseas members are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants.

Details of locations, dates, times and circumstances would be welcome and please feel free to contribute observations of behaviour, stories of personal encounters, anecdotes or other interesting points.

Vince

[Padfield]

Let me kick off with this spring-brood male, photographed in Switzerland. I rarely catch males with their wings open like this.



Guy

[badgerbob]

Fabulous blue sheen on that one Guy. Mine is a very quick grab shot of a first brood female in the garden. I was sitting in the garden during a particularly depressing weekend when I saw her settle on the ivy at the bottom of the garden. With the camera upstairs and the mood pretty glum I nearly ignored it but after a short while and it hadn't flown I ran upstairs to grab the camera. Of course, I was expecting it to have gone by the time I returned but it was still there and it allowed just one picture before it moved off.

http://bobsbutterflies.blogspot.com

[millerd]

My favourite this year has to be the one I found next to the car when picking my youngest boy up from school in Staines - proving the old adage that you should take the camera everywhere. A beautiful new female, and happy not to wander far from where I first saw her - and very nearly going beyond the two-thirds open that seems to be the maximum a Holly Blue will stretch to. 30th April - another sunny day (but not especially warm if I remember correctly).

I then had a fairly obliging male a couple of weeks later nearer home (12th May).

However, after this promising start to the first brood, the second failed to deliver more than a very small handful.

Dave

[MikeOxon]

Holly Blues are 'regulars' in the garden, where we have both Holly and Ivy available for them. This one was not being very obliging, as it was perched on the far side of the pond in rather harsh direct sunlight, but it appears to be the only one I photographed this year.

Abingdon, Oxon - 5th May 2013
Nikon D300s with 70-300VR zoom - 1/750s@f/6.7 ISO500

Mike

[David M]

Apart from a distant record shot of my first Holly Blue of the year back in April, I never got another opportunity to photograph one.

I really MUST endeavour to do better in 2014, because this is a lovely butterfly which is far too easily overlooked.

[Susie]

I didn't see many holly blues this year, apart from one little chap who passed through my garden daily for a while. One morning I found it napping in the garden.

[Neil Freeman]

There were far fewer Holly Blues passing through my garden in 2013 compared to the previous couple of years, barely half a dozen in the Spring and even fewer of the Summer brood.

Nevertheless, a couple of individuals stopped around for long enough for me to manage a few photos.

First, this Spring brood female at the end of May...

Holly Blue - Coverdale 31.05.2013

and this Summer brood female in August that spent some time around the Ivy in my back garden and appeared to lay some eggs on some of the flower buds,

Holly Blue - Coverdale 11.08.2013

Holly Blue - Coverdale 11.08.2013

I am not sure if she did actually lay any eggs or whether she just went through the motions as I subsequently failed to find any eggs or later on any caterpillars despite looking carefully for the tell tale holes in the flower buds.

Cheers,

Neil.

[Chris Jackson]

Here is one Holly Blue from Marseilles and another from the Massif Central (further north). They don't seem to open their wings much down here, perhaps because its generally warmer? An open-wing shot is on next year's wish list.
Chris

argiolus Marseilles 6 October 2013

argiolus Massif Central 13 July 2013

[David M]

Here is one Holly Blue from Marseilles and another from the Massif Central (further north)

That second one's got quite an unusually marked underside, with far less in the way of black spotting than is normal.

[Chris Jackson]

Hi David,
Eagle-eyes, I wondered if someone would pick up on that. It is true that the markings are less distinct on the one from the Massif Central, further north, and altitude 900 m, compared with the one from Marseilles, 7 km from the Med. and 80 m altitude. The photo of the individual in Marseilles is from quite late in the season but other individuals' markings in Marseilles are similar earlier on. Hummm?
Guess I'll have to return to the Massif Central next year then to sort this out.
Chris

[Goldie M]

The only Holly Blue I saw this year was in East Blean Woods and even then I got only part of it .So I don't think it was too good a year for them, It's also my big disapointment for this year.Goldie

[Maximus]

Second brood Holly Blue male and female, Shipton Bellinger. A very obliging male!

[Wurzel]

Holly Blue

This was taken at Marin Down on the same day as my fave Greenstreak. Along the same “tunnel” of hedges where the Greenstreaks were I’d previously seen 2 Holly Blue frustratingly too high to be within sensible range of a shot.
This female turned up almost instantaneously with the Greenstreaks and obviously realising that she’d be vying for my attention against my former nemesis she decided to act very coyly playing very hard to get in order to maintain my attention. So much so that she seemed to spend most of her time in the shadows of overhanging leaves. Luckily maintain my attention she did and so when she thought I’d waited long enough she presented herself sticking out like a sore thumb with the icy white of her under wings contrasting with the dark green of the vegetation.

Have a goodun

Wurzel