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Silver-studded Blue - Favourite Photo of 2024

Week 15

So we’re three quarters of the way through – might be time to just check that you’ve selected your Overall Fave and if you haven’t get your thinking heads on.

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

This one, from the Hautes Pyrenees in mid-July, was the only one I got an image of in 2024:

A trip to Upper Hollesley Common within the Suffolk Sandlings to see the Silver Studded Blue on the 4th July.
This whole area is a wonderful place to visit and i would highly recommend anyone to go for this species and also very numbers of Grayling very close by. With a well timed visit, both of these species can be seen on the same day.

2024 was not a great year for Silver-studded Blue, but for a few weeks there were plenty to enjoy. I came across several feeding on Pyramidal Orchid which were flowering in great abundance. My favourite(s) are two from many of a male that had paid the price of feeding on an orchid. He was completely preoccupied in removing the pollinium stuck on his proboscis, allowing me to photograph. After a few minutes, I left him to it but I doubt if he succeeded.

Well, I wasn't even going to try to pick a single image from my Great Orme trip. The variation amongst the females was something to behold, they also seemed to be particularly well endowed with the studs and off course there's the communal roosting.

That looks to have been a memorable encounter, Paul. As you say, the colour variation in those females is quite phenomenal.

Silver-studded Blue

I’d seen on the ‘evil-book-of-face’ some cracking images of Silver-studs from a new site to me; Higher Hyde Heath. As I was down at Lulworth and would be passing almost directly past the site I decided that I should really call in a check it out. What was originally a brief recce turned into a cracking afternoon. Not only were there plenty of really easy Silver-studs, a mating pair and a daylight sighting of a Nightjar but there was also a long overdue meet up with a UKB stalwart of old, Zonda. All of this meant that my choice of a Favourite was obviously going to come from this trip. But which to choose? In the end I ended up choosing three images. Bear with me here as I know the title is ‘Favourite’ and so singular but all three are of the same butterfly, a gorgeous, fresh female. As she sat on the dry, sandy path and opened and closed her wings the light refracted ever so slightly differently turning the brown uppers into a glistening, iridescent rainbow. Absolutely stunning.
Have a goodun

Wurzel

I found Silver Studs at both the Surrey sites of Fairmile Common and Chobham Common in 2024. Numbers seemed to be down at the former, but relatively buoyant at the latter. Singling out just one favourite is very hard to do - so here is a selection reflecting their variability (which is no doubt attributable at least in part to the brightness and angle of the light.

From Chobham:From Fairmile: Dave