Dark Green Fritillary - Favourite Photo of 2014

[Wurzel]

Week 4

So continues sequence of posts giving one and all the opportunity to showcase their favourite shots of 2014 (or the last time you saw one )!

Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos? 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

[MikeOxon]

My photo was taken during a memorable day at Old Castle Down, near Bridgend in South Wales. Although my primary target was the High Brown Fritillary, which were present in small numbers, there were many more DGF, plus a few SPBF, on the wing.

Old Castle Down, Bridgend - 21st June 2014
Lumix FZ200 (fl=108mm) - 1/500@f/4 ISO125

Mike

[Chris Jackson]

Here is a Dark Green Fritillary in July on a summer ski slope in the Cantal département in the French Massif Central.
Ski slopes in the summer bring forth a multitude of flowers and are great places to look for butterflies. You never know what you'll find next.

Chris

[Neil Freeman]

It wasn't until I started looking back for this thread that I realised that I only saw Dark Green Fritillaries on one occasion in 2014 and that was up on Bindon Hill when I went there during a week spent in Dorset in early July.
It was a hot sunny afternoon and the DGFs were in typical fast flight mode and settling infrequently which as usual made getting a photo a bit tricky. Nevertheless, with a bit of patience and careful sneaking up, I managed to get a couple of photos.

Dark Green Fritillary - Bindon Hill 02.07.2014

Dark Green Fritillary - Bindon Hill 02.07.2014

Cheers,

Neil.

[millerd]

I saw this species in the customary places this year: Box Hill, Denbies, Aston Rowant and up at Arnside. The favourite photo was the very first one, on 11th June at Box Hill. Having disturbed it, amazingly it made a wide circle around to land even closer to me than the spot that it had started out from.

Dave

[David M]

I positively overdosed on this species in 2013, such were its numbers in close proximity to where I live.

This year, I really neglected it quite badly. I have very few images but the best ones were taken on the day I saw my first of the season - 7th June, during a particularly satisfying hour spent within walking distance of my home, where I saw Marsh, Small Pearl Bordered and Dark Green Fritillaries flying together, along with decent numbers of Green Hairstreaks:

[Wurzel]

Dark Green Fritillary

This was taken at Martin Down on my second visit there for DGFs. Having previously found some gloriously fresh males that provided plenty of open wing shots I was after that all elusive (for me anyway) closed wing shot. I have had some success but my closed wing shots have been backlit, faded and worn or from a mating pair.

As it turned out I still didn’t get what I went after but I was more than happy with the DGFs that I found. There were some really smoky females and one had tinges of ‘Dark Green valesina’ about it so it was quite tricky choosing my overall favourite. I went for this one in the end as the posture was a little bit different and it caught the beautiful light of the evening sun. It was a magical evening and this shot always takes me right back there.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Goldie M]

I was lucky once again this year to find this butterfly, I was rather late going to Gaits Barrow having being south at the beginning of July and although I did go in late June I was too early. so I was delighted when the only one I saw that day landed on a thistle near by it was the 28th of July .Goldie

[ayjay]

Taken in one of my favourite places in the New forest, Holmsley Inclosure, it's about as close as it can be to what I'd call a a local patch - I find it impossible to limit myself to one place with so much on offer in the area, it's nowhere special but has a remarkably good variety of wildlife of many species once you get to know the place and it's usually fairly quiet, it's where I inevitably end up if I just want a quick outing, I know I'll see something good if i just look.

[The Annoying Czech]

My season's best Argynnis aglaja was captured at Malikov nad Nezarkou and later photographned at Novy Vojirov near Austria. Of course you don't know those places. You can't. They're both lying in the middle of nowhere hundreds of km far from you.

After buttloads of tries to tame them during the daytime I resigned and froze the butterfly a bit. So we slept together, me in the car and butterfly under the car getting frozen for my early morning action! Normally, the imagos hardly sleep on grasses like this.

I value the photo for being very sharp indeed for lens used that tends to be anything but sharp, with standard nice bokeh. The individual was very patient. After all, it had to be. Anything else would mean denying the laws of physics.