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Orange-tip - Favourite Photo 2016

Week 12

Bit later this week due to the festivities - Happy Christmas!

Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos - just to make it easier to organise and keep everything on track so that we can enjoy this throughout the winter months? 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

I was pleased this year to actually get both the Female and Male Orange Tips on one photo which I took at Brockholes, a new NR built near the River Ribble near Preston on the 14th May. Goldie

Found very few,O-tips this season,but did manage to get close enough to one or two for a change ! posted a male from Duck lane, Shadoxhurst,Kent'
which I,d found along the ditch,beside my parked car after visiting a reserve close by,a little hotspot,with several males and females flitting about,and settling from time to time, regards Allan.W.

This is the species that we all long to see after the grey days of winter but because of a rather cold spring, I had to wait until the last week of April for my first sighting.

A trip to Hadleigh Country Park in Essex at the end of April specifically to find these came up trumps for me, once the day warmed up I found several males and I was early enough to get them before they were finished breakfasting on the springtime flora making for some very pleasing photos

Spring was late for this species in 2016, and practically all my Orange Tips were seen in May, including this one, taken at Castle Meadows, Abergavenny on the 02/05:
This female was seen in Swansea two days later:

No orange on this female but beautiful underwing markings and pure white antenna tips, in compensation! I photographed her, during a walk on the Thames Path, at Cholsey Marsh NR (BBOWT).
Mike

It was an unusual season for me with Orange Tips - I saw far more females than males early on and only really started to see males once we were into May. It did mean that I was so used to seeing them that I was starting to pick out female Orange Tips amongst all the other white butterflies with considerable accuracy! As ever, I'll no doubt have to relearn this all again in the spring... Probably my favourite photos are of a females: one of the first I saw in April, another a few days later, and then one in May. I have also singled out a shot of a male sucking up minerals, something which I've not seen this species do before - this was right at the end of May. Dave

Definitely fewer Orange-tips around my local patch this year and after a late start they seemed to finish early although I did see quite a few still flying between Fort William and Loch Arkaig when I was up that way in early June.

My favourite shots are the this sequence of a successful pairing seen in my garden,
I also quite like this action shot of a female rejecting the advances of a pair of males seen at my local site of Castle Hills near Solihull,
Cheers,

Neil.

Orange-tip

Taken on 29th April this shot is my fave as it’s been a while since I’ve managed to get close enough to a male OT for a closed wing shot. However 2016 was the year when I finally located a good site for them in the form of Vera Jones’s Mill. Wandering along the board walk crossing the Fen was a great way to spend my lunch times and even better once I realised how good a site it was for OT’s – with lots of its caterpillars’ food plants and dense foliage hemming them into a narrow area along which to patrol.

This shot was also one of the few times this year when I welcomed the sun going in. On arrival the sun was out and it was glorious to try and follow the three or four (maybe even 5?) males patrolling along one section of path. But then the cloud covered the sun quite quickly and thickly, so much so that the butterfly closed up tight and started to roost to sit out the drop in temperature.
Have a goodun

Wurzel