Sunday 10 July 2011

Prees Heath - Silver Studs

Decisions decisions?? They make or break a day and I had oodles of luck going with me this weekend! I had decided to ignore the Derbyshire Western Bonelli’s Warbler yesterday and it had proved to be a virtual ‘no show’ day! I was up for it today though and opted for late afternoon as I was up there anyway (picking up Gemma from Manchester Airport!) A busy morning meant it was lunchtime before I departed and another good decision* – checking out Prees Heath on the way! I thought I may have been too late for updating my images with some ‘larger files’ of Silver-studded Blue butterflies. There were some really dire ones on the wind, tattered and torn wings but amazingly (a recent emergence??) quite a few pristine specimens too!) Males, really nice fresh one here
The 'silver' (actually metallic blue) studs not always evident on the underwing!
Females, as they do showing variable amounts of blue suffusing the predominantly brown upperwing.....
At least we can see those blue studs now!
Ringlet plus good numbers of Small Heath were also seen *Twas a good decision as the Bonelli’s didn’t show all afternoon until just before I got there – how timely is that!