Venus Pool - Aberrant Meadow Brown ab. alba

Some nice Butterflies about today but this aberrant Meadow Brown was the most interesting? A nice spot by Dave Chapman as we searched in vain for a wayward Clouded Yellow...

To get your eye in, here's a normal Meadow Brown...

And here is ab. alba from today...

The usual tawny patch on the forewings is replaced by white, as seen here front and rear,

Sadly no open upperwing images were possible and eventually after skulking in the depths of the grass it flew into the seed crop and was lost to view...

Never mind, another aberration for the collection :-)

Llanymynech - Small Coppers inc. caeruleopunctata

 Highlight for me today was the impressive appearance of Small Coppers! They were not particularly confiding but one or two posed nicely and with the sun shining the coppery sheen on some was amazing!

This one caught my eye with a couple of blue granular spots on the hindwing and I wouldn't have though much of it but...

then....

Wow, this beauty which flew and started feeding on Arabis hirsuta took my breath away, sporting a neat row of four spots on each hindwing

A full on aberrant caeruleopunctata,..

No prizes for guessing which my butterfly of the day was!

Scilly day 2 - St Agnes Butterflies!

I'm meant to be here for the birds but with a 'no show' Red-eyed Vireo looming on St Agnes, it was a bit of a drag. In fact the highlights were at each end of the day in the form of Butterflies!

First up was a Small Copper,but not just any small copper - the very striking aberrant form 'schmidtii'. The ground color is silver white, probably the most extreme form of this quite variable butterfly.

Super form with quite striking iridescence at the base of the wings....

First Clouded Yellow of the trip as the last boat beckoned......

The only bird image of the day! The Vireo was meant to pop out (as it had done the previous day) after this Wren strutted it's stuff!

Oh well, tomorrow is another day and with heavy rain looming, St Mary's the likely island.