Venus Pool - aberrant femaleCommon Blue!!

There was nothing much going on at Venus Pool! Given the freezing wind 90% of the butterflies were hunkered down so they were there for the taking once found? This striking female Common Blue, looked for all the world from a distance like a male in colouration but turned out to be bluest of blue I've ever seen!

Sadly it flew moments after taking this image so I never got to see the underwing...

I did a bit of digging on the UK Butterflies site and it's a ringer for the caeruleomarginata aberration. Whatever, it was runner up for of the day!

Venus Pool - Aberrant Comma

A good year for Comma butterflies, plenty about and the first to emerge are always very obliging to photograph and then largely ignored. I had to look twice when one flew past me today, did I just see a flash of white?!

I've seen images of 'white' Comma's where the orange brown coloration is completely lost but here the white was restricted to the lower part of the hind wings...

And if you look closely, the body hairs over the same region!

The things Butterflies do to get themselves noticed!

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.