Bentley Wood, Hampshire

A must-visit to the famous Bentley Wood on the Wiltshire/Hampshire border on Sunday paid dividends.  John Chapple and me saw every available species including four Purple Emperors (also known as His/Her Majesty), two White-letter Hairstreak, Purple Hairstreaks, scores of Silver-washed Fritillary, Dark-green Fritillary, Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, scores of Marbled Whites and White Admirals and hundreds of Ringlets.

Below are some shots of Marbled White and White Admiral.  Further images will follow in later posts.  Given the number of enthusiasts present and surrounding some species, I decided to use a longer lens as the macro would involve too close a view with so many observers to consider.  It was good to see so many faces from the past there, especially the Devon crews!

A link to more information on Bentley Wood can be found HERE

Female Marbled White nectaring on Marsh Thistle

White Admiral (the first to appear on this blog).

Alpine butterflies part 2.

This is the second installment of some of the butterflies seen in the Italian Alps last week. In the higher altitude areas there is little agriculture and thus no pesticides. The meadows are completely unspoilt with an abundance of insects one can only dream of in the UK. At times you don't know which way to look. On this day I advanced no more than 300 yards in four hours and still probably missed some species.
The two images above are Scarce Copper and the brightest copper I've seen to date. The bright fiery orange set against the green background is quite a sight.

Marbled Whites were common and they preferred the scabious.

The brown butterfly below is a Large Wall Brown.

All the shots were taken on a tripod. The aperture was set quite high at F/8 and the ISO was set to ISO100, allowing the best non-grainy images. The low ISO also allows further cropping without to much degradation of the image.