Recently I posted about some butterflies that I had seen during a walk on the south side of Workington. On May Day I had a fairly length walk to the north, firstly at Siddick Ponds and then on the Flimby shore. At both places I saw butterflies and can now bring my count of butterfly species so far this Spring to the vast total of five. It’s not a very impressive number, I known but to be precise I’ve seen six, I think – more later, but only got photos of five. However, in one case I now have both male and female.
I’ve been seeing Orange Tips for a week or two but until yesterday never succeeded in finding one that stayed still long enough for a photo. However, here it is at last. It’s a male, which is very obvious because the female doesn’t have the orange.
Small White Butterflies, Male and Female
The bold double wing spots on this Small White butterfly clearly declare it to be a female. The next image shows a male. If knowing the difference between male and female seems to indicate some special experitise in lepidopterology let me disabuse you. I only leaned how to tell the difference about half an hour ago from my British butterflies book. It tells me that the white one that I showed in my previous post was almost certainly a male “Small White”, although I still have a certain amount of doubt as on that one there were no wing spots visible at all.
Another Butterfly
Finally, there was one butterfly that I didn’t manage to catch with the camera. It wasn’t as bold a blue as this Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus) from last year, but it could have been an early one. Anyway, whatever it was I can at least say I saw another unidentified species. The grassland by Flimby shore had man different ones last year and I’m looking forward to getting some good photos this year.
For more on butterflies: Butterfly Conservation
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