Sometimes the butterfly gods smile down on you... A bilateral gynandromorph Common Blue at Grafton Wood, Worcs 1/8/26. @westmbms-99.bsky.social @worcswt.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social @ukbutterflies.bsky.social

I have just uploaded this film of a male Brown Hairstreak Butterfly Thecla betulae drinking from a chalk stream @markbravery.bsky.social @rlewington2.bsky.social @ukbutterflies.bsky.social, taken this am: youtu.be/9Y-CYk65OLs?.... It is possible that this behaviour may not have been filmed before.

Good grief! What an amazing sight!

Acid Rain@bearysweet.bsky.social · 4w ago

Dozens of Black-Veined White butterflies (Aporia crataeai) swarm a kayak by the Vagran River in the Ural Mountains of Russia. 🦋 The butterflies are attracted to the salt from human sweat on the kayaker's gear and clothing. This happens in early summer when these butterflies emerge. #butterfly

White Admiral seems to have had a good egg lay at Kintbury Chase in West Berkshire, with 6 eggs and 25 caterpillars found in the space of 2 hours this morning. I do love those little 'hairy golf balls'!

Just wow! More from the @greenwingstours.bsky.social Italian Alps tour. We revisited a mating pair of Apollo early this morning to observe the development of the sphragis - a wax-like mating plug that the male deposits onto the female's abdomen to prevent further pairings. And then they did this 😀

Great to catch up with Southern Swallowtail (Papilio alexanor) on the @greenwingstours.bsky.social Italian Alps tour. Despite our usual sites being extremely arid, the swallowtails seemed to be in their usual numbers and a delight to see as they fed from whatever nectar sources they could find.

Incredible numbers of Apollo on the @greenwingstours.bsky.social Italian Alps tour, with Clouded Apollo showing well too. However, I did feel sorry for this Camberwell Beauty we found today, that not only had very worn wings, but was missing half an antenna. Still, a delight to see nonetheless!

Great to catch up with the Scarce Fritillary (Euphydryas maturna) at an area new to us, on the @greenwingstours.bsky.social Italian Alps tour. This very restricted species feeds on Ash in its early larval instars, before hibernating in ground litter, and subsequently switching to a herb-based diet.

A 'brilliant' start to the @greenwingstours.bsky.social Italian Alps tour, with 5 species of 'copper' seen - Scarce, Purple-edged and Purple-shot Coppers shown here (Small and Sooty also seen). Along with a very obliging Large Blue.

Another fantastic day on the @greenwingstours.bsky.social tour of Northern Greece, with some very special butterflies seen, including Lesser Fiery Copper, Map, Yellow-banded Skipper and Blue Argus; hard to choose a favourite given all we've seen. What a wonderful part of the world!

Glorious butterflies in Greece, on one of our longest running & exclusive tours, designed by us back in 2013 and led by brilliant & incredibly knowledgable naturalists Peter Eeles & Dr Michael de Courcy WIliams. Join us next year! greenwings.co/our-holidays... @europebutterfly.bsky.social

UK Butterflies@ukbutterflies.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A Papilionidae family day today on the @greenwingstours.bsky.social tour of Northern Greece, with all of our targets seen, namely Eastern Festoon, Clouded Apollo, Scarce Swallowtail and Swallowtail. All in beautiful surroundings in a beautiful country!

A Papilionidae family day today on the @greenwingstours.bsky.social tour of Northern Greece, with all of our targets seen, namely Eastern Festoon, Clouded Apollo, Scarce Swallowtail and Swallowtail. All in beautiful surroundings in a beautiful country!

Two's company, three's a crowd, four's a ... ??!! This mating pair of Black-veined White, photographed on the @greenwingstours.bsky.social tour of Northern Greece, were photobombed by not one, but two males that were both trying to disrupt events. I didn't realise they were forming an orderly queue!

Love is in the air! Wonderful to watch a courting couple of Southern White Admiral today, on the @greenwingstours.bsky.social tour of northern Greece, along with a mating pair of Sooty Copper and literally thousands of Nettle-tree Butterflies going about their business!

I must have taken 100s of photos of Purple Emperor larvae over the years, but this one, from today, is probably my favourite ... showing just how camouflaged a fully grown larva is against a leaf of its foodplant (Salix caprea, Goat Willow, in this case).

A cool day on the @greenwingstours.bsky.social False Apollo tour resulted in an impromptu photography workshop (20 minutes that turned into 2 hours thanks to all of the great guest questions!), with a Small Copper then appearing as things warmed up. A favourite species for the last 50 years!

I am planning this year's butterfly trips using this excellent book..

This male Orange-tip wasn't taking 'no' for an answer, despite the female clearly rejecting him by raising her abdomen, as many species in the Pieridae family do! It was nice to see so many of them flying today, along with Holly Blue in numbers not encountered for several years!

Just back from another very successful @greenwingstours.bsky.social tour in Greece! I'm not sure why, but this photo of a Green-underside Blue seems to evoke something about the place that I just can't put into words ... answers on a postcard!

Another great day on the @greenwingstours.bsky.social False Apollo tour. Lots of lovely Grecian Copper, including an aberrant female with elongated spots. Finding the rare Krueper's Small White was the icing on the cake!

A fantastic start to the @greenwingstours.bsky.social False Apollo tour. Not only did we find adults, but also managed to locate a few batches of False Apollo eggs on its main foodplant, Aristolochia hirta.

Gosh - a Dingy Skipper forewing with a Chequered Skipper hindwing ... what a butterfly! I had to check that it wasn't April 1st!

Richard Fox@richardfoxbc.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Some South Korean wildlife 🇰🇷

Pearl-bordered fritillary caterpillars are coming along nicely in Devon. Spent the day at Haldon Forest, poking around pockets of violets along the broken edges of bracken litter @bcdevon.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social

Word of the day: pharate. This term describes a fully formed larva or adult when inside the cuticle of the previous developmental stage. Behold a pharate Purple Emperor caterpillar within its egg case and a pharate male Silver-studded Blue adult within its pupal case!

Orange-tips are nearly upon us and, surprisingly, Green Hairstreaks were seen today in Cheshire! www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/phpBB/viewto...

This week's challenge is to identify the species whose pupae are represented here - one from each of the 6 butterfly families ... the final two in a reply to this post! I'll give it a few days before providing the answers!

And this week's challenge is to identify the species whose larvae are represented here - one from each of the 6 butterfly families ... the final two in a reply to this post!

📣 New paper 🎉 Proud to have helped with this nice study by @wlangdon12.bsky.social showing a trade-off between nutritional quality & microclimate of host plants for Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas). Here in England, they choose warmth over nutrition resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Here's a random selection of butterfly eggs - 1 from each of the 6 families (Papilionidae, Hesperiidae, Pieridae, Nymphalidae, Riodinidae, Lycaenidae). Having spent some time looking at them 'up close' I can only conclude that they are really quite beautiful! How many can you identify? Larvae next!

Our most recent review, by Harry E. Clarke, of Butterflies of the Western Palaearctic (volume 1) can now be found at www.dispar.org/reference.ph...