I am no expert photographer, preferring to capture the moment than get a perfectly composed shot. The pictures on my blog are either taken with a compact Canon, a Panasonic Lumix FZ150 or on my phone.




Monday, 6 August 2012

Spanish Skippers - July 2012

I am not very familiar with Skippers - we don't get any in this part of Scotland, so I have problems identifying any I see. This isn't helped by the fact that there are quite a number of very similar-looking species, but each species can be quite variable! During our recent holiday to Spain I came across five different species. Not that I realised that at the time, I had to post my pictures on the UK Butterflies forum, where Guy Padfield and Roger Gibbons kindly identified them for me.
The pictures below are the five species they identified for me, but please don't ask me what the identifying features are!!

This one I managed to identify myself - it's a Mallow Skipper, Carcharodus alceae.

And this is the other one I managed to identify as a Sage Skipper, Muschampia proto.

This is the underside of the Sage Skipper.

This one I am told is a Red Underwing Skipper, Spialia sertorius. I had noted that it was smaller than the others I had seen, but I had no idea what it was!

This is a Southern Grizzled Skipper, Pyrgus malvoides.

And this one is a Southern Marbled Skipper, Carcharodus baeticus

A page of brown and beige - very 1970s! I am very grateful to Guy and Roger for their help identifying these pictures. 

4 comments:

  1. Little skippers I find to be quite cute. We have skippers here and I always enjoy seeing them. Your photos are lovely.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, they are lovely, but very difficult to tell apart!! It is funny to think that a few years ago they were considered to be separate from butterflies.

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  2. Hi Nick,
    I hope you enjoyed your summer!
    I love this first photo, so graphic, congrats!
    And I also enjoyed seeing this butterfly, it is very delicate.

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  3. What beautiful pictures.
    Nice to meet your blog.
    janicce.

    ReplyDelete

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