Tag Archives: Polyommatus icarus

Flying on the wings of confusion

26 Thursday Jul 2018

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In yesterday’s blog I mentioned my confusion in identifying the Brown argus butterfly. Here’s why, plus some tips on how to defuse that confusion.

One of these butterflies is a Brown argus (Aricia agestis), the other five are female Common blues (Polyommatus icarus). Can you spot the odd one out?

If you have keen eyes, you will have noticed a difference in the patterns of spots of the butterfly in the last photo, which is the Brown argus. The Common blues all have an extra spot on their forewings (below right) and, on their hind wings, the two spots on the leading edge are more spaced out than those of the Brown argus – its two spots have been described as being close to a ‘figure of eight’ shape (below left).

180726 underwing patterns

Now, let’s look at the open wing patterns, which I find even trickier. Two of these butterflies are Brown argus, four are Common blue females. Which are which?

Firstly, as you can no doubt see, the amount of blue on Common blue females is very variable and that alone cannot help you identify them, as the Brown argus can also have a slight blue sheen to its wings sometimes. What I have found is that there is much less, sometimes no white colouration below the orange markings on the lower wings of the Brown argus (below left) and, though the Common blue can show a slight dark spot in the middle of its forewings (below right), that spot is much less obvious than the Brown argus’s spot.

180726 open wing patterns

So, did you work out which was which in the open wing photos? The middle butterfly in each row (photos two and five) are the Brown argus butterflies. Top marks if you spotted them!

A bumper day for butterflies, and a moth

13 Saturday May 2017

Posted by in insects, nature, parks

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Blue skies, warm temperatures, wildflowers in bloom – what more could a butterfly want? Not much it seems as they were out in force at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park and I spent several happy hours following them around, trying to get photographs but also just intrigued by their flight patterns, the food plants they were choosing and their general behaviour. The Whites, large and small, eluded my lens, as did several Orange-tips and one Red Admiral but I did manage to snap these six.

The first is a Brimstone butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni), not to be confused with the moth of the same name. I saw two flying together, land together and then the male heading purposefully towards the female. Turns out though that her spreading her wings and raising her abdomen in the air was not a ‘come hither’ signal but rather the opposite. She was indicating that she had already mated and was rebuffing the male. I saw several Common blues (Polyommatus icarus), also easily confused with other very similar small blue butterflies. They are so vibrant! And seeing a Peacock (Aglais io) is always a treat, though this one was looking a little battered.

Speckled woods (Pararge aegeria) seem to be the butterflies I see most often wherever I go but I love their pretty dappling of brown and cream. The next was a new one for me and I saw two of them – it’s a Dingy Skipper (Erynnis tages), a butterfly whose caterpillars feed on Bird’s-foot trefoil so it’s often found on the short impoverished grasslands of former coal tips, rubbish tips and quarries. I’ve just learnt that it’s called Dingy because ‘it loses scales alarmingly as it get older so looks, well, dingy’ (thanks, Steven). The last is not a butterfly but a moth and rather a special moth, The Mocha (Cyclophora annularia). This moth is nationally scarce but more frequent in the woodlands of southern Britain so I was well pleased with this sighting.

Fluttering butterflies, no.2

24 Friday Jun 2016

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Though summer is well underway here in Britain, I’m not seeing a huge number of butterflies. Here are some I have seen fluttering by in recent weeks.

160624 Common Blue

There are several small blue butterflies in Britain and they can be difficult to tell apart but the Common blue (Polyommatus icarus) is, as its name implies, the most common. As is often the way with wildlife, the males are bright blue, whereas the females can be quite a drab brown.

160624 Holly blue

The Holly blue (Celastrina argiolus) looks quite similar to the Common Blue, especially in flight. The trick to identifying it is in the small black dots on the underwings. It is also the blue butterfly that emerges first from its winter hibernation so look for it near holly plants in early spring, then fluttering about ivy in the summertime.

160624 Orange tip

If this is an Orange-tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines), where’s the orange colour? Turns out this is a female and only the males have bright orange wing tips. Still, she’s a very pretty little thing, even if she did seem a bit shy and hid her head behind a leaf.

160624 Large Skipper

Though it’s called the Large skipper (Ochlodes sylvanus), this butterfly is relatively small, its wingspan just a couple of millimetres more than the Small skipper, so you need to look for the mottled brown markings on its upper wings to tell the two apart.