Tuesday, 24 May 2011

Common Blue Butterfly

Male Common Blue Butterfly, Polyommatus icarus. Hayes Street Farm, 19 May 2011.
Male Common Blue Butterfly, Polyommatus icarus.  Hayes Street Farm, 19 May 2011.
The plant it is feeding on is cut-leaved cranesbill, flowering among stinging nettles. You can see its proboscis probing the flower. Here is the underside of a wing:

Male Common Blue Butterfly, Polyommatus icarus. Hayes Street Farm, 19 May 2011.
Male Common Blue Butterfly, Polyommatus icarus.  Hayes Street Farm, 19 May 2011.
Both taken with the Canon EOS 450D, 100mm macro lens, and ring flash.
Posted by Bill Welch at 05:25
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Location: Hayes Street Farm, Bromley, Greater London, UK

2 comments:

  1. teegee24 May 2011 at 08:01

    It may be common, but we don't have blue ones here; our small and common ones are sort of whitish yellow. Lovely photos.

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  2. Bill Welch24 May 2011 at 11:41

    So far this year have I have seen lots of yellow Brimstones and brown Speckled Woods. The female Common Blue is actually brown-winged, too, with only the body showing a blue blush. We are lucky to have these beautiful things.

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