Essex Boy?
One of my current identification difficulties when doing the local biodiversity surveys is differentiating between small and Essex skippers. This is in fact a male small skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris) based on the orange underside of his right antenna club tip. According to the literature I should also be able to use the size, shape and orientation of the band of sex scales on his wing. Having spent half an hour going through pictures of male skipper wings I'm not convinced.
So I think ID needs to be based on face shots with sufficient DoF to clearly show the antenna clubs. I just wish somebody would teach the butterflies how to pose.
Photographed in the wetland area in Nannerth Fawr Country Holidays - an area that is currently far from wet with just one spring-fed pond that hasn't dried out.
Essex Boy?
One of my current identification difficulties when doing the local biodiversity surveys is differentiating between small and Essex skippers. This is in fact a male small skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris) based on the orange underside of his right antenna club tip. According to the literature I should also be able to use the size, shape and orientation of the band of sex scales on his wing. Having spent half an hour going through pictures of male skipper wings I'm not convinced.
So I think ID needs to be based on face shots with sufficient DoF to clearly show the antenna clubs. I just wish somebody would teach the butterflies how to pose.
Photographed in the wetland area in Nannerth Fawr Country Holidays - an area that is currently far from wet with just one spring-fed pond that hasn't dried out.