UK, three butterflies: comma, holly blue, small tortoiseshell

[spiralsheep]

I've seen all of these butterflies in the last couple of weeks but some of the photos are from last year. The ones that got away were several speckled wood butterflies, which are brown with yellow spot markings (link to google image search results).

A comma butterfly, Polygonia c- album.



Comma and bumblebee.



The reason this butterfly is called a comma (image also with tongue visible).



Holly blue butterfly, Celastrina argiolus, male.





Small tortoiseshell butterfly, Aglais urticae.

Comments

[holyschist]

Oh, wow, you got a blue with its wings open! And I didn't know you had commas over there, too (they're one of the earliest spring butterflies we see in Colorado, although likely a different species).

[spiralsheep]

The holly blues not only tend to be fluttery but their favourite early morning sunning perches around here all seem to be 15+ feet up in the air (!) so I was especially pleased to cap that male on a suburban street in the middle of Ledbury last year.

IIRC North America is a comma/Polygonia paradise with multiple species and ranges from Mexico to Alaska and Canada but the one I remember as looking most similar is (or used to be) called the eastern comma, I think?

[holyschist]

Yup, we have several Polygonia species in Colorado and I am terrible at telling them apart. They all look the same to me (so does yours), except I guess they have subtle differences in the "punctuation mark" (I think we have one species where it's a question mark) and color of the underwings. I...cannot really tell. They're pretty, though! I love their wing shape--they look like jaggy pieces of bark when they close their wings.