Common Blue Butterfly

The Common Blue butterfly (Polyommatus icarus) is normally as its name suggests, a common species and in fact our most common blue variety. As with many others, the Common Blue has been a rare sight this year and I have seen very few over the last month or two. When I have, it has been in single numbers, where normally I would expect to see many flying about.

On a walk through a nature reserve at the weekend, I found one which is the male pictured below.

I watched it flying around for a while and followed it over grass and it then found a female. Without further delay nature took its course and I had a mating pair to shoot.

Male Common Blue

You can observe in the image below the female that has the much bolder orange markings on both her wing undersides and the background colour is deeper.

The pair moved around somewhat, I was able to take quite a few shots for record purposes and the fact that I had not seen many this year made the most of it.

I have read that when species are hit hard one year by inclement weather, their numbers can recover the following year weather permitting. 

So hopefully this particular little Common Blue female can lay her numerous eggs successfully.