Common Blue #4

Thunder, lightning and hours of torrential rain - I thought I wouldn't see any butterflies today let alone a female common blue. But at half past three the storm relented and the spaniel and I shot off to the meadow where we found dozens of butterflies busy nectaring. This is the female common blue showing its intricately patterned underwing (sorry its head down again!). This one has lost the end of one of its antenna.

The common blue female is one of the trickiest butterflies to identify reliably as its almost the same as the Brown Argus and the two species occupy the same habitat and have the same flight times. Two key features are the cell spot on the forewing (just visible in this image) - which is absent in the Argus - and the orange lunes which are smaller and less vibrant in the Common Blue.