The even smaller blue ones are back as well!

^{The title refers back to this post about another small blue butterfly of a different species.}

We had heard some alarming news about the dwindling numbers of these little butterflies, so we went to have a look yesterday to see if they were present at their usualy hang-out. Fortunately we found some, and I managed to get some photos.

They are called silver-studded blue (Plebejus argus), heideblauwtje in Dutch, and they live and feed almost exclusively on heather.

This is the male of the species:

^{Olympus Stylus 1s, 300mm, ISO200, f5.6, 1/200s}

The female:

^{Olympus Stylus 1s, 135mm, ISO200, f5.6, 1/160s}

The two also met: this is a photo taken as she had just turned around to greet the male that had landed on the same flower. Not the best of photos, but cute enough to show:

^{Olympus Stylus 1s, 300mm, ISO200, f5.6, 1/125s}

These were the only two we saw, where in previous years they were there in abundance. I hope more will show up, or this will be another species disappearing from the local peat bog (near Enschede, The Netherlands).

Edit: two (older) photos added to show what they look like from above with their wings open, male and female respectively:

^{Olympus XZ-1, 112mm, ISO100, f5.6, 1/125s}

^{Olympus XZ-1, 24mm, ISO200, f6.3, 1/80s}

Thanks for watching!