Two brown butterflies

Brown? Yes, not all butterflies have spectacular colours, and we wouldn't want to discriminate against the modest ones, now would we? This post is about two brown butterflies, or a butterfly and a moth, to be precise. Both are flying around right now, at least in Western Europe.

The first one is called the speckled wood (Pararge aegeria). It often sits on the ground on dry leaves and isn't easy to spot when it doesn't move:

^{Olympus Stylus 1s, 300mm, ISO160, f5.6, 1/500s}

The second one is a moth called common heath (Ematurga atomaria). It likes to sit low down on heather, and as long as the heather is still brown, it blends in fairly well:

^{Olympus Stylus 1s, 300mm, ISO200, f8, 1/250s}

As soon as the heather turns green, they are much easier to spot:

^{Olympus XZ-1, 112mm, ISO200, f5.6, 1/200s}

As you can see in the last two photos, the common heath's colour and pattern vary a bit. The big antennae are for detecting females, and they are very good at that.

Thanks for watching!