Bullet With The Butterfly Wings

I've mentioned previously about how I tend to prefer taking pictures of plants due the fact that, unlike animals, they stay the heck still.

So therefore, I am marginally chuffed to post this picture of a silver studded blue butterfly: 

The usual procedure goes spot butterfly, see butterfly land nearby, get phone out of pocket, fire up camera, hold over butterfly, focus, take picture. All the while, you're in the vicinity because you have an actual job to do and so have to stop what you're s'posed to be doing and follow the procedure described above. Most times, the butterfly has flapped off by this stage and slowly flits further and further away as you attempt to 'bag' it. This is the original pic:

The silver studded blue is a heathland species, living off typical heathland species such as gorse, heather and bird's foot trefoil and, although there seemed to be loads of them flapping around the area I was in when I took the picture (a marshy part of Holt Heath), is described by the Butterfly Conservation Trust as "A rare butterfly confined to small colonies in England and Wales."  In fact, let them describe it themselves: http://butterfly-conservation.org/50-781/silver-studded-blue.html

Sticking with the insect theme, back home in my own garden, we have spotted these guys on our pear tree:

These we identified as the social pear sawfly (Neurotoma saltuum), for which the food plant is... pear trees. A quick google search reveals lots of tips on getting rid of them but we decided to put our conservation hat on and left them too it. Our pear tree can probably take this one hit for biodiversity.

Anyway, a few weeks after this pick was taken, the cocoon is still there but now empty and the tree is looking fine and dandy, a few leaves slightly chewed but otherwise ok. Don't worry, we'll keep you posted on any developments.