CLOSED: blue butterfly

Saw this little beauty in a wildflower meadow where I was photographing orchids. I was thinking it's a common blue. Can anyone help with ID please?

Here's another shot.

firstly, let me say what a stunning photograph; I'm definitely archiving that one in my Lep-photos.

here in the Great Lakes region...we have a beautiful little blue butterfly...the 'Karner' Melissa Blue (more familiarly known as "Karner Blues") Lycaeides melissa samuelis... the blue caterpillars can only feed on wild blue lupine... it is endangered & uncommon (see link) ...your butterfly looks VERY close to our Karner blue... try searching the genera Lycaeides that are found in your area... I'm gonna pass your photo on to some local entomologists... maybe I'll get some more info for you.

http://www.nweco.com/Karner_Blue.htm

I agree, wonderful shots.

It might be the Common Blue, I would be more inclined to say it's the Adonis Blue. I have compared the marks on the reverse with a pic in my Butterfly book and it matches spot one.

The top of the wings is very blue, which is more in keeping with Adonis Blue, Lysandra bellargus which is described as vivid sky blue and sometimes even overlaid with blue.

The Common Blue is described as light blue with a violet tinge. I can see a little violet tinge on yours, the pic in my book shows a lot but this may be variable. I wouldn't call it light blue though, it looks very vivid sky blue to me. The reverse of the wings looks much the same as the Adonis Blue although there is no pic of this in my book.

It is the males which have this colour, the females are mainly brown based.

The Adonis Blue likes dry, sandy habitats with sparse vegetation. They fly from mid April to early October with two broods. The behaviour is like that of the Chalk-hill Blue, a rapid flyer. The caterpillar of Adonis Blue feeds only on Horseshoe Vetch, it hibernates as a young caterpillar on the food plant.

The Common Blue caterpillar feeds on preferrably Bird's-foot Trefoil, but also Lucerne, medicks, restharrows and other plants. Flight period is early April to mid-October, two to three broods. Habitat is dry and wet meadows, in open hilly country.

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=common%20blue%20butterfly&cr=countryUK%7CcountryGB&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

http://images.google.co.uk/images?um=1&hl=en&cr=countryUK%7CcountryGB&q=adonis+blue+butterfly&btnG=Search+Images

This site has some good pics to compare,

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species_family.php?name=Lycaenidae

Having said all that, the location is the stumbling block! The map shows Adonis Blue to be in the south only, click on it to get more details.

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species.php?vernacular_name=Adonis%20Blue

The Common Blue is widely distributed, so that must be it. Does your camera produce very vivid blues?

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species.php?vernacular_name=Common%20Blue

Thanks everyone, I'll go with the common blue. My sister Chris and I were thrilled to see it, and I was so pleased to get a couple of good shots :)