A widespread and fairly common (relative to the others) Pyrgus. It has a yellow-brown upperside ground colour, often with a sandy flush in the upf basal region. It has a fairly strongly marked upf and uph, the male being more strongly marked as is usual for Pyrgus. It is of average size for Pyrgus and often has rather rounded wing shape, I find.

observations

I assume 21232 to be armoricanus despite the rather dark brown ground colour and distinctly white markings. These factors, with the highly sagittate uph sub-marginal marks suggest a Grizzled Skipper (P. malvae) but I recall that it seemed too large for malvae. I cannot see quite enough of the uph discal mark, and the marks here of armoricanus and malvae are quite similar.

quite lightly marked on the upf, although adequately strong for armoricanus on the uph.

a male, from the visible but rather weak and strange abdominal hair tufts at each side. The markings and the upf sandy appearance of the basal region is strongly indicative of armoricanus, I believe, even though the markings are rather on the light side for this species. Maybe it is a female, which would explain the lighter markings.

a very fresh female, with a beautiful rich dark brown colouring. The markings on the upf and uph look exactly right for female armoricanus, and I am fairly confident this is what it is, despite the absence of a upf sandy basal flush. The only options are Olive Skipper (P. serratulae) or Cinquefoil Skipper (P. cirsii) and there are good reasons why it is neither of these. Rosy Grizzled Skipper (P. onopordi) is an option but the upf cell spot does not seem strong enough for onopordi. The right upf cell spot (which does not appear to be symmetrical with the left one) is in the shape of a question mark, maybe mocking those who try to identify it.

 a female, more lightly marked than the male, and has the pale dusted appearance that I associate (rightly or wrongly) with armoricanus.

the pale sandy dusting across most of the upperside is, I suspect, indicative of armoricanus. I would certainly expect the upf white marks to be stronger for armoricanus, even for a female, but the sandy feel pushes me in the direction of armoricanus.

meeting all the criteria for armoricanus. The deep sandy brown unh ground colour and yellow veins are almost sufficient to ID armoricanus alone. All of the markings match the classic armoricanus almost 100%.

clearly armoricanus on the basis of the colouring, the veins, and the markings. The discal s4/5 mark is a perfect example of the classic armoricanus shape, especially at the top external edge of this mark.

another example of a male armoricanus, meeting all the criteria.

the ground colour is a deep sandy brown with the veins just, but clearly, lighter, with the white marks reasonably clear and some darker edged. The discal mark in s4/5 looks slightly anvil-like suggesting onopordi, but I don't think it is. Both H&R and Lafranchis refer to a large round discal spot in s1c, and Lafranchis gives an illustration; I find this to be a rounded leaning bump with a rather flat bottom edge (it might be rounded below), as shown in T&L, although I would be reasonably confident (as confident as anyone can be about Pyrgus ID) that 5389 is armoricanus. The small round spot in discal s2 is further evidence of armoricanus.