The twistor space of a Riemannian 4-manifold carries two almost complex structures,
J+
and J−, and a natural closed 2-form ω. This article studies limits of manifolds for
which ω tames either J+ or J−. This amounts to a curvature inequality involving selfdual Weyl curvature and Ricci curvature, and which is satisfied, for example, by all antiself-dual Einstein manifolds with non-zero scalar curvature. We prove that if a sequence
of manifolds satisfying the curvature inequality converges to a hyperkähler limit X (in
the C 2 pointed topology) then X cannot contain a holomorphic 2-sphere (for any of its
hyperkähler complex structures). In particular, this rules out the formation of bubbles
modelled on ALE gravitational instantons in such families of metrics.