...saw a few Clouded Yellows just west of the Bistro on the Beach. This is one of the regular breeding sites, and I have little doubt that these are locally bred butterflies... Misha Goodness! With this and all the recent speculation about other species, will we soon be counting Clouded Yellow, Red...

Yesterday, a gentleman who lives in Bournemouth and posts observations on iSpot, posted a photo of a Clouded Yellow, locality withheld, which I thought likely to be from the Bournemouth cliffs. This afternoon I walked the Boscombe and Southbourne cliffs and sure enough saw a few Clouded Yellows just...

Your moth appears to be the rarer of the two Orange Underwings to judge by the slightly feathered antennae. So Light Orange Underwing Archiearis notha. I take it there is Aspen in those woods?

Misha

Could well be. So many similar larvae among the noctuids. The best plan is to rear it and hope it's not parasitised.

Misha

Your caterpillar looks like the Angle Shades moth.

M.

In late May 1979 I saw the Spanish subspecies beckeri of the Marsh Fritillary on the lower slopes of Tibidabo hill, overlooking the city. You may be a bit early for them, assuming they're still there, but the larvae can be conspicuous on bushy honeysuckles.

Misha

The first sighting of the day was not at home and was actually too brief and short to get a positive id. A butterfly flitted across the front of my car as I pulled away from the inlaws down in Woodlands near Ashhurst in the New Forest. It was the wrong colour to be a Brimstone, too small to be Peac...

What an interesting picture! The "bee" on the top, to judge by what I can see of the eyes and antennae, appears to be the hoverfly Volucella bombylans in the form that mimics the bumblebee Bombus hortorum . The other insect is probably the bumblebee B.hortorum . I don't know why it's lying...

I have never found Red Admiral caterpillars on Mallow, but Painted Ladies regularly. However I do often find Red Admirals on Pellitory-of-the-Wall, which is a common pavement weed in my area, though from time to time the council sprays it, as they think dead plants are less unsightly than living ones.

As far as this country is concerned, I believe Mike Tucker was the first to document overwintering by Red Admiral larvae in an article that appeared in the Butterfly Conservation magazine some time in the mid or late 90s. B.C. should be able to trace it. In the Millennium Atlas there is a reference ...

You could easily be forgiven for thinking those were two entirely different species. Yes, the patterns are quite different but the wing shape is more or less identical. Interesting name too, the orange band we can see but shoemaker :?: :? It's probably not relevant, but an Afrikaans word for butter...

Thank you, Oxonian Mike for the correct URL.
The other Michael: The Kresna Gorge is just north of Kresna village.

Misha

Looks rather like Fodder Burnet, a variant of Salad Burnet. (Poterium sanguisorba ssp muricata). It was formerly grown for fodder. Seed may have been accidentally introduced during planting.

Let me just add a few remarks on idas and its relatives in Bulgaria. I'm pretty sure that idas can be ruled out in the case of Rags' Hotnica butterflies on the grounds of habitat and distribution. In Bulgaria idas is a montane species, seldom found below 800m. It is also always found closely associa...

If, as Guy suggests, you would like to forward your records to someone in Bulgaria, I would suggest that the best person would be Stoyan Beshkov, one of the authors of Prime Butterfly Areas in Bulgaria , and the person to whom records arising from the butterfly tours led by Nick Greatorex-Davies on ...

Your find of the Grecian Copper is particularly interesting. According to An Atlas of the Distribution of the Butterflies in Bulgaria by Stanislav Abadjiev this species is mainly to be found near the Black Sea coast in the south east and in a few other places in the far south. Your find , then, repr...

Looks like the Pitcher Plant Sarracenia purpurea, one of those insectivorous plants, which has no business in the Swiss Alps, being a native of north America.

Misha

The bush-cricket is Ephippiger provincialis. According to my book it can measure up to 41mm in length. Anyone requiring a guide to the orthoptera of France should consider: Guide des sauterelles, grillons et criquets d"Europe occidentale by Bellmann and Luquet. The title might lead you to belie...

Sorry to be a bit late, but your Wasp spider is Argiope trifasciata not bruennichi. It is widely distributed in the tropics and sub-tropics including the southernmost parts of the Iberian peninsula.

Misha

Paysandisia archon. See: http://palmae.free.fr/paysandisia_archon.htm I think it's in the second edition of Waring and Townsend.

M.