The car park location isn't as ridiculous as may seem for PEs - I recall seeing one in a motorway lorry park in central France where it was enjoying the delight of diesel on the tarmac. I have a photo on my website PE page. It's not a great photo because I wasn't prepared to get flat out on the grou...

If Dusky Heaths reach Northern Ireland, I think we can conclude that global warming had arrived!

The Dusky Heath looks remarkably like a morphed version of a pic I put on the UKB site a while ago and was used for the BC calendar (maybe that's where it came from). Not that I mind (quite flattered, actually) but I think copyright should rest with the photographer and permission sought (which I wo...

Do they have to be your own photos, or can you just use anyone's?

One of them looks rather familiar...

Hi Chris, Having actually read your post (which I clearly didn’t do very well the first time) I see you’re staying near the Lac de Ste Croix, not Lac de St Cassien, which is what I had assumed. This area around the Verdon Gorge is magnificent and almost completely unspoilt, but you may be a little t...

Sylvie is the expert on that area, but it's not too far from where I'll be (St Aygulf). Early May is a superb area in southern Var and I usually see 50 or 60 species before the end of April. Mazarine Blue is more of an altitude species in Var but Osiris, Green-Underside, Baton, Provence Chalk-hill a...

If it were a large-ish blue, it maybe Escher’s, as the undersides are not too dissimilar, but it would be rather too early for Escher’s. If based on an upperside (male) view, Damon Blue is not dissimilar in that they both have darker bands at the forewing margins, but Damon is much smaller and mid-M...

Paul, you say you're heading toward the Med in early June, but I don't see where you say you're going to be. Butterflies are more or less continuous from early April to the end of June in the French Med area, with different species coming and going. It's not like the UK which sometimes seems to me t...

Reverdin’s Blue seemed (to me, at least) to be one of those species that once you’ve seen one, you start to see them everywhere. It seems to be widespread in eastern central France and I have seen them as far south as Digne-les-Bains. The male upperside is a beautiful deep blue, which I have never r...

Guy, the spotty baton was one of my photos (accreditation underneath) which I think I sent to you last spring in a "Postcard from Var".

Is anyone familiar with female eros? I have never seen one, nor a female nicias or glandon, for that matter.

I would say it is icarus , if seen in France I would be almost 100% certain of this. The upper line to the hindwing spot – this is in line with the others in icarus , in agestis it is not. The lower line to the forewing shows a clear (and large) cell spot – this rules out agestis (I think this is wh...

I did see a pristine White-letter Hairstreak on 15 May last year, unusually early in what was generally a late spring season, but then in Var (in the far south) everything is early, probably a week to ten days ahead of Vendee, I would guess. I think it might have been a female - even more unusual gi...

Vendee isn’t as good as, say, southern and eastern areas of France, but by English standards, it should feel very good. May is a little early, but a quick flick through the Lafranchis book suggests that these “interesting” species are possible: fritillaries: heath, glanville, marsh, marbled, weaver’...

Hi Vince, I use a Canon 20D and a Sigma 150mm macro, as do many people on this site, it seems, but I am (or have become) a great believer in the use of a tripod (I use a Manfrotto Neotec) with a ball-head joint for quick and easy manipulation. As to other confusing groups such as hairstreaks and pyr...

I’m now up to 199 of the 240 mainland French species and I’m getting progressively more obsessive about reaching number 240. Increasingly, the trips are planned around life-ticks, even if I have to “cheat” by going to Switzerland! Cranberry Blue would be good but your “Cranberry” mountain was shroud...

I've been looking to see if I could name the "unidentified" blue from my holiday, but my photo's are just not good enough. It could still be Escher's or Chapman's. Hi Denise, It should be possible to tell Escher's from Chapman's even with a not-great photo - please feel encouraged to put ...

The grid in the link below provides a quick reference ID guide for those European blues that occur in France (which is quite a lot of them - I'm missing one or two and have left spaces, maybe optimistically). The original photos have been re-oriented, cropped and reduced, so are of lower quality. ht...

If you’re a bloke over a certain age, it’s heavily odds-on you’ll go misty eyed at the mention of A4 Pacific “streaks”, your brain will turn to mush, and you’ll drift back to the mid-50s. Like I’ve just done. We used to cycle, aged 9, six miles from Borehamwood to East Barnet for a full Saturday’s t...

On the subject of lenses, I use a Sigma 150mm with a Canon 20D body. I used to use a Sigma 105mm until I “upgraded”. I would say that the main benefit of 150 vs 105 is not only the working distance, but principally that the 150 does not extend as it focuses and is silent, and the 105 used to scare o...