Butterflies of Var, Southern France

[Lee Hurrell]

What a stunning moth.

I believe one was trapped in the UK this week.

Best wishes,

Lee

[Matsukaze]

Lovely moth, it looks like it is about to leap forth and eat anything that is likely to attack it...

Roger, I wish you luck with the moth trapping - I tried it last July in the heatwave and was rewarded with loads of processionary moths and plenty of geometrids from incredibly difficult genera. Also some very colourful little micros which I will have to run past a specialist one day. There are many fine species out there, but it is much easier to catch them than it is to work out what they are!

[Roger Gibbons]

Just sorting through the images from 2016, here are a few:

A Clouded Yellow, always a favourite from when I was very young as I associated it with school holidays.

A Lesser (or Small) Mountain Ringlet, as my focus in 2016 was on Erebia ringlets.

An Eastern Wood White, the very localised (in France) cousin of the very common Wood White. The underside markings are quite distinctive of this first brood, the second brood having an almost unmarked hindwing.

A Grisons Fritillary, a very hardy high altitude species, sometimes quite common over 2000m.

A few more to follow...

[David M]

Wow! That 'Mountain Ringlet' is almost blind, Roger!

I now see just how 'smudgy' those duponcheli underwings are.

Any French lifers in 2016?

[Roger Gibbons]

Only one this year, David, but life-ticks are getting very hard to come by as there are now only eight French species I have yet to see. The one was Asian Fritillary (Euphydryas intermedia), a female very much at the end of the flight period.

I'm hoping to catch some of the Pyrenees endemics next year, and hopefully revisit the Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus) site near Montpellier, if they still fly there, on the route.

Roger

[David M]

Cheers, Roger. I think I know at least half of those that remain.

Good luck in 2017!

[Roger Gibbons]

A few more images from the summer (seems a long time ago now):

A Lesser Purple Emperor, almost as magnificent as its illustrious cousin, but rather more frequently encountered:

An Esper's Marbled White, a rather localised cousin of the phenomenally common (in southern France) Marbled White:

A Chestnut Heath, of the form bertolis which has no hindwing ocelli:

A Bath White, probably a male, taking a break in a spell of overcast weather:

[Matsukaze]

Lovely photos Roger.

Is Esper's Marbled White obviously different in flight to the common Marbled White? I ask because my experience of Melanargia around the Mediterranean is that they never stop flying.

[Roger Gibbons]

Hi Chris,

Yes, Esper's (M. russiae) is quite easy (with a little experience) to differentiate from galathea in the field as it is noticeably larger and whiter. They fly together and it's not hard to tell them apart in the field.

Western MW (M. occitanica) and Iberian (M. lachesis) certainly are very active and when occitanica does settle it is usually deep in the undergrowth. It's generally true for all species in the Mediterranean region that they fly incessantly in the heat.

I don't think the ranges of the "other three" MWs overlap, so it's only ever a question of differentiating them from galathea.

Roger

[Chris Jackson]

Lovely images Roger.
I'm quite familiar with M. occitanica and M. galathea which both occur in my area and whose flight periods overlap by just about 1 week.
Esper's Marbled White however is outside "Les Bouches du Rhone" and is still on my wish list.
Perhaps in 2017 ?
Cheers, Chris

[Roger Gibbons]

Hi Chris,

You can see Iberian MW (M. lachesis) within 90 minutes' drive from where you are, and Esper's (M. russiae) near where you were last year (Sault region) in late June/early July.

If you want to know where, let me know.

Roger

[David M]

Grrr. Times like this I wished I lived in France.

[Roger Gibbons]

Hi David,

I'll respond to your question on this thread rather than hijack Colin's. Yesterday I went to the site near Draguignan (where we went with Chris J a couple of years back) as it was the first warm day (24C) and little wind, the first such day for at least two weeks. The change since we were last there four days previous was amazing - we counted about 20 very fresh Spotted Fritillaries (Melitaea didyma), at least three Heath Fritillaries (Melitaea athalia), the first Yellow-banded Skipper (Pyrgus sidae), in a total of 27 species. So it rather seems that the emergence had been delayed until the weather warmed up and then they all came out in a rush. The species count for the year is now 51, as I also saw the first Chapman's Blue (Polyommatus thersites) I could be sure about.

As Colin says, the wind is a major problem, particularly at night, when the gusts reach 50mph. How the butterflies don't get blasted out of their roosting places, I have no idea. The weather forecast for the next few days is strong winds ("rafales" of 75km/h) and possible storms.

To put the locations into context for anyone who doesn't know the region, Chris, Colin and I are all in the south-east corner of France, all of us not far fromm the coast. An analogy with the UK counties is that Colin is in the Alpes-Maritimes (Kent), I'm in Var (Sussex) and Chris is in les-Bouches-du-Rhône (Hampshire).

Roger

[Medard]

On the subject of the Var my wife and I have just returned from a three week stay in the Var plus one week on the homeward journey to the Brenne , my species count 49 ,six of which were new species for me.
,most were photographed in the Var,the Southern white Admiral escaped.
Star attractions .
Provence Hairstreak (Tomares ballus)
Southern Festoon (Zerynthia polyxena)
Nettle-tree Butterfly (Libythea celtis)
Chapman's Green Hairstreak (Callophrys avis)
Spring Ringlet (Erebia epistygne)
Camberwell Beauty (Nymphalis antiopa)
(Western) Dappled White (Euchloe crameri)
All can be seen on my website plus a short video of the Nettle-tree Butterfly (Libythea celtis) please click on the following links.

http://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com/f515788725
http://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com/p509395131#h89be66e7
http://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com/p509395131#h89be58a9
http://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com

[David M]

Hi David,

I'll respond to your question on this thread rather than hijack Colin's. Yesterday I went to the site near Draguignan (where we went with Chris J a couple of years back) as it was the first warm day (24C) and little wind, the first such day for at least two weeks. The change since we were last there four days previous was amazing - we counted about 20 very fresh Spotted Fritillaries (Melitaea didyma), at least three Heath Fritillaries (Melitaea athalia), the first Yellow-banded Skipper (Pyrgus sidae), in a total of 27 species. So it rather seems that the emergence had been delayed until the weather warmed up and then they all came out in a rush. The species count for the year is now 51, as I also saw the first Chapman's Blue (Polyommatus thersites) I could be sure about.

As Colin says, the wind is a major problem, particularly at night, when the gusts reach 50mph. How the butterflies don't get blasted out of their roosting places, I have no idea. The weather forecast for the next few days is strong winds ("rafales" of 75km/h) and possible storms.

To put the locations into context for anyone who doesn't know the region, Chris, Colin and I are all in the south-east corner of France, all of us not far fromm the coast. An analogy with the UK counties is that Colin is in the Alpes-Maritimes (Kent), I'm in Var (Sussex) and Chris is in les-Bouches-du-Rhône (Hampshire).

Roger

Thanks for the update, Roger. It's always tempting to assume the SE of France basks in perfect spring weather every year....but, of course, this is not the case.

I'm judging from your commentary that things are a little bit behind right now although catching up due to a warm spell lately?

[Roger Gibbons]

The weather is generally very good in Var in spring, although there will usually be a couple of days of non-stop torrential rain, and it certainly seems to be more windy in recent years. This year has been noticeably stop-start, with the past two good days followed by two overcast and rainy days. Yesterday we went to a site in central Var - a site that was excellent for Twin-spot Fritillary (Brenthis hecate) until the troupeau of sheep destroyed it - and added four year-ticks, all pristine: Tufted Marbled Skipper (Carcharodus flocciferus), Oberthur's Grizzled Skipper (Pyrgus armoricanus), Black-veined White (Aporia crataegi), and Pearly Heath (Coenonympha arcania), bringing my year total to 55.

There also seems to be an unusually good number of Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui) around which bodes well for the UK.

The overcast weather did at least give an opportunity for a few photos, as the usual combination of hyperactivity in the sun and constant blowing about in the wind makes this very difficult at best. Here are a couple of roosting female fritillaries:
Weaver's Fritillary (Boloria dia) – showing why its alternative English name is Violet Fritillary

Glanville Fritillary (Melitaea cinxia)

And a freshly emerged female Black-veined White (Aporia crataegi) with a slightly deformed antenna

[Chris Jackson]

[quote="Roger Gibbons"] ... There also seems to be an unusually good number of Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui) around which bodes well for the UK ... /quote]

I confirm the large number of V. cardui, Roger, for the west Var. I saw 50+ during the afternoon last Sunday. They were all over the place on the Plateau d'Agnis, just South of Mazaugues.
Chris

[Roger Gibbons]

Talking of Painted Ladies, last October I mentioned on UKB an upcoming conference by Rothamsted on bird and butterfly migration. I produced a brief summary for the Herts & Middx BC Newsletter, reproduced below with permission.

There is also this link to the event, which includes downloads of the talks, mostly Powerpoint (it was a showcase for Rothamsted) but some useful detail as well: https://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/events/ins ... TTHEEVENT-

The article:
Insect and Bird Migration, Rothamsted Research

I attended the above conference held at the very impressive Rothamsted Conference Centre on 13 October 2016. The event comprised four ten-minute presentations followed by a Q&A session lasting some twenty minutes, and plenty of opportunity to talk to Rothamsted people before and after. It was very well attended, with some 200 attendees. It was quite timely, given that Rothamsted were a principal participant in the BC programme on Painted Lady migration screened a few days previously.

The first presentation focussed on bird migration, particularly over the Netherlands and the North Sea. The second presentation discussed insect migration and the tracking and monitoring technologies, and was to some extent oriented toward tracking insects as pests and their impact on crop yields.

The third presentation was by Dr Jason Chapman, who was featured on the BBC programme, and was getting closer to our main area of interest, being about nocturnal moth migration. It followed the travels of the Silver Y moth, a regular migrant each year from the Mediterranean region as it is unable to breed in the UK. Dr Chapman explained that the moth, being relatively small, uses wind currents and can only fly in favourable conditions. It had been discovered that it makes the return migration at surprising high altitudes of around 400-800m.

The fourth presentation by Dr Chris Jones focussed on how and why insects generally, and butterflies in particular, make such long migrations and how they navigate over thousands of kilometres to places they have never been before. Dr Jones explained that there were three key components: a compass, a clock and an energy source. They navigate using the sun for direction, but as the sun is in different positions according to the time of day, they can adjust using their timing mechanism which resides – surprisingly – not in the brain, but in the antennae. From what is known of this mechanism, it appears to be extremely complex. The energy source is derived from fats in the form of lipids, rather than the carbohydrates that we would normally consider to be the energy source; lipids have the advantage of being high in energy content and low in water content and therefore lighter.

In the Painted Lady (PL) programme, a Spanish researcher had presented the hypothesis that they (PLs) migrate to escape predation, which is a major hazard and is responsible for the demise of the vast majority of caterpillars. One of the major groups of predators are tiny parasitic wasps of the Cotesia genus. The PL breeding grounds are in the region of the Atlas mountains in Morocco and when breeding conditions are suitable, a mass migration north (and to a lesser extent east) is triggered. The PLs that arrive in the UK are not necessarily the ones that left Morocco as they stop to breed along the way and our PLs are likely to be second or third generation.

Much research is currently being undertaken on the relationship between parasitism and migration, as this is clearly a very complex inter-relationship.

In a relatively short presentation is was clearly not practicable to explore all of these factors, especially as the event was primarily to showcase the work of Rothamsted. I did have the opportunity to ask one question and later to talk to Drs Chapman and Jones after the event. My question was that all butterfly species suffer from predation to a greater or lesser extent, but only relatively few are migratory and many species are particularly sedentary, and their populations do not seem to suffer proportionately. So if migration is a way of escaping predation, why don’t more (or all) species do it? It seems that migration is wired into the DNA of certain species that have evolved this mechanism. There is apparently evidence that non-migrating populations of certain species have been wiped out, and studies have been carried out in migrating and non-migrating populations of the North American Monarch butterfly.

So it would appear that migration offers a distinct survival advantage.

I asked Dr Jones after the event what determines the periodicity of the mass migrations. He said that this was down to the suitability of breeding conditions in Morocco. I accept this but I must admit I don’t find it entirely convincing, not that I would question the expertise of the top professionals. Nevertheless I do wonder what conditions can result in such a massive population spike, when the population sizes of other species vary only within much more limited parameters.

[Matsukaze]

I can confirm the extraordinary abundance of Painted Ladies in Var at present - dozens if not hundreds in nectar-rich spots around the Lac de Ste Croix last week, probably more so than in 2009 when I was in the same spots at the same time, although this time the behaviour was quite different. The butterflies were territorial and clustered in suitable locations, chasing each other, rather than the persistent lone migration that they showed in 2009.

[Matsukaze]

Olethreutes arcuatella, meadow on the fringes of the Lac de Ste Croix, last week.