We spent the first two nights in a lovely hotel in the Ubaye valley, not far from Barcelonette, and on our first full day we set off in the morning to walk up the local hillside. The weather was very warm, and as we climbed we saw several blues, fritillaries and satyrids typical of the region, including Titania's Fritillary,Almond-eyed Ringlet,Arran Brown,Large Blue and Large Ringlet. The Large Ringlets were particularly attracted to us, and frequently landed to take salts from our skin.
As we climbed higher up the mountainside, the heat began to get to us. The track lead us up through more grassland, then wound between two large copses of Poplar trees before opening out again. We climbed another 60 metres or so before we just had to stop in the shade of some conifers to cool down and allow our heart-rates to return to near normal. However, I was about to experience one of those magical moments of butterflying, and my heart-rate was shortly to rise rapidly again! I think everyone on this forum will have plenty of memories of the excitement and adrenalin-rush of their first sightings of certain species - who could ever forget their first close encounter with a Purple Emperor for example!
As we rested by the conifers, a huge butterfly flew over our heads and glided, open-winged, right down the hillside below us, following the track we had just climbed.
"Wow! What was that? That was enormous!" exclaimed my wife. I believe at this point that I was in denial, as I mumbled some unintelligent reply along the lines of "well, it could have been an Emperor, or maybe a Southern White Admiral", even though I knew damn well that it certainly wasn't the latter, and I had high suspicions that it wasn't an Emperor either. These suspicions were heightened when the butterfly, which still hadn't made a single wing-beat during its descent down the hill, abruptly made a left hand turn and alighted in a large Poplar tree. I was actually rooted to the spot for almost a minute! Could it have been what I suspected? Clearly this needed investigating...
We walked back down the track to the tree in question, and sure enough to my immense joy and amazement, about 20 feet up was a Poplar Admiral, a massive life tick for me! This was a female, and for the next hour we watched her as she laid 7 or 8 eggs, all high up. She took long rest periods in between each egg. The best photograph that I could manage is shown below, and is a poor, full zoom, cropped image, but it shows the beast in its lofty domain.
Whilst watching her, we also spotted another female just a couple of trees away, also engaged in the act of egg-laying, and we had several fabulous displays from a couple of males soaring above the tree-tops. Absolutely fantastic and without doubt the highlight of my butterfly year! We left this site in awe of these stunning and dramatic insects.
The following day we set off further north, calling in at a site where Ripart's Anomalous Blue had been flying last year. Sure enough, a very fresh example was nectaring close to the roadside:
After an overnight stop in Briancon, we then headed on to what would be our home base for four nights, a hotel in Modane on the edge of the Vanoise. Here we hit a couple of days of changeable weather, but several windows of opportunity presented themselves and I picked up two more life ticks in the form of the gorgeous Asian Fritillary and equally delightful Cranberry Blue.
The Asian Fritillaries were very amenable to being photographed as they came down onto the track to take salts, and I was very fortunate to get just a couple of shots of the one and only Cranberry Blue that we found.
So, this was a case of mission accomplished for me in terms of my two target species, and there was some celebration over a few drinks that evening, along with some excellent food at one of the local restaurants in Modane!
The following day we drove up a long and rough forest track to a site that Roger had recommended to me. It was well worth a visit, as there were huge numbers of mud-puddling butterflies - at times the air was just shimmering with blues,skippers, whites and fritillaries, quite mind-blowing!
Too soon it was time to begin our journey back south, but we had five nights left as we hotel-hopped via the Ecrins, and back through the Ubaye valley.
I couldn't resist a return visit to our Poplar Admiral site. By now it was a full seven days since we had watched the females egg-laying, so I wasn't sure that there would still be many, or even any, Poplar admirals about, but it was surely worth a look?
We got up to the site early, just before 10:00am, and I had my mind well and truly blown again as we found the master tree! Here we watched numerous dog-fights between rival males battling over the prime tree-top site. A male would approach and immediately be intercepted by the resident male. There then followed a long battle as the two males spiralled ever downwards, almost down to ground level. They were oblivious to us, and we were able to get very close to them, before they gradually rose and then accelerated to a great height, after which one of the males would retreat and fly well away whilst the other returned to the master tree. We watched this behaviour repeated numerous times between 10:00 and 11:15 as further males approached and battled. At one point we had four males in the air at once! Incredible stuff! It was almost impossible to get my camera to focus on them as they battled, and the two shots below are atrocious, but they kind of sum up the experience so I have included them. I still haven't come down off my Poplar Admiral cloud - it is the biggest "butterfly high" that I have had for many years!
Once again it was hard to leave this site behind, but we had some travelling to do.
The high altitude sites were mostly very disappointing this year, as the season at altitude was running late. In particular, the Col de la Bonette was virtually devoid of butterflies, but we did get an interesting sighting at around 2500m up, as a Fiery Clearwing landed on my wife's ankle (she did a good job of attracting butterflies and moths all holiday!)
One advantage of the season running late at high altitude was the large numbers of Cynthia's Fritillary on the wing. At one favourite site we had more than 250 males, and just 3 females on the wing - a wonderful experience to walk through damp, flowery hollows with four, five or six male Cynthia's all fighting over territory!
As we approached the end of our holiday, we revisited my favourite Alcon Blue site. It is usually possible to judge what stage of the flight period this species is at by simply looking on the cross-leaved Gentian plants, and sure enough, almost every plant had been peppered with eggs, indicating that the species had been on the wing for at least a week or two. The adults were not particularly fresh, but they were quite abundant this year and we saw around 25.
We ended our journey with two nights in the Tinee valley, where we found a nice fresh Large Tortoiseshell and several other species of interest, although numbers were well down on previous years.
And finally, a rather unusual photograph of a Wood White sat with its wings open.
What can I say in conclusion? Despite the lower than usual numbers of butterflies, and the lateness of the season at high altitude, this was once again an exceptional trip that has created some unforgettable memories and great moments. I was delighted to find my two target species, but as you may have gathered, populi just made the whole holiday for me!
