Thanks Mike. It’s difficult to judge the Provence hairstreak situation with this weather. I know they fly where I was looking but it seems to be an exceptionally early spring and it’s not impossible they’re over. For example, every previous time I’ve visited, in February and March, there have been several species of bee orchid, including the lovely yellow ones, in flower. This year, none at all. As it poured with rain all day today, I have no further news!
Thanks for the ID, Buggy and Jack. I don’t recognise the category of ‘pest’ unless it is understood to include
Homo sapiens, so for the time being I’ll simply rejoice in their noisy, cheerful greenness.
Thanks David and Wurzel. Monarchs are now firmly established in the south of Spain, David. If you’ve never seen one in the wild, you could probably Easyjet to Málaga, spend a happy day’s photographing them and Easyjet back home again all for less than the price of a day trip to London. Unless, of course, you have to go to London to catch the plane. It doesn’t really matter when you go. I’ve seen them there in February, March, April and July.
That said, you’d be taking a gamble on the weather. Today, despite a favourable forecast, it rained almost all day. I went up into the hills with high hopes but the skies never cleared for more than ten minutes at a stretch and I was caught in downpours on several occasions. It was still raining at 16h00 after I had finally given up in the hills and set off for the bus station to get timetables for later in the week. Up till then my catch for the day was meagre: painted lady, clouded yellow, Bath white, long-tailed blue and wall. I saw a few large whites and small whites and three monarchs in town on my way to the bus station, but didn’t really have anything to show for the day. Then the sun came out and looked as if it might stay out a while, so I headed back to my Ziz Knys haunts on the offchance. No show for Ziz Knys but I did get my first (amazingly) green-striped white of the holiday:
I have a strong emotional attachment to this butterfly, dating back to my days in Gibraltar in 1983.
While I was there I took some more shots of monarchs. This is the same one I photographed yesterday, with a hairline fracture in the right forewing:
This is a different individual (a female, lacking the sex brand on v2 of the hindwing):
Here is an underside of that second individual (I think - there were at least three flying around):
And another upperside:
Quite magnificent butterflies.
Guy
EDIT: Evidence that this really is an early spring. I thought the green-striped white looked a little different from usual. I now recognise it is because it is a second brood individual, with more diffuse, slightly yellowish underside markings.