French Alps 4th - 11th July 2020

[David M]

Wednesday 8th July - Hard slog....

I wanted to travel to Alpe de Huez today, which is closer to Grenoble than Guillestre, and my AirBnB host reminded me that it'd be a tiresome trip due to camping cars clogging the roads up.

I felt he was exaggerating, but having only reached the turn to the ski resort after 2 hours of driving, I had to admit (mentally at least) that he was right.

However, every cloud has a silver lining, and a roadside stop before the steep climb up to the ski stations saw a surprise butterfly, one I have never seen in this area.

I think it is absent from the PACA Atlas but it is, presumably, recorded in Isère, as here it is....a summer brood Map:

[Medard]

Hi David, I am am one of the camping car enthusiasts clogging up the Roads of France along with the good people of France who yesterday decide to leave lockdown en masse and escape to the hills, god bless em.
wish me luck.

[David M]

I don't blame you, Jim. Hope you have a great trip and see plenty of what the area has to offer.

[David M]

I was astonished at the sheer size and scale of Alpe de Huez. It's a big ski resort, but it's almost like a wild plateau cut off from the rest of SE France - it almost feels as though you are on a high altitude island.

I hesitated to go past the end of civilisation (marked by the lower telecabine station) but pressed on and parked in the shadow of the second one at about 2,100m. Walking about, there weren't too many butterflies at first, but once I'd found some shelter they started to appear. Alpine Heaths at first, a few pyrgus Skippers, Large Blues and then what appeared to me to be a couple of male Moorland Clouded Yellows.

I've only ever seen this species twice before, and both were singletons, but when a silvery white butterfly settled 20 yards away from me, I was pretty sure it was a female palaeno:

Not long after, I saw another female come to ground. She was spotted by a male and there was a brief flurry of wing-beating before both became quite still. I walked down to investigate and found this:

It wasn't until after I looked at my images that I noticed that in this first image, the male's wings enclosed the female's:

....and yet 36 seconds later when this image was taken, the female's enveloped the male's:

I don't recall any shifting of position or wing flapping during this time, yet something must have happened for the pair's wings to swap position like this.....another baffling mystery from the world of lepidoptera.

[BarrieS]

David
A fantastic set of images of the Moorland Clouded Yellows.
I would say you were very privileged to witness and record this - almost certainly a once in a lifetime moment. Diligence and hard work does pay off sometimes.

Barrie

[Roger Gibbons]

I stopped off at Pete's ripartii spot today - two weeks after you saw it there, so I was wondering if it may have gone by now, but no, I did manage to see one. It has to be said that Pete has a happy knack of finding species where you would least expect them to be.

I mooched around the region for an hour or so to see if there were any others nearby, not expecting to, as when I see ripartii it is nearly always in singles. However, driving about 100m further on I spotted some roadside lavender bushes and I was sure what I had seen on them - another ripartii. Not that it was possible to get a decent photo on lavender in the wind, but just seeing these elusive species is most of the fun.

Roger

[David M]

Thanks, Barrie. Having never even seen two at the same site before I consider myself exceptionally lucky to have happened upon a mating pair. Might be a few years (if ever) before I see that again.

Roger - good that you tracked down ripartii. If I'd have had sufficient time (i.e. had it not taken me 70 minutes to find the one I did) then I would have stopped a mile or so further down at the Animal Park. The terrain looked inviting, with plenty of deciduous trees and a couple of likely-looking grassy slopes.

[David M]

This is the area where I saw the pair of palaeno:

There were plenty of Idas Blues in the grassy areas, as well as this one found near the lake:

However, once your eye gets attuned to certain species, you kind of know when something you see isn't 'right'. This little Blue had a richer upperside colour and when I caught a glimpse of the underside I suspected it was a Cranberry Blue:

I only got two images before it flew off, neither of which are in focus and are over-exposed. However, this second one shows the prominent orange spot at the base of the hindwing:

It was early in their flight season, so I was lucky to see it at all. I hung around for a while and checked out many other Blues, but they were all Idas.

Had I arrived earlier, I would probably have taken the telecabines up to 3,000m. It looked quite austere up there but there could well have been high altitude erebia up there. One for another time....

[essexbuzzard]

Congratulations on the cranberry blue, David. I have only ever seen one specimen, up at the Rosen garten in the Italian dolomites. Mine flew off before I could get even one picture, so you did better than me!

[Medard]

This morning at the Col de l'Izoard I had an unexpected surprise, a newly emerged Alpine Grayling, never though I would ever see this species, very excitingly, compensation for a difficult drive to the summit, it happily posed for the camera, if only they were so obliging.
I would send the pic but at the moment can’t get SnapBridge to work.

[petesmith]

This morning at the Col de l'Izoard I had an unexpected surprise, a newly emerged Alpine Grayling, never though I would ever see this species, very excitingly, compensation for a difficult drive to the summit, it happily posed for the camera, if only they were so obliging.
I would send the pic but at the moment can’t get SnapBridge to work.

Great stuff Jim! Congratulations - I have only seen this species a couple of times myself. It is a bit special isn't it...Best of luck with the rest of your trip!

[David M]

Congratulations on the cranberry blue, David. I have only ever seen one specimen, up at the Rosen garten in the Italian dolomites. Mine flew off before I could get even one picture, so you did better than me!

Thanks, Mark. Yes, it was frustrating how it never came back, but just to see it at all was a pleasure. 'Lifers' in France are pretty irregular for me these days.

[David M]

This morning at the Col de l'Izoard I had an unexpected surprise, a newly emerged Alpine Grayling, never though I would ever see this species, very excitingly, compensation for a difficult drive to the summit, it happily posed for the camera, if only they were so obliging.
I would send the pic but at the moment can’t get SnapBridge to work.

Great stuff Jim! Congratulations - I have only seen this species a couple of times myself. It is a bit special isn't it...Best of luck with the rest of your trip!

That's a real bonus, Jim. The ones I saw two years ago were distinctly faded even at the end of the first week of July, so fresh ones at this juncture are a major surprise.

Look forward to seeing a full report!

[Roger Gibbons]

It seems to me to have a been a bizarre year. In Savoie on 9 July the Asian Fritillaries were clearly a week past their best and the couple of male Cranberry Blues were also rather worn.

At Cayolle, realtively little was flying at Estence on 20 July (the savage cutting of the verges around the lake may have had something to do with that), but at the higher reaches it was carpeted with butterflies, even at the Col.

In the Queyras on 14 July very little was flying at the higher reaches, only a few Shepherd's Fritillaries, and no sign on Cynthia's or, more bizarrely, Dewy Ringlets. The weather wasn't great but in the few spells of sun it was easy enough to scour the hillsides from the road using binoculars.

On 13 July I stopped off at Izoard hoping to see fresh Alpine Graying (it being an even numbered year and I had seen two there in 2018) but two hours at the scree and a few spells of sun and all that flew was a singelton False Mnestra Ringlet.

So is it an early year or a late year? It seems to very much depend on where you are.

Roger

[David M]

The high altitudes have been odd ever since that Siberian cold snap in March 2018. Cynthia's were almost absent for me in 18 and 19, but I found them easily this year.

I'm not surprised Dewy Ringlets had gone, Roger. Many of them were on their last legs when I visited the area round the refuge on 5 July.

Maybe there have been highly localised conditions in SE France this year which has led to certain parts being more in advance than others?

[David M]

Thursday 9th July - New territory....

I decided to drive into the Ecrins in the morning and arrived at Aile Froide Pelvoux just before 10am. Hikers can climb up to the glacier from here and quite a few were doing so on this beautiful morning. I spent an hour searching for butterflies, with Alpine Heaths and Large Ringlets being the only species seen in numbers.

I did manage to find my only certain Turquoise Blue of the week here though:

Not wanting to waste too much time, I left at 11am and headed for Nevache, where I had read that there were plenty of flowery meadows. Unfortunately, most of them had clearly been grazed, although there were a few down near the river which were thankfully still pristine:

There were phenomenal numbers of butterflies in these meadows, including more Apollos than I think I've ever seen in one place; there were several dozen of them flying up and down the slopes:

The real business was to be had down by the river though. As I approached the bridge I disturbed a huge butterfly that was concealed in a muddy trench next to the path. Thankfully, it settled in a nearby tree:

It's always great to see a Poplar Admiral, especially one in such good condition as this. It descended again shortly afterwards and I had to hold back a group of kids with two adults from disturbing it as they passed. They watched with some interest as this huge butterfly flew from one damp spot to another:

This damp track and the marshy fields adjacent also gave me my only Lesser Marbled Fritillaries of the week:

[petesmith]

It's always great to see a Poplar Admiral, especially one in such good condition as this.

Wow David, that is one pristine Poplar admiral underside! What a stunner.

[David M]

Best I've ever seen, Pete (although it was only competing in a pool of about ten!!)

[David M]

After encountering the Poplar Admiral, I decided to walk across the bridge and investigate the pathway on the other side.

I wandered about 200m down this track until I came across something very tempting.

I spend a lot of time in the mountains of France, and there are few things I love more than a pristine, untouched alpine meadow, but the image below is of something I consider even more precious, maybe the most precious of all.....a verdant, sheltered, little frequented high altitude track, adjacent to water, with muddy ground and relatively unfrequented by human beings.

Beyond this stretch the track had been fenced off as it was an EDF location (French Electricity Board) and there was an artificial dam with buildings to help generate electricity:

This area was submerged with puddling butterflies, hundreds and hundreds of them, and I had them all to myself.

Most were species I'd seen before - Idas and Silver Studded Blues, Large Ringlets, Small Tortoiseshells, Glandon Blues, Heath & False Heath Fritillaries, etc, but there was one that stood out - Damon Blue:

There were also a few Sloe Hairstreaks nectaring on the umbellifers by the side of the track; a welcome sight, as the week had been practically Hairstreak-bereft up until this point:

I could have spent hours in this spot, but after eating my lunchtime sandwich I decided to head back to the car through the damp meadows. Whilst doing so I encountered this little treasure, a female Scarce Copper, the only one I saw during my trip:

[Padfield]

It's really great to follow your trip David, with all these wonderful butterflies. As you know, most of them were on my doorstep (some literally) until recently, and I do miss them. Poplar admirals are a particular favourite - rare, beautiful and with such an effortlessly commanding presence. It is always a treat to be granted an audience with one.

Guy