European Butterflies - A personal diary

[selbypaul]

The next day was the flight home. It was an early afternoon flight, so it wasn’t too rushed to get back to the airport. The flight back also went smoothly, the whole of the flight being above clear blue skies, all the way back to the UK.

So, what would be my summary of the week in Sicily? In many ways, a highly successful trip. I saw six new species, out of my target eight species. The weather in the second part of the week was great, and I had some brilliant butterflying experiences.

However, the weather earlier in the week wasn’t brilliant, and the butterfly season was so late compared to a “normal” year, making the number of butterflies low and preventing me from seeing arguably the most important target species.

Overall I saw 37 species, not a large amount, but actually not too bad considering the weather and the late spring.

Most importantly, my overriding memory of the holiday will be the long periods of driving. The roads were actually very quiet. But the quality of the roads was a real difficulty, particularly with this not being clear on SatNavs, nor all the road closures being marked on them. So, anybody considering this trip for themselves will seriously need to take this into account, and go into it open eyed.

Sicily is a wonderful part of Italy, full of many treats, not just butterflies. But the driving is a key factor that really needs to be carefully considered.

[David M]

Fair play, Paul, your recent trip to the Canaries saw you suffer some awful conditions and now your visit to Sicily brought about weather and road-related trauma that would be considered severe even in the UK!!

Effort, commitment and perseverance are what is required...and you have all of these in spades.

I'm so glad you ticked off a few special species in such a beautiful location, and remember, you did this in the worst of times....it'll surely never be this bad again!

[selbypaul]

Thanks David.
I think we've all suffered for our butterflying passion, one way or another. If it were easy, it wouldn't be enjoyable! Here's hoping for good weather in western Europe in the next 14 days!

[David M]

Indeed, Paul. We've certainly earned a decent break from poor conditions, and what better way than for it to start next week!

[selbypaul]

Only 12 days back in the UK, I was off again, this time on the Greenwings Butterfly and Botany holiday to the Eastern French Pyrenees.

Elsewhere on the UK Butterflies Forum, David Moore has already posted an excellent report, listing all the species seen in the week. The focus of my own next eight posts will instead be a day by day description of the new (to me) and exciting species seen, and the locations they were seen.

So, early in the morning on Thursday 26th May we arrived at Stansted airport. Thankfully the much reported airport chaos wasn’t in evidence. The only minor inconvenience was a 40 minute delay to the flight. This actually turned out to be quite fortuitous, as our two guides for the week (David Moore and Jon Dunn) were already in France and were stuck in a terrible traffic jam on the motorway! They arrived at Perpignan airport just as we did!

It was then a short one hour drive to our hotel in Vernet les Bains, an absolutely gorgeous village with hundreds of Swifts screaming constantly above, very appreciative of the rich insect life. The hotel itself was lovely, and a great base for the week.

After checking in, and a brief 15 minutes to freshen up, we were off out butterflying, driving the short distance up from the village to Tor de Goa.

As you can see from the photos, the sky was virtually cloudless, and it was excellent butterflying conditions. The area had experienced an extreme heatwave five days earlier, followed by two days of rain. This meant that the vegetation was lush, and the butterfly season was now highly advanced compared to previous years.

View from the side of Tor de Goa

The clear blue skies!

In just 90 minutes, I managed to rack up 20 species of butterfly, with two particular highlights being Provence Orange Tip (Anthocharis eupenoides) and Chequered Blue (Scolitantides orion), as they were both new species to me. Chequered Blue was of particular importance to me, as I’d missed out on it on so many previous holidays, despite it being a relatively widespread butterfly.

Chequered Blue

This female Provence Orange Tip appeared to have only recently emerged, and so was very well behaved for photos.

Provence Orange Tip (female)

Also of note was this Marsh Fritillary (Euphydryas aurina form beckeri), which is the first beckeri I’d seen.

Marsh Fritillary, form beckeri

Finally, the Common Blue’s (Polyommatus icarus) in this location were incredibly large and shiny, and kept distracting us! Not sure why they were so different here, but they were definitely Common Blue!

Common Blue

A fantastic start to the trip, with great weather forecast all week….

[selbypaul]

Day 2 dawned a bit more cloudy than forecast, but by mid-morning the cloud had burned off, and the rest of the day was hot and sunny.

Our first stop was on the road near the village of Conat, just 30 minutes drive from the hotel. It was still cloudy at this point. However, there were still a good number of butterflies, including my first ever Provencal Fritillary (Melitaea deione) and Turquoise Blue (Polyommatus dorylas).

Provencal Fritillary

Turquoise Blue

We then drove to an area near the village of Py, where we did a circular walk on both sides of the river. This proved to include the best meadow of the whole holiday, with a huge diversity in butterfly species. The highlights being Clouded Apollo (Parnassius mnemosyne), our only confirmed Safflower Skipper (Pyrgus carthami) of the week, and our first de Prunner’s Ringlet (Erebia triaria). This is when the sun came out, we spent a good time here, including our lunch stop.

Our second stop, near Py

Clouded Apollo

We then drove south west, higher up above Py, where we walked slowly down the narrow and quiet mountain road, occasionally popping into the meadows at the side. There were a very large number of Apollo (Parnassius apollo) flying and settling on the thistles. I’ve only ever seen larger numbers once, in Switzerland.

Higher up, above Py

Apollo

It also provided a good opportunity to see more Provence Orange Tips, specifically the males. They were highly active, but did regularly stop for 5 seconds to feed on their Biscutella foodplant. If you waited long enough by a plant, then it allowed you a five second window to take a photo!

Provence Orange Tip (male)

A total of 48 species seen in the day, including one further new species for me. Another fantastic day.

[selbypaul]

Day 3 was forecast to be the hottest day of the week, with cloudless skies, and so it proved to be. David and Jon drove us to our furthest (from the hotel) location for the week. Our first stop was not too far from the Spanish territory of Llivia, where there is a Violet Copper (Lycaena helle) colony.

The first site, not too far from Llivia

We didn’t have any luck with that species here, but we did with other species, including our only Baton Blue (Scolitantides baton) of the week, and my first ever Provence Chalkhill Blue (Poltommatus hispanus).

We then drove to an area near Andorra, to another known Violet Copper site. This time we were lucky, and there were both male and female showing well.

The second site, near Andorra

Violet Copper (male)

Violet Copper (female)

In addition, there was a very fresh Duke of Burgundy (Haemearis lucina), and I was able to take my best ever photo of this species.

Duke of Burgundy

This is only my second sighting of this lovely and now very scarce species. After a long lunch, including more butterfly spotting, we then drove the long distance back to the hotel, stopping at halfway back down the Tet valley for an hour, for refreshments on this very hot day.

[selbypaul]

Day 4 involved an hour long drive to an area around Sournia. The habitat was very different to anything we’d previously been in earlier in the holiday, much drier, as the hugely abundant Cistus plants proved.

The Sournia area

In the morning we spent our time at one site, where we saw our first Western Marbled White’s (Melanargia occitanica) of the holiday, another brand new species for me. These were incredibly active and very hard to photograph!

Western Marbled White (underside)

Also a fantastic Cardinal (Argynnis pandora), which Jon spotted, as well as Cleopatra (Gonepteryx cleopatra) and Blue Spot Hairstreak (Satyrium spini).

Blue Spot Hairstreak

We drove a short distance to lunch, where a previously highly mobile Western Marbled White stopped to have its own lunch, right next to me.

Western Marbled White (upperside)

It was at this site where we saw our only Spanish Festoon (Zerynthia rumina) of the trip, a bit faded at the end of its flight season, but another new species for me.

Spanish Festoon

The target species here was Spanish Fritillary (Euphydryas desfontainii) at its only known French site. No luck sadly, despite extensive searching by all in the group. We did get even better photos of a Provence Chalkhill Blue (Poltommatus hispanus) however.

Provence Chalkhill Blue

By mid afternoon it was starting to become very hot, and so we were ready for an ice cream back in Vernet les Bains.

[selbypaul]

Day 5 involved a lot more driving for David and Jon than they had expected. A road closure meant a very large diversion in the afternoon.

Our first stop in the morning was a lovely meadow west of a village called Mosset. It began a bit dull, but by 10.30am the sun had burnt off the clouds and the butterflies emerged in profusion, including Bright Eyed Ringlet (Erebia oeme) and my first ever Meadow Fritillary (Melitaea parthenoides).

Meadow near Mosset

The flowers in the meadow

Meadow Fritillary

We stopped for lunch at the top of Col de Jau, but it was cool and windy, so very little was flying other than Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae).

Dropping down the other side, this is when we faced the road closure and diversion, which I’d estimate lost us at least an hour using the alternative route to get to a wooded gorge near Aunat. Luckily the sun came out again, and we saw our only Silver Studded Blues (Plebejus argus) of the week.

The road near Aunat

Jon was in his element too, with a particular 50 metre stretch of roadside bank holding 12+ orchid species.

As we left for the long drive back to the hotel, it began to cloud over, and there was some very heavy rain halfway through the journey, our only rain of the whole week.

[selbypaul]

Day 6 was mainly spent at Forca Real, our lowest/driest site of the week, close to Perpignan. The weather was back to being sunny and hot again.

The view from the top of Forca Real

This proved to be a fantastic location, as I managed to find a mating pair of Dusky Heath (Coenonympha dorus), and a large number of hill topping Swallowtails (Papilio machaon) and Iberian Scarce Swallowtails (Iphiclides feisthamelii). Also a very well behaved Cardinal.

Mating Dusky Heath's

Cardinal

The highlight of the day, however, for all of us, was three Two-Tailed Pasha (Charaxes jasius). Initially we only saw the one, which was very active and refused to settle. However, strangely, at almost precisely midday, all three chose to settle for five minutes at a time, allowing us to take some excellent photos.

Two Tailed Pasha

Unexpectedly, we all managed to see a single very early Great Banded Grayling (Brintesia circe).

The afternoon involved a return to Tor de Goa, in the hope of seeing Purple Shot Copper (Lycaena alciphron). David and Jon did see one, but none of the rest of the group did. It was very overcast and muggy by this time, and we didn’t see many species of butterfly.

The top of Tor de Goa

However we did get very close views (twice) of a Lammergeier (Bearded Vulture).

[selbypaul]

Day 7 was our final butterflying day of the holiday. Because we’d had such good fortune with the weather, and seen nearly all the target species, David and Jon gave the group a choice about which sites to revisit.

The consensus was to revisit the area near Llivia first. The reason being that the season was so advanced that there was a good chance that Bog Fritillary (Boloria eunomia) might have emerged. It would have been a new species for many, including David, Jon and I, so we all agreed it was worth a try.

Sadly, it proved not to be, despite a number of other Fritillary species being determined to tempt us into chasing them! With the weather again hot and sunny, it can only have been one or two days later that they will have emerged.

We stopped nearby for an hour at Eyne for lunch.

The view near Eyne

In the afternoon, we returned to the narrow road above Py, where we’d seen all the Apollo’s on Day 2. If anything there were even more Apollo’s on this day.

[selbypaul]

There was no time for butterflying on Day 8, with a very early breakfast at 7am, arriving at Perpignan airport at 9am, and we were back in the UK for around 2pm.

This really was an excellent holiday, with the group of us getting along extremely well. Of course, it goes without saying that David and Jon were superb as ever.

In total, over the course of the week, the group racked up 93 species, of which I saw 87. Of the 87 species I saw, 7 were new, namely: Provence Orange Tip, Chequered Blue, Provencal Fritillary, Provence Chalkhill Blue, Western Marbled White, Spanish Festoon and Meadow Fritillary.

Covid and airlines permitting, I have one more European butterflying trip this summer. Looking forward to it already!

[David M]

Aah, happy memories, Paul.

It was indeed a very pleasant trip, and thanks for posting the Dusky Heath pairing, something which I inexplicably overlooked!!

[Padfield]

A wonderful trip, Paul, that you will remember for years to come! I remember all my 'firsts' ...

At the risk of being a party-pooper, what makes you say that is a Provençal fritillary? To me, it looks absolutely classic heath fritillary (nevadensis, or what we used to call celadussa). I see no deione in it at all. I understand you might have had other views of it, showing something incompatible with heath, so it is a genuine question! It is just so heath, in every way, I had to comment ... (I speak as one who has in the past sent pics of imagined deione to Lafranchis, only to have them downgraded to celadussa).

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

I agree 100%, not that Guy needs confirmation, I add .

The heavy shading around forewing marginal lunule s2 is a sure sign of athalia (or whatever flavour of athalia flies in that region). Also, the forewing mark in s1 discal is characteristic (rather like a skeleton key) for deione, and this image is very different.

Male deione is quite orange by contrast. Female deione has colour contrasted bands to a greater or lesser extent, but the caveat here is that female athalia can have some degree of contrast.

I hope these clues are helpful.

Roger

[selbypaul]

Roger, Guy - No need to apologise at all, either of you. I'm absolutely still learning with many of the species, just six years into all this European butterflying!

I definitely posted the wrong picture, which was indeed a Heath Fritillary. However, now I'm coming to post a "correct" picture of a Provencal Fritillary, I've lost confidence in my ability to differentiate them. Here are two other individuals I took photos of on the same day, that I thought were Provencal Fritillary. Am I incorrect again?

Provencal or not? - Individual 1

Provencal or not? - Individual 2

[Roger Gibbons]

I would say your first is athalia based on the heavy shading around forewing marginal lunule s2 and it doesn't have the look of deione from what I can see of it. I can't see enough of the second to offer an opinion. I think it is a species that when you see it, it instinctively looks different.

Here is a shot of a female on the left, male on the right, with the key forewing s1 discal mark ringed. I think this is constant and quite clear. See what Guy thinks.

Roger

[Padfield]

I go for nevadensis for the first ( I know Roger doesn't have much time for all these new-fangled splits) and parthenoides for the second.

In Switzerland, where we have our own subspecies of deione, the 'skeleton key' mark (I think of it as a dumbell) is absolutely constant, in male and female alike. I have less acquaintance with the nominate subspecies. The mark is shown in many books, but the individual in Lafranchis's 'Papillons de France', for example, lacks it (that individual is, in many ways, very atypical).

This is a Swiss deione male:



And this is a female:



In both sexes, the markings are very complete (note the hindwings in particular) and rather regular. The nominate subspecies is more finely marked and less heavy around the margins in particular.

We are lucky in Switzerland that the species is instantly identifiable from the underside, by the swellings on the black marginal line, but after many years I find it instantly recognisable from any angle now. I spotted a male by a water trough in Martigny this year:



I learnt the same day that a local had been growing toadflax in his garden precisely to attract it!

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

I think it should be said that identifying certain species is not easy (despite what Lafranchis said on the cover of one of his books). I mentioned that sometimes it is necessary to see a species for sure for the first time and then the difference from similar species becomes clear. It is just a matter of experience, not some special ability.

Some species, such as athalia (and his cohorts – celadussa/nevadensis and helvetica?) is hugely variable (there examples of this on my athalia page). It is one of the commonest species in southern France and variable even within a limited range. Quite often there is a hindwing “gap” and I have known even experienced people to assume it to be parthenoides (Meadow Fritillary).

I took some photos of what I believe are deione in the eastern Pyrenees in May. I don’t know for sure and will study them when I get back in August. Having said that the discal s1 mark is constant, these were lightly marked and the “crossbar” was very faint. There were reasons why the only other contender (athalia) could be ruled out. Sometimes ID is a matter of elimination, i.e. which species has the least reasons why it can’t be that.

So, Paul, don’t despair if you find some species tricky – we all do.

Roger

[Andy02]

Funnily enough , I had the same conundrum in the Eastern Spanish Pyrenees at the beginning of June. I went through the deione photos in both Rogers and Guys excellent sites , and having not found enough deione features , ended with a presumed richly marked Athalia