Autumn in Tuscany

[wavelea1]

Using Paul's title I thought I too would add some colour to your existence.

Having just spent a glorious week in Bagni di Lucca - a very hilly area of Tuscany, where the accommodation, food and company was just excellent we (that is Susie, my better half, and I) thought there might still be something worth taking pics of other than Italy - we were oh so right.

My wife - who regularly states that 'this holiday is not just about butterflies' - took as many pics as I did and was just as excited ( I've just dowloaded nearly 400). In one small (possibly 25m square area) we spent over two hours photographing some 30+ species and just when we were thinking that the Spotted or Queen of Spain Fritillaries, the Long-tailed blue, the Southern White Admiral or the Mallow Skipper was the capture of the day out came a Giant Banded Grayling - nearly a three inch wingspan (I'm guessing) - we saw six of these monsters.

Tuscany is just magic and we did it all without the aid of a car?????

Suntanned Mike

Some pics I'm struggling to identify, see help1 - can any of you help with the first one, please. More to follow I expect especially the Fritillaries?

[JKT]

The first seems to be Lasiommata maera, though there is a slight chance for L. petropolitana as the critical location is not entirely clear.

[Charles Nicol]

Thanks for sharing your Tuscan pics !!

I saw my first Great Banded Grayling in the south of France in August. At first I thought it was a Camberwell Beauty !!
They are delightful creatures & quite comfortable around humans.

Charles

[Denise]

Hi Mike,
Sorry, I can't help you with the ID, but what lovely pics. Thanks for sharing them.
You must have had a great time. Next year I'm saving my family holiday until late Sept.

Cheers
Denise

[wavelea1]

Thanks Guys - life is so much easier with this contact.

JKT - please keep watching as there are more to come.....

Charles - I too thought this could be my first Camberwell but I wasn't disappointed their size and majesty was breathtaking.

Denise - I can recommend it. It sort of sets you up for the coming months of austerity. I can also recommend this small area of the planet - we had a great time and flew from Bristol. By the way I forgot to mention how hard it was to photograph everything we saw in that terrain - and we saw many that really intrigued us - either flying over or as we disturbed them. Even in the garden of the villa we stayed at there was probably 10 species on view throughout the day but I only managed to grab shots of about 3.


If you are up for it there are two more pics attached - both of which I would like your assistance. The first is probably the trickiest as I couldn't get any underside shots... The second looks like a hybrid of a Small Copper and a Brown Argus???

Thanks
Mike

[JKT]

Actually, the first is quite easy. The wing shape, patterns and flight time scream: Issoria lathonia.
The second looks like female Lycaena tityrus or maybe L. alciphron. I think we need Padfield for this.

P.S. Check your system time...

[Pete Eeles]

I agree - lathonia and tityrus (Queen of Spain Fritillary, and male Sooty Copper).

Cheers,

- Pete

[Paul]

agreed so far with all IDs.. maera, Large Wall Brown is correct for 2.

[wavelea1]

Most excellent guys and I appreciate your help.

I think the sooty copper I had guessed but the fritillary stumped me despite the wing shape as others we photographed had much more destinctive markings....... and it's a pity I thought I might have captured a Violet Fritillary????

Please watch this space as there are just a couple more to come.... thanks once again

Mike

[Padfield]

I'm glad you had such a great time! You obviously had better weather there than we have been having not so far away in CH. It snowed today - bitterly cold on my trips in and out of school.

I haven't logged in for a few days, being snowed under with work, too. But I agree with all the (final) IDs. Where I live, petropolitana is single brooded and never lasts this late. In contrast maera usually hangs on into October (but not this year). But in any case, your photo is clear enough to identify your butterfly as maera.

Guy

[wavelea1]

Hi Padfield

Good to hear from you - I find it quite exciting to know that assistance is coming from as far away as Switzerland and Finland - JKT (is it snowing there too)

Attached are three more shots. One cos it's a beauty and the other two are long shots. The main problem with the wonderful terrain in Tuscany is that chasing butterflies is out of the question - so when you see something that interests you - you track it until it is out of reach (this happens quickly and often) and then you take a pic anyway (200 mm lens only) and hope.

After the next two identities - if they are possible I'll leave you alone but many thanks to all who have added to my enjoyment of September in Tuscany.

JKT - Butterflies in Finland - I'm intrigued?

Mike

[Pete Eeles]

HI Mike - I'll leave the first one to the experts!

The second is, I believe, another Queen of Spain Fritillary (on the left). The shape of the hindwing is one of the main distinguishing features of the QoS, even at a distance!

Cheers,

- Pete

[JKT]

The first looks like Lampides boeticus to me. There is very light hint of blue left on the wings and the front wing shape looks wrong for C. marshalli.
The second picture is not going to be more than guesses. It might be a case of Issoria lathonia with Argynnis paphia on the right. The Skipper works well for scale! I wouldn't be surprised if both were wrong, though.

The weather here is nice and sunny - until you go out. The temp in the morning was near freezing. The last of the hibernating Nymphalidae may still be out, but not many of them. The few last moths have just started their flight. I here there has been snow in the north too...

Edit: So Pete beat me to the Queen. I'll add this to the first one: The single spot on the rear wing limited the possibilities nicely. Considering my C. marshalli pictures are from Riva, I'd better add Italy to the distribution.

[wavelea1]

Hi Guys and many thanks...

Pete - brilliant. As for you not being the expert I tend to look to you as the font of all knowledge and given the quality of the pics I submitted I've no complaints. I might have a pic of a Cardinal but it is such poor quality that I'm not testing you with it.....

JKT - great. It turns out that this is only one of two pics of the Long-tailed Blue I'm keeping. Both cameras had difficulty focusing on this species and with Sooz and my eyesight not being the best manual focus at distance is always problematic.
As an aside how many species exist in Finland not counting immigrants and are they more or less what we have here?

Finally out of about 420 pics I'm down to just 175 covering about 20 species not inc. Meadow browns etc. so it was a great week and return trips are on the cards. Strange as I wasn't going to bother with European Butterflies thinking I would have enough with the British species - but once bitten.
(Tuscany was just magic - by the way if any of you have been watching the series on Channel 4 - 'My life in Italy' or something like that - we met Sarah in Lucca).

So thanks again to all who have helped and taken part in this session - hope it's brought some light relief from the British summer of 2008 and I'll leave you with the luckiest find given its colouring

Mike

[Denise]

Mike wrote
Strange as I wasn't going to bother with European Butterflies thinking I would have enough with the British species - but once bitten.

Likewise! Butterflies are just great wherever you happen to be.
Thanks for sharing your photo's and experience with us. The Mallow Skipper is lovely. I found them quite charming in Kos.
I love the Southern White Admiral.

Cheers
Denise

[JKT]

As an aside how many species exist in Finland not counting immigrants and are they more or less what we have here?

Well, the count is about 119 with the migrants included. It is somewhat difficult to say which are pure migrants at any given time - many have come, stayed for a few years and then gone again. Naturally there are some extreme cases, but I haven't tried to count them. As to differences ... see for yourself: http://www.tyllinen.eu/Butterflies/ButterfliesFin.htm. Basically we have some arctic species (some occur on the Alps - some don't) and a few eastern species. On the other hand we lack a few southern ones.

[Tony Moore]

[quote="Denise"]Mike wrote:
Strange as I wasn't going to bother with European Butterflies thinking I would have enough with the British species.

Exactly what I thought two years ago . Having now seen and photographed (after a fashion) all usual British species, I'm thinking of visiting extended family in Lithuania next year, to see what I can find. We are also off to Indonesia, diving, over Christmas; my wife is already looking anxious when I talk about possible excursions into the rain forest to look for leps . Expect a large photo entry in the 'I.D. please' section in January . At least, it will shorten the winter .

T.

[Padfield]

The fritillary on the right is tricky. It can only be Queen of Spain or female silver-washed. A trick I often use with dogy angles and skewed perspectives is to try and right the image using image software. A quick rotate squish and stretch on this fritillary gives this:



It is difficult to be certain but that looks much more like QoS to me. The butterfly is moving, so the picture is blurred, but it has QoS jizz about it (even though the process hasn't really returned the wings to true QoS shape).

Guy

[JKT]

Well, it still looks more like paphia to me. The angle shape is missing from the rear wings and the size compared to the other is huge.

[Paul]

Given the relative size of the rt hand frit to the QoS, does it not seem more paphia, female, as Guy suggested as a possibility?