Padfield

[David M]

....The Alps are just wonderful

...and that post shows why!

Intoxicating mélange of butterflies, Guy, and it's wonderful that Cardinals seem to be adapting to recent Swiss citizenship (Iolas Blues are welcome residents too!)

[millerd]

Those two fresh Cardinals (male and female) are just gorgeous insects, Guy. At least some species are extending their range.

Cheers,

Dave

[kevling]

Lovely images from the Rhône valley, Guy.
I especially love the Provençal short-tailed blue in copulation. Just like Wurzel, the Chequered Blue is a species high on my list too.
Look forward to more reports.

Kind Regards
Kev

[Padfield]

Thank you for your comments, Benjamin, Wurzel, David, Dave and Kev!

Minnie and I are now back in Switzerland, living in a different village but in the same broad region as before. I hope I can now start documenting the butterfly (and other) life here again. We arrived a week ago, but only in the last couple of days have I been able to get out on my own and see what is about.

Today I visited a favourite site for tailed blues, inspired by Neil Hulme's fascinating accounts of long-tailed blue. This site is a small hill in the valley, where long-tailed blues arrive every year without fail, even though they are a relatively sparse migrant in Switzerland, as in much of Europe. Every year, different individuals must be drawn by the same geographical and ecological signals to the same corner of the same field, to breed on the same bladder senna. Typically, they arrive in July, but they are always still on the wing in September. Today there were dozens of them, twisting across the field in that agitated way, then spiralling tens of metres into the air every time they encountered each other (I only saw males today). They hardly ever paused for longer than a few seconds, as whenever one did, another swiftly challenged it. When they did stop, sainfoin was their favourite tipple:





Short-tailed blues were out in force too. This is generally scarcer in Switzerland than Provençal short-tailed blue, but on the increase. At this site, it is chiefly associated with bird's foot trefoil, though I have seen females lay on sainfoin too. Today, they were all over the trefoil:





Here is one of the eggs that female laid:



In the September thread, Jack Harrison wondered why this species doesn't fly in the UK. I was wondering exactly the same thing today as I watched so many of them in a field of trefoil, clover and sainfoin. Here is a male, pausing a moment in his pursuit of females:



Before heading home, I dropped a little lower down the hill to a rocky, climber's paradise where blackthorn is abundant. Sure enough, I quickly saw a beautiful brown hairstreak female:





She was vast - about the size of a meadow brown. I had seen - and rejected as a figment of my imagination - another (or the same), vast female disappearing over the cliff edge in my tails site. Everything screamed out betulae except the size, which seemed to rule out the species. The photos of the second sighting show it was for real.

Finally, here is Minnie back in her natural habitat, first at the top of a mountain, then running along by the Rhône:





I was worried she'd got too used to the flatlands of East Anglia, but she's still a happy puppy on alpine slopes!

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

From memory, didn't Short-tailed Blues once occur in Dorset in the late 1800s, when it was known as the Bloxworth Blue. I did have a mooch around Bloxworth some 50 years ago, but I didn't find any.

Good to see "normal Padfield" resumed.

Roger

[essexbuzzard]

Good to hear you are back in CH, Guy. And an excellent selection of butterflies to welcome you back. Great times are coming, as you explore your new surroundings. And that means more pictures for the rest of us to drool over!

[Mark Tutton]

Lovely to have you back Guy, and great to see Minnie back in her natural habitat!
Kind Regards
Mark

[Neil Hulme]

Great to see you and Minnie back in your special place. I'm equally fascinated to hear what Long-tailed Blues are doing on your patch. Along with Duke of Burgundy and Purple Emperor, it has now become one of my three favourite species of British butterfly, qualifying as a regularly occurring migrant. Wishing you and Minnie many more happy adventures.
BWs, Neil

[Vince Massimo]

Welcome back, Guy and Minnie, we are all looking forward to hearing about your new Swiss adventures .
...and no rolling about in Marmot poo (that goes for Minnie as well).

Vince

[bugboy]

Ahh yes, great to see regular Padfield resumed

[Pete Eeles]

From memory, didn't Short-tailed Blues once occur in Dorset in the late 1800s, when it was known as the Bloxworth Blue. I did have a mooch around Bloxworth some 50 years ago, but I didn't find any.

Good to see "normal Padfield" resumed.

Roger

Glad to see you back in your adopted homeland, Guy!

Roger - there are at least 18 sightings (and 19 records) of Short-tailed Blue. I've mapped them in QGIS (what a great free resource!) which provides an interesting perspective of sightings beyond Bloxworth!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Pauline]

Good to see you back Guy even if it is on the cusp of my 'hibernation' and already loving the shots of Minnie

[Benjamin]

No doubt the lovely folks that comment in your diary are genuinely pleased to see you back because they know what it means to you, but it must also be the case (it certainly is for me) that they are pleased because of what it means for them! We’re finally back in the mountains and can once again enjoy this most beautiful combination of scenery and butterflies. Only a superbly high quality PD could make people feel this way!

[Wurzel]

Brilliant to see that you're back in your natural habitat Guy and looking forward to vicariously enjoying the Swiss butterflies again My only regret is that it might make attending the Winter Social less likely this year as it was great meeting you and Minnie last year

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

It fair warms my heart to see you and Minnie back in your beloved Swiss mountains, Guy.

I'm eagerly looking forward to the new series of 'Normal Padfield', which I'm sure will be just as good as those released several years ago.

[Padfield]

Thank you all for your very kind messages. I won't be posting anything too exotic here soon, as autumn is well advanced and butterflies are thinning. Nevertheless, I should be able to provide a little winter interest. While everything is hibernating in the UK, a few butterflies always hang on in the Rhône Valley, including, of course those Queen of Spain fritillaries.

Yesterday, indeed, I headed along the Rhône Valley to my cardinal site. I last saw these on 21st May this year, when they were fresh and orange. Those butterflies will either have headed up to the hills or aestivated without breeding for the heat of the summer, before returning in force to breed in July/August. Today, they still had the breeding force in them, and though I mostly saw males (the females were probably wandering around the vineyards laying), I saw at least one couple zooming up into the sky before the female rejected the male and returned to a buddleia. In total I must have seen upwards of 25 males but just 2 confirmed females.

This is the first I saw, far from the main autumn site:



Some were in better nick than this:



But all showed the characteristic tarnished colours of age.



It was a real delight to see them. My mission for 2023 is to get photos of the early stages. Their population has grown so much, it shouldn't be as hard as it was before. Searching the violets for cardinal cats in the past, I've only found Queen of Spain cats.

They were not the only delight. Lots of blues were flying, here and at my next site further along the Rhône. These included idas, Adonis, common, chalkhill and holly:


(idas)


(Adonis)


(Adonis)


(common)


(the best I could do for chalkhill!)

Obviously, there were Queens of Spain everywhere:



What I didn't expect to see, however, was southern white admiral:



Again, I last saw this at the same site on 24th May. Sometimes this species puts in two broods, but it also generally has a protracted flight period. I can't tell from just two data points which it is this year.

Clouded yellows and Berger's clouded yellows usually fly into November or December:


(Berger's)

There were no skippers on the wing - very surprisingly - and no swallowtails - less surprisingly. Whites were out in good numbers, including large, green-veined, southern small and eastern Bath. This was my first southern small of the year:





Minnie has a fascination for squirrels. In Woodbridge, they were of the grey variety. Back in the Alps, she has black squirrels to taunt. I took this the other day in Leysin:



It is the same species as red squirrel, but the dark, alpine form.

Guy

[Wurzel]

Great to see the reports come rolling in Guy - especially interested to see the Berger's having seen a few Cloudy's at the weekend so it's nice to have a comparison. Looking forward to some more good stuff soon

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

Lovely stuff, Guy. I'd counter your suggestion that you have nothing 'exotic' to present though! Cardinal, Idas Blue and Southern White Admiral are anything but mundane, and you can send some of those mannii our way if you get chance.

[Padfield]

Thanks Wurzel and David.

Since my last post we had a few days of mixed, dry weather, followed by a lot of rain. It looks as if this will clear up next week, but it hasn't made for good butterflying, or even dog-walking.

Before the rains came, on 19th September, I climbed the local hill a little, to the field where I found Dukes, grizzlies and various fritillaries back in May (when I came out for graduation). The site is at about 1700m and it was clear the butterfly season was over here. Only Adonis blues, clouded yellows and Berger's clouded yellows were about, and they only until a cloud crossed the sun and the world went cold!


(Adonis male)


(Adonis female)


(Berger's)


(Clouded yellow)

Lower down I saw a few very ancient great banded graylings!



I don't think I've seen any wild butterflies since then. Here is a local black redstart making the most of the grim weather:



So yesterday, to get a butterfly fix, I headed off (in the pouring rain) to the Papiliorama, in the hope of getting a 'lifer' - I usually manage to see and photograph one or two species I've not recorded before, and this is always interesting, even though it's a butterfly house. Yesterday, a rainy Saturday, there were more people than I've ever known there, but it was still worth the trip.

With lots of people around, photography is harder. but with a telephoto lens there are places you can stand and photograph things others miss:


(Parthenos sylivia)



This species also has a blue form:



There were lots of butterflies clinging to the walls near the roof, out of the way of the visitors. These included several Charaxes species, like this Charaxes candiope (with a plain tiger):



I don't know what the eggs are. It always makes me sad to see eggs away from foodplants, but perhaps the caterpillars are intended to drop down when they hatch, the way silver-washed fritillary caterpillars climb down oak trees.

That was a 'lifer'. Another was Archaeoprepona amphimachus:



Papilio dardanus is always present, with females in many of their different, mimetic forms. For a while, I took this butterfly, of which there were one or two present, to be female dardanus:





But even though it flew like a Papilionid, it just didn't look right, and when I looked at that first photo I saw there were only four legs, so it had to be a Nymphalid. It is Hypolimnas usambara. Here are two forms of dardanus for comparison (both taken in 2014):





I last saw Morpho peleides on a Spanish hillside - in July last year :



No sooner did I return to the UK that year than I got reports of another flying around Woodbridge. So I enjoyed seeing the species again in the Papiliorama, even though it is a butterfly house staple:



Maybe one day I'll see a blue morpho in its natural environment ...

A few other interesting species flying yesterday:


(Catonephele numilia)


(Eumaeus toxea from the southern States and Mexico - the only Lycaenid I've ever seen in the Papiliorama)


(Doleschalia bisaltide)


(female Vindula dejone)


(Cethosia cyane)


(Papilio demodocus)

As ever, I could go on. But it was interesting to see they had some moths too. I haven't got the resources to identify tropical moths, so if anyone knows what it is, please tell me!



The same complex houses a tropical zoo - something I am not at all keen on. The animals are in wonderful surroundings, and the Papiliorama raises huge amounts of money for conservation, especially in Belize, but I don't like seeing birds like this. These roseate spoonbills seemed happy enough wandering around their forest dome:



Guy

[Old Wolf]

Hello Guy, I think the is the Moth an African Peach Moth - Egybolis Vaillantina.

Interestingly I was as Stratford Butterfly farm recently and still have the identification sheet on my desk in front of me and I thought I recognised it from in there. I cannot claim to be a tropical moth expert