Our initial plan had been to take in some key sites in the Lake Kerkini area, staying for four nights, then cross over into Southwest Bulgaria for four nights before returning to the Rhodopi mountains, but due to restrictions on taking the hire car across the Greek/Bulgarian border, the Bulgarian leg of this tour had to be amputated at the last minute, and some speedy rearrangements were made to our accommodation and itinerary. I had fortunately read the small print in the hire car contract a week before we departed. It turns out there is only one car hire company operating out of Thessaloniki Airport that will allow you to take their cars across into Bulgaria. This company wanted an extortionate £1958 to take the car into Bulgaria for 4 nights, and we wouldn’t have been insured or had breakdown cover whilst we were there! Needless to say, we declined to take that particular option and ended up with a much more competitively priced Hyundai Tucson which transported the four of us quite comfortably, along with all of our luggage.
I was aware that we were travelling in the wake of the Greenwings Tour, and although we were a week later arriving, we would be seeking a lot of similar species and visiting a few sites that the tour had passed through before us. The timing of this trip was a bit of a gamble, plus, the season was running late, and we would find ourselves battling the weather on two fronts. Firstly, April, May and early June had been uncharacteristically cool and wet out here, as we would be reliably informed by staff at our first, second and third hotels. And secondly, we would find ourselves up against ongoing unsettled weather for the entire first week of our holiday.
But we knew little about this as we picked up the hire car and headed north towards our first base, a lovely hotel near the south of Lake Kerkini. Of course, we had to pause en route for a quick look around, and so began the butterfly action. Our first stop was about a mile south of Lithotopos, at what would normally be a dry riverbed, but this year was in full flow – a sure sign of the recent inclemency. The weather today was overcast but mild, and soon we had seen a few Clouded Yellows, Common Blues, Small Heaths, a Small Copper and a Sooty Copper. A rather different looking vividly coloured copper caught our eyes, a gorgeous male Lesser Fiery Copper! This was a lifer for Bob. I had only ever seen the female of this species before, not the male, so I was trawling around for a term for this experience and decided we needed to coin the phrase “half-lifer”, to denote the first time that you see the other gender of a sexually dimorphic species. Nothing to do with radioactive decay rates, merely a phrase for the first experience of a not-before seen “other-half” of a seasonally or sexually dimorphic insect. Think Map Butterfly or Orange-tip. You get my gist.
Had we known in advance that this would be the only Lesser Fiery Copper of the entire trip, we might have spent longer with it, but after a minute or two it flew off and we left it in peace as we continued our journey to the Hotel Erodius, where we received a very warm Greek welcome and got settled into our rooms. There was time for a local wander before the evening meal, and on our doorstep, we found several interesting species including Lesser Spotted Fritillary, Oriental Marbled Skipper (a lifer for Bob) and, very excitingly, several Little Tiger Blues (a lifer for both of us). I was hoping to bag around half a dozen lifers during this trip, while Bob stood to gain several dozen, so this was a good start. Little Tiger Blues would turn up at a few locations in small numbers over the next week.
We had a fabulous evening meal sat outside looking out across Lake Kerkini. Buffalo is big on the menu in this part of Greece – Buffalo Steak, Buffalo Kebab, Buffalo Sausage – and we all enjoyed it in various forms over the next four nights. As the evening wore on a Lattice Brown flew in from across the way and roosted up in the tree above our heads.
Wednesday 14th June was our first full day in Greece, and we set off for a site close to the Greek/North Macedonian border, a known location for Tessellated Skipper which was high on our “most wanted” list. I knew that the butterfly had been seen a week earlier in good condition, so it was both surprising and disappointing that despite spending four hours there with four keen pairs of eyes, we failed to locate this species. But there was compensation in the form of good numbers of Balkan Marbled Whites, more Little Tiger Blues, Eastern Baton Blues, a good showing of Nettle-tree butterfly, Ilex Hairstreaks, a few Lattice Browns and a phenomenal number of Great Banded Graylings, plus many other butterflies.
The warm weather of the morning gave way to an overcast afternoon which became increasingly humid before rain arrived. This would set the pattern for the next week. We battled with increasingly cloudy but humid conditions for a few more days, and our first weekend was blighted by some significant rainfall. While the UK was basking in a heatwave, we were experiencing an unseasonably cool and dank Greek non-summer. The locals were wearing coats and hats, and quite possibly, although I lack confirmatory evidence, thermal underwear, and they were viewing us crazy T-shirt and shorts-clad imposters with something approaching concern and disbelief.
I think Thursday was probably our worst day for near misses on the butterfly front. We had set off early for the drive up to a wonderful mosaic of meadow and woodland habitat right next to the Greek/Bulgarian border. This was a remarkably beautiful site with some amazing flowers, but the weather remained mostly overcast and humid, with little flying. We had the potential here to find species such as Common Glider, Freyer’s Purple Emperor, Sandy Grizzled Skipper etc, but we found none of the above. Nevertheless we did see almost 50 species here, including Hungarian Skipper, Large Copper, Iolas Blue (quite possibly the same individual seen mud-puddling on the Greenwings tour but now in a rather ragged state), all more lifers for Bob who was racking up ticks at a rapid rate. Also present were Twin-spot, Knapweed, Spotted, Lesser Spotted, Marbled, Silver-washed and Queen of Spain Fritillaries, plus Sloe, Ilex and White-letter Hairstreaks, and the only Eastern Wood White of the fortnight.
At one point as Bob and I wandered along the edge of a meadow next to the river we heard an enormous splash as something large and heavy landed in the water. Bear? Boar? We opted not to tell the girls about this until later! I tempered my disappointment with the lack of Gliders and Emperors by reflecting on the fact that we still had plenty of days left to find them, and we returned to the hotel content with having spent the day in such lovely habitat. As well as the legendary welcome from the local Greeks, we were also being made to feel at home by the local dog fraternity. I made a great new friend in the form of a lovely bitch called Saggi, who would greet me every morning and accompany me on my pre-breakfast stroll.
Arriving back at the hotel tonight, Veronica was just getting out of the car when she exclaimed “Oh, I’ve knocked a dog out!” I wasn’t sure at first if this was a euphemism, or some form of Scouse slang that I was unfamiliar with, but no, she had indeed opened the rear door of the car and whacked one of the local canines in the head, such was their keenness to come and greet us on our return…
Friday 16th was earmarked for higher altitude meandering as we drove south-east towards Serres and then ascended towards the Lailias Ski centre, stopping on the way while the sun was still shining to investigate some rich habitat. As soon as we had parked up and got out of the car, we had blues and skippers flying around us. One Pyrgus type in particular grabbed our attention. It was a good size, and we soon had photographs of the first Yellow-banded Skipper of the holiday.
Common Blues were numerous, and other species such as Eastern Baton, Mazarine, Escher’s and Holly Blues were flying around, but there was something rather different on the wing here, a lighter coloured blue that seemed to be hanging around areas where Geranium was growing. They were rather active. Eventually one sat down and enabled us to identify it as the lovely Blue Argus, another all-round lifer! There were plenty of them about and it was good to get to know the Blue Argus quite well and learn to identify it in flight.
I was surprised that Green Hairstreaks were still flying in good numbers, rather later in the year than I suspect is normal for this part of the world. A couple of Large Tortoiseshells put in appearances and were thoroughly checked to make sure we weren’t misidentifying them – Scarce (Yellow-legged) Tortoiseshell was a distinct possibility in this area (more on that later). Woodland Ringlet was about in small numbers, Vicki found a single Duke of Burgundy, and there was the usual supporting cast of fritillaries, Clouded Yellows and others, including a few Hungarian Skippers.
Having filled our boots with photos we then continued our ascent to the Ski slope proper, only to find the weather worsening all the time. On arrival at the foot of the slope we just had enough time for a half hour mooch before the cloud descended, but during that half hour we found excellent numbers of fresh Pearl-bordered Fritillaries, a few Woodland Ringlets, Dingy, Grizzled, Hungarian and Essex Skippers and a Northern Wall Brown, plus Queen of Spain Fritillary, Small and Sooty Coppers, Clouded Yellows, Small Tortoiseshells, Common Blues and a Green-veined White.
We left before the rain began, heading back to the hotel to the usual canine welcome and another superb evening meal, this time sat under cover as the heavens opened. In celebration of Blue Argus and the other delights, we hit the wine quite heavily!
Part 2 to follow...
