Padfield

[Wurzel]

Cheers for the detailed identification info Guy - I looked back and I can see the 'club' now I really thought that I was onto something for a moment there but alas not quite the scientific breakthrough I first thought
"but describing exactly why is not so easy!" I've had that a few times when looking through 'Face-the-book' - I can see that it is without doubt a certain species when I come to explaining why I end up writing "cos it is"

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

A lot of British rarities are like that, Wurzel. Once you know a large tortoiseshell, for example, or a long-tailed blue, you can identify them with confidence at 100m. Before that, you're humming and hahing with the book for hours and still don't know if you've seen what you think you've seen.

I went up medium high today - to about 2000m - and while I didn't find anything rare, I did get a lot of piccies. Here are a few.

This is a peak white - always a joy to see:



It is closely related to the Bath whites but has a very distinctive underside hindwing.

Carline skippers were abundant:



This is a female scarce copper. The males are brilliant, burnished copper, but the females are rather more interesting:



Male mountain green-veined whites lack the dusky suffusion of the females but are quite distinctive:



A Swiss brassy ringlet:



A roosting turquoise blue, still with dew on it from the night:



A Niobe fritillary:



A chalkhill blue:



And to close this little selection, a few shots of a couple of Amanda's blues. I watched the male court the female in a very hands-on way for about 15 minutes, before I had to go to catch the bus. I don't know if he won her heart, but I suspect not, as she looked already mated:











Guy

[essexbuzzard]

Cracking shot of the peak white, Guy. And the Amanda’s Blues , one of my favourite European blues. Went on a butterfly trip to Croatia a number of years ago now, and they were everywhere! One of the highlights of the holiday.

[Wurzel]

The underside of that Peak White is a cracking 'design' Guy, absolutely love the look of that

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[selbypaul]

Amazing Peak White photo. I'm very jealous!

[Padfield]

Hi Buzzard, Wurzel and Paul. I'm glad you like the peak white photo. As I'm sure you know, this is a restless and highly mobile butterfly and good photo-ops have to be snatched when they can. In this case, he stayed on each flowerhead just a few seconds - rarely long enough to focus the camera. I have a lot of photos of flowers, with or without a disappearing peak white somewhere in the picture ...

Amanda's blues are rather local in Switzerland, Buzzard, but quite widespread in Valais and not uncommon. I agree, it's a lovely butterfly.

In many ways, the weather in Switzerland has been perfect for butterflies this summer - after a lousy spring. The heat in much of Europe has translated to alternating hot sun and storms in the Alps, meaning the vegetation has had lots of warmth and lots of rain and the butterflies have had good periods when they can fly. The downside of the storms has been hail damage to crops, as well as lightning strikes, resulting in injuries, damage to property and, in at least one case, devastating wildfire. On a recent trip up and over the Simplon (which I forgot to write up in this diary), I witnessed the fires above Bitsch. This was the view from the bus ...



... and this the view from Brig station:



Helicopters were working day and night, collecting water and dousing the flames with it:





Fortunately, I believe, the rains came and helped put it out. Where I was, over the Simplon, the rains came many hours earlier and doused my hopes of christi this year!

Guy

[David M]

...This is a female scarce copper. The males are brilliant, burnished copper, but the females are rather more interesting..

Agreed, especially when they have that silvery-blue row of hindwing spots, Guy. Does caeroleopunctata extend to other species of Copper? I saw a couple of bleusi with this feature last week in Spain.

Shame about the forest fires. Seems to be a regular event in Europe each summer. I guess the UK will escape given the wet weather that appears to have taken hold these last few weeks.

[Padfield]

Hi David. Varying amounts of silver/blue on the hindwings does seem to be a thing in certain coppers, but not in others. I don't know if it evolved separately in each species or represents a throwback to some original copper. Certainly, it makes those dark-form female scarce coppers very attractive!

The weather here in the Alps has been generally unstable recently, with snow down to about 2000m yesterday:


(morning shot over the Leysin rooftops)


(view across to the Dents de Morcles; I've climbed them in September and drunk English ale at the top - I wouldn't like to have done that yesterday!)

I don't know if it was connected, but this morning, on our early walk around town, I heard a distantly familiar bird call coming from the top of a tree. I took a photo of the little person sitting there and it was a crossbill:



Then later in the day, up the mountain, I heard the same calls and found a whole troop of crossbills in the larch and spruce above me. The books say they are spruce specialists, but this one was clearly enjoying the larch:



This one was more of a traditionalist:



They were very difficult to photograph - always moving among the branches. I think they've just moved in.

I normally turn my camera onto non-human animals, but at the top of the mountain I was impressed with this very human person, suspended on ropes over the void:





It wasn't sunny up the mountain, but plenty of Erebia were on the wing anyway, including my first water ringlet (Erebia pronoe) of the year:



This is the very dark, alpine form, vergy, which appears in flight to be completely unmarked on the upperside.

Others included lesser mountain ringlet, manto ringlet and Scotch argus:







The other day I saw my first white admirals on my local patch. I had searched in vain for cats, in spring and summer, and had concluded they didn't fly here despite the vast amounts of honeysuckle. I still haven't found any cats, searching the honeysuckle near where I saw these adults, but I will! I went to my former local patch yesterday, about 300m lower in altitude, and easily found young cats, one not far from the still shiny base of his egg:





To close, here's Minnie in a télécabine a few days ago, looking out at the Wetterhorn, near Grindelwald. Don't tell me she doesn't have the best life of any dog in Europe!



Guy

[Wurzel]

Cracking to see the Erebias Guy I reckon you could possibly expand your concluding statement to 'Eurasia'

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

Minnie sure has an enviable life, Guy. I hope she has many more years left in her.

Your pronoe is very different to the ones I saw in the Hautes Pyrénées last year. Are the undersides darker too?

[Padfield]

I was pleased to find so many Erebia flying on my local mountain, Wurzel. It's a fascinating, if sometimes tantalising, genus. Take pronoe, for example - the water ringlet. As David points out, water ringlets in the Swiss uplands look nothing like those in the Pyrenees. I have seen the 'normal' form once, in the Rhône Valley, but apart from that single individual all have been of the dark form vergy. The underside of vergy is similar to other forms, though generally darker:



The things to look for are the violet reflections, especially near the forewing apex but also on the hindwing. This rather worn individual shows this better:



In the field, one glimpse of the underside and you are sure.

I've been doing quite a lot of teaching recently, preventing long trips, but I did get out along the Rhône Valley a couple of days ago to look for rosy grizzled skippers. Unfortunately, I had a flat and my pump failed me (moral, don't store your pump next to the dog's water bowl ...), so we had to walk a long stretch in the heat and didn't get so much time at the site. Nevertheless, we did confirm rosy grizzled:



As this map shows, the species has an extremely restricted distribution in Switzerland:

http://lepus.unine.ch/carto/31020

Normally, it flies in three generations, in April, August and October, but I didn't see any last autumn and didn't catch the April brood this year. So I was pleased to find it still flying. In southern Spain, where it feeds on mallow, it is a relatively common species. In the Rhône Valley it seems to take Potentilla recta, like the southern grizzled skippers which share its habitat.

Guy

[Padfield]

I got out along the Rhône Valley again yesterday, though to a different site. I was hoping rock graylings would still be on the wing, and expecting to see Meleager's blue. The latter didn't appear, though there were plenty of blues, but there were rock graylings around. Here is one - rather worn and not showing the typical 'eyebrow' pattern, perhaps because of the wear:



None were in good nick. Here's another, taken with flash as it was hiding in the shade:



In the Rhône Valley there are no real problems of ID, as woodland graylings don't fly here. The rock graylings are subspecies genava, which some authors count as a separate species.

Whites were interesting to watch because small white, southern small white and green-veined white were all clustering together:





Eastern Bath whites and wood whites were also nectaring and taking minerals:





Chalkhill blues are currently the commonest blue around, and many were doing their best to keep it that way:



Provençal short-tailed is the common short-tailed in most of Switzerland. In fact, I've yet to see short-tailed this year, though I know several places where I should still be able to catch the second brood. This is Provençal:



Other blues liberally coating the lucerne, sainfoin, vetches and thistles included turquoise, Adonis, common and Chapman's. Because of the wind, things were very difficult to photograph, especially on the lucerne, where they typically spent a second at each flower.

This is a great season for southern white admirals. There was almost always one hanging around somewhere near me yesterday. Unlike white admirals, southern whites take a great interest in humans and will fly around them, checking them out, even landing on them (yes, white admirals do this sometimes too, I know). You don't really have to look for them: they are on the lookout for you!









That last one had adopted a clematis-draped elder as his castle and rarely strayed far from it:



Temeratures are still quite high - up to 29°C yesterday - so Minnie found it tough going, even though the path is mostly quite shady:



I gave her plenty of water and always poured the rest of the bowlful over her when she had finished. She still preferred resting it out in the shade:



Guy

[Padfield]

I had a quick jaunt up my local mountain this afternoon. It was mostly sunny, though clouding up during the walk, and it is still warm. As usual recently, Erebia species were prominent, with Scotch argus taking the top prize. It was really very numerous, everywhere.



No sooner did I put my bag down than Scotch arguses would find it and start supping at my nutritious sweat:





I took a very poor video of some of them during a cloudy moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxp7FEmkIyE

At altitude, there were quite a few water ringlets. Here is an unusual one:



It is unusual in that it has more spots than usual (for a male) and some kind of white discolouration. The red thing is an Acarid I believe - they are common on Erebia and apparently harmless.

Other Erebia flying included manto ...



... melampus (this one a female, mooching around in the grass probably looking to lay) ...



... and arvernensis (this one taking advantage of the dog's bowl outside the Temeley refuge!



I spotted this female mazarine blue laying:



So I kept my distance, then went in to see the egg:





Pearl-bordered fritillaries are still flying at 2000m:



And a couple of non-leps. First this black redstart chick, jumping around among the rocks:



Next, a frog, in wet woods above Leysin at about 1500m. I wanted it to be a moor frog, said to be extinct in Switzerland, but I think it is a common frog. Anyway, I wished it well and made sure Minnie didn't see it!





Guy

[Wurzel]

More cracking Erebia Guy Is that definitely a Pearl-bordered Frit as it looks to have too much 'white'on the underwing? Could it be a Shepherd's?

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

Hi Wurzel. I think you have a point! Unfortunately, I’m just about to go to sleep, so won’t um and aah about it right now! In the field, it didn’t look at all like shepherd’s (and I see them by the hundred), but I guess it could be a female. Correction probably coming tomorrow morning!

Guy

[Padfield]

Hi Wurzel. You are absolutely right: this is a shepherd's fritillary. I was deceived in the field by its size and jizz, then obviously didn't pay attention!

In fact, the markings are structurally the same as pearl-bordered beneath, the differences being in tone and edging, so it was a good call from you; but the clincher is the antennae. Pearl-bordered has stripey, black-and white antennae while shepherd's are more uniform brown. The hindwing shape should have alerted me too.

It is very anomalous for shepherd's in many ways. From the colour and margins you would say it is a male. But the upperside markings are very much too macular for a normal male of palustris, the alpine subspecies. Anyway, no August pearly for Guy! Shame: I've seen them all the way through July at altitude ...

Guy

[Padfield]

A friend from England joined me for a trip to the Simplon region yesterday. It was a great day, but it is amazing how quickly this year has shut down. Many species I expected still to be on the wing just weren't flying. I suspect the very hot weather this summer has shortened the season and perhaps the almost daily storms have taken out the geriatrics more quickly than usual. Here are a few highlights from the hike:

Water ringlets were very common above about 2100m:




(there's a Swiss brassy ringlet in the middle of that lot)

This is a marbled ringlet - one of the few other Erebia species we saw in any numbers (the other being Swiss brassy, which was everywhere):



Carline skippers were abundant:



There are two in this picture, puddling with an Essex skipper and chalkhill blues:



This is a female carline skipper:



Although she has a lot of the feel of dusky grizzled skipper, a trick I learnt just this year from Vincent Baudraz is useful for telling them apart from the upperside. In female carline (this is not true in the males), the forewing spots are unevenly distributed, being much stronger in the costal half of the wing. In female dusky, they are more or less evenly distributed.

My friend spotted some rock thrushes high above us, flitting around the rock crevices with wheatears and black redstarts. I'm sure I would have missed them, especially as I didn't even know we had rock thrushes in Switzerland. Here are three shots of a juvenile male and a fourth of a different individual, showing less reddish on the breast. I have to say, I would have passed this one over as a juvenile black redstart!









After the true mountain species, we dropped down to a lower site where I knew Escher's blue and dusky meadow brown flew - both lifers for my friend. Both appeared on demand, as well as a few female great sooty satyrs - a bonus lifer for him:




(I took that female with flash, as I was against the sun and wanted to get a picture that properly confirmed the identity. The flash brought out clearly the silver scales in the black lunules, an occasional feature of escheri. The scales were present on both sides)



Here is a nearby common blue for comparison:



Finally, just before we got the bus home, a damon blue appeared. This was yet another lifer for my friend, so I took a quick shot from a distance and let him enjoy it!



Things may be closing down in the high mountains but they are still very much alive lower down!

Guy

[David M]

A friend from England joined me for a trip to the Simplon region yesterday. It was a great day....

Sure seems like it, Guy.

Having Water Ringlets described as 'common' is not something I am used to...and thanks for posting the diagnostic vis-à-vis cacaliae and carlinae. Very useful to know.

[Wurzel]

Cracking report Guy Really interesting to see the underside of the Water Ringlet, it kinda has a Grayling crossed with a Scotch Argus feel to it whilst the Marbled is much more Grayling-esque I'd love to have seen the Rock Thrush, I'm fairly sure I saw one in Chamonix back in 98' but I did't ave my bins so the record is a bit 'stringy'

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

Hi David. Water ringlets are locally common in Switzerland, generally quite high and generally rather late in the season. I don't think I've ever seen quite so many as that day, though!

Hi Wurzel. You're right about those undersides, though I'd never thought of it that way - and males and female marbled ringlets are actually rather different. Here's a female marbled ringlet on marble above Leysin, showing just why she needs all that white! She was very well camouflaged ...



Guy