identifying blues

[Roger Gibbons]

The grid in the link below provides a quick reference ID guide for those European blues that occur in France (which is quite a lot of them - I'm missing one or two and have left spaces, maybe optimistically). The original photos have been re-oriented, cropped and reduced, so are of lower quality.

http://www.butterfliesoffrance.com/blues_ID.htm

Feedback is invited. If it generally thought to be helpful, the same could be done for other tricky groups such as fritillaries and hairstreaks and erebia ringlets. Maybe even pyrgus grizzled skippers, but you have to be brave to stick your neck out here.

[Denise]

That's absolutly brilliant Roger!
I've been looking to see if I could name the "unidentified" blue from my holiday, but my photo's are just not good enough. It could still be Escher's or Chapman's.
Always a pleasure to look at your photo's.

Denise

[JKT]

It must be very good, because I'm getting "Connection refused - server may be too busy".

[Roger Gibbons]

I've been looking to see if I could name the "unidentified" blue from my holiday, but my photo's are just not good enough. It could still be Escher's or Chapman's.

Hi Denise,

It should be possible to tell Escher's from Chapman's even with a not-great photo - please feel encouraged to put it up - I'm sure you'd get some opinions and Guy is a blues ID authority, so you may get a definitive answer.

You seem to have taken quite a few super photos, especially this year, Denise, maybe you should have your own website?

[Padfield]

Wonderful spectacle, Roger, all those blues - good job!! With any luck you'll be able to fill in the gaps marked 'Cranberry blue' and 'Dusky large blue' when you come out to the Alps next year. It will probably be too late for Iolas by then. Oh, and you should be able to get trappi , too, which you seem to have missed off your French list. It is recorded from the Savoie.

I'm not an authority on blues (!) but it is true they're my favourite group. They really excite me and I take great pleasure in separating them by the differences in shade of blue and the way they fly when they are clustering together in their hundreds.

Chapman's/Escher's should be quite possible from a photo if there is a glimpse of the upperside. If not, it will probably be a percentage game, but you can still do them with some confidence, if not certainty. Is this a picture we've already tried (and failed) to identify, Denise?

Guy

[Denise]

Thank you Roger for your kind comments. As for my own website, I'm working on that one!

Guy, yep it's that same blue photo again! I'm like a dog with a bone
Well never mind. I should see both in Hungry next year, all being well.

Cheers
Denise

[Roger Gibbons]

I’m now up to 199 of the 240 mainland French species and I’m getting progressively more obsessive about reaching number 240. Increasingly, the trips are planned around life-ticks, even if I have to “cheat” by going to Switzerland!

Cranberry Blue would be good but your “Cranberry” mountain was shrouded in mist last year as you will no doubt recall, so maybe lucky next year, and Dusky Large Blue was a possibility this year at Matt’s site near Chatel-St-Denis but I was just too late (Matt had last seen them there three weeks before). Iolas – I have a local coastal site, info courtesy of Tim, but I think I was there just too late this year, the coastal site being earlier than more inland sites. These rare species are so unforgiving – right place AND right time – but then that’s what makes it so special when you finally see them.

Zephyr Blue trappi I always think of as a butterfly of the Vaud/Valais, but you’re right in that it does occur in Savoie (according to Lafranchis) and I’m planning to spend a few days in the region next year. It’s on my main website listing. I sometimes wonder if I did get close to the magic 240, what would be the last one – I suspect Spanish Argus aricia morronensis, even though I haven’t included this on my website listing and it would actually be number 241.

I also wonder what is the greatest number of species to puddle together in, say, one square metre. Maybe that’s an open challenge to everyone for 2009 – it would need a photo as evidence, though.

[JKT]

VERY nice page!

If you need to see P.optilete, I'd recommend a trip to Skandinavia, though I've seen it both times on Tour de Mont Blanc and at Madonna di Campiglio the only time I was there...

[Dave McCormick]

Very good page. Its easy enough to ID butterflies when you see them side by side like that! Many blue undersides look similar, this would also be good for skippers too as they are not always easily ID'd. Good work on IDing all those species.

[Charles Nicol]

Well done Roger... a very clear way of checking the differences.

I especially liked your picture of the Chequered Blue

Charles

[Paul]

Love the comparative shots.. your photo detail on your site is breathtaking and something for me to aspire to.
I have counted up and seem to have seen ~95 French species in France during 5 weeks over 3 years.. not bad going I suppose, but I guess future visits will yield fewer new ones. your Poplar admiral images are to die for!!

[Vince Massimo]

Hi Roger,

Teriffic images and a great idea. I am sure I am not the only one that would encourage you to expand the format to cover other species.
Could you tell me what camera and lenses you are presently using?

Cheers,

Vince

[Shirley Roulston]

Roger,
All that hard work creating a wonderful display of butterflies, its pure pleasure to share your success. Thank you.

[Roger Gibbons]

Hi Vince,

I use a Canon 20D and a Sigma 150mm macro, as do many people on this site, it seems, but I am (or have become) a great believer in the use of a tripod (I use a Manfrotto Neotec) with a ball-head joint for quick and easy manipulation.

As to other confusing groups such as hairstreaks and pyrgus grizzled skippers , I am missing presentable underside shots on one or two key species (notably Black Hairstreak and Large Grizzled Skipper) which I hope to get next year, so will put up an ID grid on these in due course. Also, erebia ringlets, but this is a bit further into the future.

Thanks for your feedback.

Regards

Roger

[wavelea1]

Roger

Just fantastic - having recently had a discussion about the problems Sooz and I will have identifying blues and skippers on our next jaunt I was planning to do something of this nature for a quick reference guide.

We are proposing a two week visit to the southern end of Pays du Loire (Vendee region) next May and while I accept that this is quite early in the past we have been surprised at what was flying. I am currently working through the European Butterfly book in an attempt to predict what we might come across in this area.

Do you have any knowledge of sites or what could be expected in May for that region?

Mike

[Roger Gibbons]

Vendee isn’t as good as, say, southern and eastern areas of France, but by English standards, it should feel very good. May is a little early, but a quick flick through the Lafranchis book suggests that these “interesting” species are possible: fritillaries: heath, glanville, marsh, marbled, weaver’s, queen of spain; blues: adonis, mazarine, green-underside, short-tailed, provencal short-tailed; coppers: large, sooty; hairstreaks: black, white-letter, ilex; berger’s clouded yellow, dappled white, bath white, black-veined white, swallowtail, scarce swallowtail (which is not actually scarce), red-underwing skipper, mallow skipper and maybe large chequered skipper.

Any green bits on the map are likely to be interesting, as are any flower meadows, even flowery roadside verges.

[Padfield]

I think you should have a wonderful time. The region is about the same latitude as my own Rhône Valley but the effect of the proximity of the Atlantic will be a later butterfly season, I think (unlike most of Roger's haunts, perhaps, which are more influenced by the Mediterranean). At that time of year you might well find more butterflies the further inland you go, depending on the habitat of course. Roger is being very optimistic in suggesting that white-letter hairstreak might be flying in May!! In fact, I wouldn't expect any of the Satyrium hairstreaks to be flying there in May. In 2007, a very early year, I found absolutely pristine ilex hairstreaks in the first week of June. But who knows? That's the excitement of exploring. It's worth keeping a lookout for baton blues in addition to the ones Roger mentioned. You've probably seen Eastern baton blue on your Greek trips so you'll know it's a tiny, most inconspicuous insect but really pretty when you get close.

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

I did see a pristine White-letter Hairstreak on 15 May last year, unusually early in what was generally a late spring season, but then in Var (in the far south) everything is early, probably a week to ten days ahead of Vendee, I would guess. I think it might have been a female - even more unusual given the date - based on the length of the tails and maybe body shape, too. A photo is on this page, Guy, if you would like to express an opinion on the sex: http://www.butterfliesoffrance.com/html ... -album.htm

Lafranchis gives the flight period for Black Hairstreak as starting mid-May and Ilex from end-May, both shown as occurring in Vendee. In Var the Satyrium species start a mass emergence around the third week in May in normal years. But I agree with Guy that you would be lucky to see a Hairstreak in the relative north of France in May.

Having said that, I have never seen a Black Hairstreak in France and I think it’s the only species I have seen in the UK that I haven’t seen in France. I’m back in the UK in early June, so a trip to Glapthorne is in the plans.

I saw my first ever Scarce Swallowtail in Vendee. I followed it for about half an hour. Little did I know that they were quite common. The next year we holidayed in the Dordogne and counted twelve on the lavender bush only a metre or two from the front door of the cottage we were staying in. Incidentally, lavender fields around the end of June and early July are usually alive with butterflies. If you see a lavender field in bloom, it's worth a look.

[Padfield]

Black hairstreak is the one species that I've only seen in the UK, too!!

Your mid-May white-letter hairstreak is very interesting. It certainly has long tails and what is visible of the abdomen does look a bit female, though this could be misleading as you can't see the upper surface. Against this, it is quite dark and the orange band makes me think 'male'. Do you have an authority (apart from the pictures in Tolman) for the difference in tail length? I've been going back over my photos to compare the tail lengths of males and females and if it is true that females have the long streamers then it turns out I've seen almost only females! I have got a couple of short tailed butterflies, but they are tatty and might have lost bits of the tail. This might be because I really have seen mostly females - most of my records are from relatively late in the year.

These two are definitely females, from the abdomens:


(August 2008)


(July 2005)

This is the only picture I've got of white-letter hairstreaks with short tails:


(July 2005)

I'll have to do a bit of research this year, though my encounters with this species are a bit spasmodic, even if I do see it every year.

2008 became a late year but it started out early, in Switzerland anyway. I had grizzled skippers on 2nd March, chequered blue on 13th April and de Prunner's ringlet also on 13th April, well before my previous earliest for that species. Not to mention Queen of Spain on 27th January...

Guy