Padfield

[Matsukaze]

Most of the ones I have seen have been fourreaux, though I think I have seen one in Spain and have once come across the case on the Somerset Levels. Perhaps like many species it likes sunny weather and dislikes the damp.

[Padfield]

Thanks again Buggy, and Matsukaze. I photographed a more elaborately dressed one of these crossing a track years ago in Spain but I can't now remember what I called the file, so I can't find it!

Yesterday I visited a favourite site at 2450m, where Cynthia's fritillary flies. It is a little early for this species, but going early means more chance of finding sooty ringlets and last year I saw plenty of interesting butterflies on 29th June. Unfortunately, the site is in a part of Valais that has been particularly devastated by the floods and landslips and the bus couldn't go any higher than about 1700m. Above this, the driver said, the roads were impassable. So we had about 5km and 500m vertically to walk just to reach the normal bus stop, at 2200m. This was too much for Minnie - or at least, at the rate she was going, she wouldn't have got there the same day - so I popped her in the backpack and carried her. We followed a track well off the main road (which was covered in heavy machinery trying to repair it) and saw a few butterflies, but really not very many. Alpine heaths were quite common and there were a few large ringlets around, but for the most part it was northern wall, a few pearl-bordered fritillaries and a few whites. I don't think I saw any blues on this part of the walk at all. At 2200m I put Minnie down and she had to do the last bit on her own quatre pattes so I could look for butterflies. But here, there were even fewer! The rough, metalled track at the bottom of the site was completely destroyed and the normally flowery ditch alongside was filled with flaky rock and devoid of both flowers and butterflies:



It doesn't look very sunny in that picture but in fact it was. There was a chilly breeze, but that is normal for the site.

Here is another patch of the same metalled track:



I'm sure they'll repair this, which will probably mess up the roadside ditch even more while they do it.

A little higher up, things were more normal, but very behind schedule. One of my favourite gullies, where mountain and shepherd's fritillaries were flying on 29th June last year, alongside dewy ringlets and dusky skippers, was still full of snow:



Here is a view on the other side - not a promising butterflyscape at the moment!!



There were plenty of marmots around, as always, but I do wonder what effect the devastating weather has had on them - shifting the rocks and flooding their nests:



So we didn't spend long. I had a beer, gave Minnie refreshments and headed back down.

As we passed through a wooded section of the walk, I heard and saw some very noisy Philloscopus warblers in a tree. My birdsong app (Chirpomatic), which is usually very accurate, said they were 'almost certainly Western Bonelli's warblers'. The only one I photographed looked good for this in most ways, except its belly was a bit too cream/yellowish. I'd be grateful if any birders could comment.

The sound (of several birds, sometimes calling at once) is here:

https://www.guypadfield.com/sounds/bonelli5jul2024a.wav

That is the snippet that Chirpomatic said was almost certainly Bonelli's.

Here is the bird I was able to photograph:







The yellow edging on wing and tail feathers is very obvious.

We walked through some great territory on the way down, including huge, glacial boulder fields:



I kept Minnie on the lead in case she nipped down a marmot hole. If she came a cropper beneath those boulders I would have no chance of recovering her ...



An interesting day, but pretty bleak on the butterfly front!

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

Very interesting, Guy! When I visited the Italian Alps recently, the top of the Col de la Lombarde (on the border between France and Italy) was also still snow-covered and probably 3 weeks behind normal, and where Cynthia's Fritillary also flies. Photos from 2022 and 2024 below (almost the same view!).

2022

2024

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Are those piccies the right way round, Pete?

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

No - corrected! And do let me know if you want them removed, since I'm clogging up your PD!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Not at all - they're a good complement to the piccies of the Swiss Alps.

With another weekend of rain (it's been torrential this afternoon in Leysin, and it's worse in Valais) more damage is expected. I've never known a summer like it.

Guy

[Wurzel]

Looks good for a Western Bonelli's to me Guy
" I don't think they're too bothered about their name."...I do sometimes wonder how taxonomists decide to draw the line and I always find the 'subspecies' nomination a bit odd, if the correct definition of species is used does this mean that when sub-species cross they can only produce fertile offspring sometimes? As you say the butterflies often don't seem to care one way or the other

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

One wonders if there is sufficient time for things to recover at high altitude this summer, Guy. After so many 'early' seasons these last few years, 2024 has been a stark reminder of how bad things can be when we experience a late one.

[Padfield]

Hi Wurzel. Yes, Nature is messier than any neat partitioning into species, subspecies and so forth - not least because speciation is an ongoing process, not something that happened once and forever in Bible days! That's one of the beauties of living in the Alps. You can see some of the dynamics of speciation just by popping from one mountain to another.

I think there's still time for things to catch up at altitude, David. Many of the high species have two-year life cycles and a couple of weeks later or earlier might not make much difference in the long run. The problem is the torrential rain we're still having, which not only puts things on hold but actually does damage in its own right. I've never seen rain as heavy as it was yesterday, after I'd spent a pleasant (but largely fruitless) day at 2000m. And today, too, the heavens have opened to devastating effect more than once.

In consequence, I've had to work quite hard to find interesting things. One such is this Erebia I found a few days ago in a thore site (thore wasn't flying - I don't know why):





I couldn't get better images of the underside because shortly after those pictures a bunch of mountain bikers came past and that was the last I saw of it! I take it to be bright-eyed ringlet, Erebia oeme, f. caeca. In general, bright-eyed ringlets in Switzerland are ssp. lugens, with greatly diminished spots (still quite 'bright' on the underside, though). I've never seen caeca before but I can't think what else it could be. Suggestions on a postcard ...

Here are a few more piccies from the last week:


(a fresh turquoise blue, showing off its love-hearts)


(now they've finally emerged, false heath fritillaries are one of the few butterflies doing really well)


(alpine heaths were late too, but are now locally common)


(this alpine grizzled skipper lacks the 'triple-point')


(I think I'm getting the hang of wood white and cryptic wood white, but that's for another post! If I'm right, this one is a wood white)


(mountain green-veined white is another one that has suddenly become common at altitude; this is a female)


(this is a male mountain green-veined white)


(this is why it's worth living in the Alps even when the butterflies are poor ...)

Guy

[Padfield]

As an addendum to my previous post: Vincent Baudraz agrees the all-dark Erebia is oeme. The form is apparently known from that area.

Guy

[Padfield]

Up my local mountain today, more typical bright-eyed ringlets (Erebia oeme) were flying:





Because it was quite cool, they weren't closing their wings, but I got this distant shot of an underside, using flash:



It is a feature of this species that the underside is essentially the same as the upperside.

I also found a more typical alpine grizzled skipper (Pyrgus andromedae), showing the 'triple-point':



At 1850m this male Aricia was flying. Officially, it has to be artaxerxes at this altitude but I can only see it as agestis:



Perhaps agestis is creeping up the mountains ...

Here is one of our local marshies:



Finally, this was my first large grizzled skipper (Pyrgus alveus) of the year, at about 1700m:





I can't judge exactly how far behind things are, as this is only my second complete summer on the mountain, but I'm guessing at least two weeks. Neither of mountain or shepherd's fritillary is flying yet and these normally appear in June.

Guy