I had four species on my target list, three of which would be lifers: Furry Blue, Ottoman Brassy Ringlet, Cranberry Fritillary and Larche Ringlet, but given my 100% success rate so far this year, I was psychologically preparing myself to take the hit of a failure or two! In light of the bizarre weather and butterfly season in most of Western Europe this year, nothing was guaranteed…
Day one started well. We arrived late in the afternoon at a well-known site on the Var/Bouche du Rhone border and immediately found target species number one. A couple of fresh, female Furry Blues obliged us with photo opportunities. Plenty of other butterflies were also present, including many Cleopatras, Great-banded Graylings, a few Chapman’s Blues and a single Dusky Heath. We moved on to our tiny eco-lodge and enjoyed supper and a bottle of wine whilst watching Great-banded Graylings flying around the Pine trees outside the gite, then got an early night.
The following morning, we met up with fellow enthusiast John Green, back at the Furry Blue site. My main mission was to find and photograph the male Furry Blue, as yesterday afternoon we had only seen females. John kindly shared his local knowledge of the site, and we spent a very pleasurable 3 hours in his company, chatting about all things butterfly-related, with plenty of opportunities for Furry photography, as the males were behaving in a very sedentary manner all morning, mostly just roosting up, head down, and only occasionally nectaring or flying any distance. They were also favouring the shady areas under pine trees, unusual behaviour in my book, but as I had no prior knowledge of this species, I hadn’t known exactly what to expect, and in the heat of the Mediterranean sun it was quite decent of them to keep to the cooler patches for us.
After our success, we said goodbye to John and set off on the next leg of our travels, stopping off in Avignon to be tourists for a bit, then moving onwards to our second gite just north of Ales.
Day three of our tour was dedicated to hunting for Ottoman Brassy Ringlet, and we once again had good success, finding many dozens of them along one particular wide and grassy woodland track amongst the pines, up in the hills.
Our third gite was at Chateauneuf de Randon where we were booked in for a three-night stay. Over the course of the next two days we visited four sites, all very similar in terms of habitat, consisting of damp, flower-rich wetlands in amongst pine woods, with plentiful Cranberry, numerous Orchids, Thistles, Sphagnum, and all of which had relatively recent records for Cranberry Fritillaries. These sites were between 1300m and 1500m above sea level, and we got wet feet on many occasions. There were certainly plenty of Fritillaries on the wing at all four sites, but the majority were Small Pearl-bordered, with a few Titania’s, Heath, False Heath and Queen-of-Spain also seen.
Despite our valiant efforts, and quite a few false alarms and over-enthusiastic thoughts as to the ID of certain individuals that were patrolling the Cranberry patches incessantly, we completely failed to find a single Cranberry Fritillary. I had to concede defeat, my first this year. It hurt, it stung a bit, but I have been so lucky elsewhere that I really cannot complain!
Day six was a busy day, as we left Chateauneuf de Randon behind us and took the long drive south-west through the beautiful valley of the Monts d’Ardeche, across the Rhone once again, and back into the Alpes de Haute Provence. We overnighted in Malaucene in a rather overpriced and very warm apartment and spent day seven exploring the scree slopes of Mont Ventoux in search of the elusive Larche Ringlet. There is a bit of a back story here…
Years ago, back in 2011, Bob Lambert and I had found an Erebia that we didn’t recognise on a scree hillside in the Maritime Alps. In those days, Bob used to occasionally carry a net around for identification purposes, and he had duly bagged the insect in question and boxed it up for examination. We were able to have a good look at upperside and underside, and after 20 minutes of contemplation and reference to Tolman and Lewington, we reached the unassailable conclusion that it could only possibly be a male Larche Ringlet, a big rarity and a huge life-tick for us both. When it came to releasing the butterfly from the pot, I was ready with my camera to capture some images, but I had made a terrible school-boy error, and not taken a record shot of the beast in its box. As soon as it was released, it flew straight up over the nearest tall Pine tree, and disappeared, never to be seen again! Disaster! No photo!
Since that fateful event, I have made quite a few trips back out to various localities in the French Alps, trying to rediscover the Larche Ringlet. I have had near-death experiences on scree slopes on the Italian border, almost died from heat exhaustion climbing ridiculously steep mountainsides near Beauvezer, I even spent an entire week out here a few years ago specifically trying for this one butterfly, and yet still never managed to find another example of what seems to have become a very difficult French species to locate.
So, fast forward again to our day on Mont Ventoux. Lovely scree habitat, recent records of scipio, ideal weather during our visit: nothing. Not a sniff. In fact, not a single Erebia, and very few butterflies other than Large Whites and a couple of Fritillaries. That sinking feeling of another impending failure was lying heavy in the pit of my stomach. We left Mont Ventoux and headed further east for our penultimate stop-over, checked in for the night at a hotel in St.Michel l’Observatoire, before heading into the village for a couple of beers at a local bar to console ourselves.
Day eight was our final full day. I had one last shot at the Larche, but my expectations were close to zero. After breakfast we packed the car and headed up a long and winding road towards the higher reaches of the Montagne de Lure. We parked up and got out of the car straight into the face of a stiff breeze that was preventing anything much from flying. We moved a little further along the road into more sheltered habitat just west of our parking spot and here there were a few things moving; Graylings, Great-banded Graylings and False Heath Fritillaries were about, along with a couple of fast and unidentified blues. But still no sign of the main quarry. After another hour or so, we walked back towards the car, and I suggested we headed a little way further along the road in the other direction. The habitat again looked good. Steep scree slopes with patchy grasses and occasional bits of nectar. Suddenly Vicki shouted out to me – she had spotted an Erebia in flight just above the road. It landed. I scrambled up. Got my camera on it. Many photographs were being taken. I don’t use “burst” mode, but it sounded like I was doing on this occasion!
“Well? Is it one then?” asks Vicki.
“Well…yes, I believe it is! I can’t see what else it could possibly be!” says I.
It was posing with wings half open, and I could see the two ocelli on the forewing upperside, the orange banding below the ocelli, the underside hindwing virtually unmarked, the underside upperwing pattern. Everything was screaming scipio! This was massive. As good as a lifer. I finally had photographs of a butterfly that has eluded me for an eternity and been the subject of an awful lot of unproductive effort over the years.
Was I happy? Bloody delirious! All told we saw three males, possibly four, along a couple of hundred metres of scree. They were hard to approach but I got a couple of other photo opportunities. Not my best work, but cherished shots indeed!
We spent our last evening in the Ibis hotel at Marseille airport, where I checked and re-checked my photographs to make sure that I hadn’t made a mistake, or been day-dreaming, or sleepwalking, or drunk. No – they still looked exactly like male scipio. What a high! I am still buzzing now, and we have been home for three days!
So, to conclude, three out of four targets hit. No Cranberry Fritillary. Which means that I will just have to go back to France again at some point in the future to find it – what a shame eh?
