Padfield

[Padfield]

Hi Wurzel. I never tire of beautiful views - and never did while I lived in the UK, either. Lingering, Suffolk sunsets are every bit as uplifting as alpine vistas! And I agree, Damon blues are very smart butterflies.

Hi David. The butterflies are more visible now but it is feeling distinctly end-of-season. The recovery was too late for some ...

Minnie woke me at 03h30 on Thursday and I assumed she needed to do something so got up and took her outside. When I opened the front door of the building, a beautiful sight greeted me: Mars and Jupiter in conjunction in a perfectly clear sky. This photo doesn't do it justice at all, especially as for some reason both Mars and Aldebaran have lost their redness:



It's not obvious, but Uranus is also in the picture, to the right of the Pleiades. This key shows where:



And a view over Leysin, with the red light of the Grand Chamossaire on the right:



Minnie didn't seem to have needed anything urgent but I was happy to get the unexpected walk and went back to sleep afterwards!

The next (technically, the same) day - yesterday - I took Minnie up the Grand Chamossaire to see what Erebia were now flying there. As so often this year, little was on the wing altogether, but I got my first meolans of the year, as well as melampus, manto, aethiops and what I took in the field to be a very late medusa. This is the butterfly in question:



It was as big as meolans and its undersides were the same as its uppersides. Bit of a puzzler! Here it is with a Piedmont ringlet:



Common hawkers were zooming over a stagnant pool near the Petit Chamossaire and this black darter decided to use my backpack as its resting spot:





Cloud and rain today, sadly, as it is the first day of the annual 'Nuit des fées' festival, when the young and old of Leysin celebrate tiny, winged sprites of a non-butterfly nature!

Guy

[Wurzel]

Cracking Black Darter Guy I don't think I've ever knowingly seen a male, something I need to rectify one year

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

Not sure your opinion regarding 'not doing justice' is appropriate, Guy.

Those are excellent images of the night sky, clearly showing the celestial bodies you were looking for.

[Padfield]

Hi Wurzel. Black darter seems to be quite a late species. I've often found them in association with blackthorn, while I've been looking for brown hairstreaks.

Thanks David. But it really was much more beautiful in real life!

Last night's celestial phenomenon was the supermoon. After a cloudy day, the evening was suddenly clear and I caught several photos of her rising:







Guy

[Padfield]

The water ringlet, Erebia pronoe, has featured in quite a few trip reports recently. In Switzerland we have a distinct subspecies of this butterfly, E. p. vergy, in which the male is very dark and the upperside markings are vestigial or absent. The female has some upperside markings but they are reduced. It was rather cloudy and cool today on my local mountain, with some sun, and a male water ringlet was good enough to sit out one cloudy spell right in front of me:



The red mite is common on Erebia and doesn't seem to cause them any discomfort or harm.

The underside has a characteristic hint of violet in its scaling:



I used flash for that picture as I was looking into the sun and didn't want to risk disturbing him by going round to the other side.

There are still purple-edged coppers around:



I thought I'd see a lot of aberrations this year, with all the weird weather and late snow early in the season, but I haven't. I did find this aberrant chalk-hill blue today, though. I had followed it because it was particularly small and seemed the wrong blue colour. Only when it settled did I see it had an unspotted underside hindwing:





Cool weather has its advantages. As I reached Leysin village, this great banded grayling dropped right in front of me. Normally this is a very wary species and difficult to approach:



Guy

[Padfield]

It's now cool enough for me to walk Minnie in the Rhône Valley again! There, the season is going through its usual August wind-down rituals, and though numbers were low, most species were present and correct.

Dryads were past their prime but enjoying life. Here is one with a meadow brown:



There's another in the background with this southern white admiral:



There were a fair few fresh spotted fritillaries:



I watched a female swallowtail laying her eggs - without ever stopping. She would fly in, press the egg against a leaf and fly off again, all in one, swift movement:



Here are two of her eggs from that patch (the second one is the one she laid in the picture above):





I don't think this male can be the father as he looks as if he emerged just today:



Graylings and tree graylings are on the wing. They usually fly through into the winter. Whites, including Bath whites and wood whites, and all the usual yellows are still common; but I saw no skippers today. Normally there are mallow skippers here in August but I haven't seen a mallow skipper all year. There weren't even any dingies today. For the blues, there were common, Adonis, turquoise and Provençal short-tailed, but they were thin on the ground. Even Queens of Spain were sparse. Valais was hit very badly by the storms and flooding earlier in the year.

At Sierre station, I was the only person to notice what I think is a canary, hunting seeds on the railway lines. I first thought it was a partially albino sparrow (I have seen a completely white sparrow before, at Martigny station):



Then it came closer and the yellow became more apparent:







The most bizarre thing was that no one else gave it a second glance, even though I was training my telephoto lens on it! If it is a canary, I hope it is able to survive the winter.

Guy

[Padfield]

I worked all morning and didn't get out for a butterfly walk until 15h00. I decided to visit my local 'tails' site, where all three Swiss tailed blues fly: long-tailed, short-tailed and Provençal short-tailed. Of these, Provençal is resident and generally common in Switzerland, short-tailed resident but rather local and uncommon, and long-tailed solely a migrant.

Immediately on arriving at the site, I immediately spotted a very worn male short-tailed blue:



EDIT: Looking at the picture, I suddenly wonder whether that isn't a very blue female ... I took it to be a male in flight but I think I was wrong.

I had visited in April and seen none, so was very glad to find the second brood. Most of the males were past their prime but there were females too, and these were mostly in better nick. Here is one laying on red clover:



She then took a well-earned breather:



I was also delighted to find at least a dozen long-tailed blues. The site is a hill in the Rhône Valley, with a couple of bladder senna bushes. Every year, long-tailed blues find their way here, even though the species is generally sparse - these were my first of 2024. Because it was hot and late, the males were very active. I didn't see a single one settle even a moment. Fortunately, it is a very easy species to identify in flight, not least because whenever they meet their own kind, the males immediately spiral many metres - often tens of metres - into the air. So for over half an hour I stood there, going dizzy watching them, waiting for one to stop, but none did. There were a couple of females (perhaps more), instantly recognisable because when the males encountered them they chased them, rather than zooming into the air. The females seemed to want to stop but the males wouldn't let them. Then eventually, a female landed deep in the vegetation and I was able to get a proof shot:



I didn't search for Provençal short-tailed blue because I wanted to check out a brown hairstreak site at the bottom of the hill. By now it was 17h00 but it was still warm and things were still flying. Sadly, these didn't include the hairstreaks. There were whole swathes of mountain garlic here, which proved a great attractant for the evening butterflies, including common blues and more short-tailed blues:





There were also Provençal short-tailed blues, though only one stopped, and in a very awkward place to get a picture:



Guy

[Padfield]

I got up early and took Minnie to Geneva on Saturday, for one of our regular cycle trips around the countryside west of the city. It's about a 40km circuit in total, beginning and ending at Geneva station and taking in three sites. Our main target was large copper, which I've seen at all three sites in the past - including on 23rd August, so I thought all should be well. Sadly, I didn't see any at all, despite spending a good length of time at the strongest site. I shall have to make a point of going for the first brood next year, to make sure it's still there. The first brood is easier, as it is less associated with water. Another species I wanted to catch up with for 2024 was Reverdin's blue - a rarity in Switzerland. Again, my main site for this turned up nothing at all, but I was lucky and did bump into a single male as I walked back to the bike along a leafy track:



He was heading for that bit of dung but changed his mind and flew off. I think the survival of this species in Switzerland is rather fragile, and again, I will try to catch the first brood next year. He marked my 150th year tick - a low number, but I haven't been out of the country in 2024, except to adjacent Italy in spring to see nettle tree butterflies. It has also been a simply awful year, with common species that I normally take for granted missing from my list. I might yet see mallow skipper but it's now too late for marbled skipper - and quite bizarre that I haven't seen any. The only Carcharodus I've seen this year has been flocciferus - tufted marbled, which flies on my local patch.

West of Geneva there are no northern brown arguses, so any Aricia seen is brown argus. Not that there would be any doubt with this individual:



Spotted flycatchers are very common in the canton of Geneva, and I've seen them on every trip this year. Here are a spotty juvenile and a stripy adult:





There are obviously enough insects around to keep this species fed and happy, despite how it seems to me!

Guy

[David M]

That canary has to be an escaped pet, Guy?

Pleased you got your Reverdin's, but in general it's been a dismal year where you are (and much of the rest of western Europe too).

Hopefully next year we won't get a repeat.

[Wurzel]

That Reverdin's is a cracker Guy, I love the way the orange lunules form a band of orange -very striking that I don't know about the chances of the Canary Guy, in the wild they normally feed in flocks and escaped birds often get mobbed/attacked by the local wild ones, fingers crossed for it

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

HI David and Wurzel. Tragically, even in humane Switzerland, with perhaps the best animal welfare laws in the world, some people do keep caged birds. It makes me weep. I'm with Blake : 'A Robin Redbreast in a cage / Puts all of Heaven in a Rage ...' Yes, I'm sure this canary was once a prisoner. I hope it enjoys however many months of freedom it gets.

Up my local mountain yesterday, water ringlets were still flying, along with Piedmont ringlets and Scotch arguses. This water ringlet has lost most of the subtle colouring of the underside, though there are still some scattered, violet scales :





This Piedmont ringlet is in no better nick !



Chakhill and Adonis blues were common, with common blue, eros blue, little blue, mazarine blue and northern brown argus all still on the wing; but the season is definitely winding down. I saw a very few orange skippers, a single silver-spotted skipper and just one carline skipper :



Here's Minnie trotting down the mountain. She's enjoying the slightly cooler, near-Autumn weather :



Guy

[David M]

Lovely image of Minnie, Guy.

As you said, things are starting to wind down now, although I personally won't be sorry to see the back of spring/summer 2024.

[Padfield]

Thanks David. Yes, she looks very happy there, doesn't she! I think that's her natural habitat!

I stayed low today, in the Rhône Valley near Visp. A few southern white admirals were still defending lookouts, just like back in April and May. These are different individuals :





Quite a few species of blue were on the wing, too, including common, Chapman's, Adonis, chalkhill and Provençal short-tailed. Here are a Chapman's, Adonis and chalkhill taking minerals together:



Green-veined whites were by far the commonest white, though there were also small, southern small, large and wood. Here are a couple of green-veined whites:



Graylings were very common, with a few tree graylings thrown in too. This is a grayling:



Bizarrely, I got a year tick today in the form of purple hairstreak. I say bizarrely, because I should have seen this species two months ago. But it's one of those things I just see and don't look for, and this year I just didn't see it! I saw three today, of which this was the first:



Queens of Spain were the most numerous fritillary, with a few violet fritillaries, one spotted fritillary and a few silver-washed. Those who follow my diary will know that Queens can be seen in any month of the year in the Rhône Valley. Here is one from today:



Autumn begins tomorrow ...

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

That's an incredible shot of the Green-veined White in flight! I really need to spend some time figuring out how to get such shots myself!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Wurzel]

I echo Pete said I'll also add in that the 'Blues Brothers' shot is a cracker

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

Thanks Pete and Wurzel. The trick to shots like that is forgetting to tell your dog to stand back while you're photographing. I was trying to get some GVWs puddling, when unbeknownst to me my little white wagtail crept up from behind and nosed in to see what was so interesting. Some flew just as I took the picture. I'm not sure if this one was flying in or out but I certainly didn't deliberately catch him in mid-air!

With September comes the new school term, early mornings and not so much time to butterfly. I haven't really got a job, having had to give up my permanent post when I went back to the UK to look after my father, but I teach lessons at various schools in the region and it pays the beer and dog biscuits.

This morning I was teaching in Chesières, near Villars, so was walking to the train as dawn broke over the mountains:



It didn't look a great day and I didn't have my camera. But when I left school and walked back across the fields to the bus (it's a train and bus journey!) it was warm and sunny:



A female dryad flew across the path and nectared at a crocus in the meadow on the right. I didn't want to disturb her - and these are twitchy butterflies - but even from some distance the iPhone 15 Pro took a good shot of her:



Guy

[Benjamin]

Hi Guy -
Enjoying your diary as ever. At this time of year I always start spending time going through photos and queries from trips so am always on the look out for ID tips. I would have called your Piedmont ringlet from a couple of posts ago a Scotch argus so if you could tell me what you’re using to make that determination I’d be grateful.
Cheers -

[Padfield]

Hi Ben. I have to admit I was not 100% on that one myself! I tried very hard to get a glimpse of the underside but it was cool and the butterfly was having none of it. Both species fly at that site and it was obviously one of them ...

My reasons for concluding it was meolans were principally: (a) the disposition of the hindwing ocelli, so close to bursting out of the orange that some are just about outside it; and (b) the absence of a sex-brand.

Here is the individual you are questioning again:



And here is a worn aethiops from the same site, very clearly showing a sex-brand:



The region beneath the outer half of the cell is visibly dark - something generally easier to see in worn individuals. In my alleged meolans it actually shows some warm buff coming through and there is no trace at all of a sex brand. This was evident in the field. If it indeed has no sex brand, and given that it is a male, it cannot be aethiops. To the best of my knowledge, meolans lacks a visible sex brand, though I can't find a reference to that!

If you think I'm wrong, please do let me know - as I say, I was by no means 100%, and I sometimes have to own up to much more egregious errors than this! I agree the forewing orange band doesn't show the inward irregularity of normal meolans (as if it were composed of ellipses), but I have seen males in the past with bands this shape.

Guy

[Benjamin]

Excellent - thanks Guy.

I must confess I was imagining it to be a very worn (and empty) female.

Given that it’s male I am completely persuaded by your reasoning around the sex-brand. I think it was the overall shape of the forewing orange band that I couldn’t match to Piedmont, but I guess variability strikes again.

[David M]

Glad you got the Dryad, Guy. I'm still waiting to see this species, especially the females.