Today, though I didn't have a thermometer with me, I paid attention to the temperature. At 11.30am it was clearly 0°C or less in the shade (at a site along the Rhône Valley half an hour or so east of Martigny). Puddles were frozen solid, quite dry to the touch, and a 'running' stream was apparently entirely ice:
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2010/icepuddle101.jpg)
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2010/iceriver101.jpg)
Most standing or slow-moving water in the open sun had an icy crust:
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2010/tazyice101.jpg)
(That picture looked better before my friend's dog jumped into the stream)
But just a few metres away a small tortoiseshell was sunning itself in the grass and I saw more than a dozen in total. About 1km away from these icy spots (so in the same general airstream) a couple of Queen of Spain fritillaries were active from 10.30am until I last passed them at about 2.00pm.
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2010/lathonia102.jpg)
The Rhône Valley is at about 46°N (as opposed to, say, 51°N in the south of England). I was on the south-facing bank today and yesterday.
Guy