Chestnut Heath - Coenonympha glycerion

[traplican]

Guy, on your site zou write about the Chestnut Heath "This wetland species ...". I want to give notice that C. glycerion doesn´t behave as wetland species near me. Last year I have found it on grassy places (meadows and pastures), but allways near its bushy or wooded margins. It seems that they prefer grassy but leeward, wind-protected places.

I have search the their nectar sources in my photos and found:

The spring breed:
- buttercup - Ranunculus sp.
- bedstraw - Galium sp.
- blackberry - Rubus sp.
- field scabious - Knautia arvensis

The summer breed:
- official burnet, here and here - Sanguisorba officinalis
- thyme and here - Thymus sp.

[Padfield]

Thanks Traplican. The literature confirms your point and I should change the notes on my web page!!

In fact, this is a species I have only seen on one occasion, as it does not fly near me. I travelled to a low-lying wet area in France, where chestnut heath and large heath both flew - and violet copper, another butterfly of wetter ground. But the books do say quite clearly that it can be found in dry areas also.

This is unlike the scarce heath, I think, which has a very strong preference for wet places. I travelled specially to see that too, the same year, and ended up with sodden boots and trousers!!

Good to see your pictures of the butterfly.

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

Guy, I suspect you may have seen Chestnut Heath and Large Heath at a location in the Doubs département, very likely the same one that I visited last year, similarly the wetland location for Scarce Heath where it was quite common. But then we probably have the same source of information.

My comment on Chestnut Heath is that this location in Doubs is the only lowland location in which I have seen it. I have a number of records at several locations, all from altitudes of 1500m and above, even at 2100m. Before 2009, I had never seen it at less than 1500m, so I had tended to regard it as a mountain butterfly. It is a very well-named butterfly, the unf colouring being a rich chestnut-brown.

It is also extremely variable, even within the same location, some specimens having a series of well marked ocelli to those having none (the form bertolis, I believe). Large Heath is also just as variable in the same way, and the two specimens I saw in Doubs (the only two I have ever seen) did not look as if they were the same species. Luckily the extent of the white unh discal mark enables Large and Chestnut Heaths to be differentiated (just noticed this on your glycerion page, Guy). They are certainly two of the most difficult butterflies to photograph, at least in the wetland terrain, settling only in low grass.

I also saw Violet Copper at the same site in Doubs, but it was an early season in 2009 and the males had rather lost their violet sheen, so I am going back there at the end of May in the hope of finding them in pristine condition.

Roger

[traplican]

On http://www.lepidoptera.cz/index.php?s=motyli&id=176 two types of habitats are are assigned:
1) - partly forest steppes, bushy banks, light leafy woods and clearings in ones, (incl. ruderalized habitats e.g. at the quarry margins)
2) - partly wet up to peaty meadows from the flatlands to the mountains include damp clearings.
Footplants: Various grasses, probably larger and stiffer species: Confirmed Bromus erectus, Brachypodium sylvaticum, Molinia spp..

Cheers, traplican