I spent four hours today wandering around on a 45° incline looking for
Erebia christi. Apart from one rather galling strong candidate, which I accidentally released and never saw again, I didn't see any - though there were plenty of
Erebia around, including
oeme,
montana,
alberganus,
melampus and
tyndarus. All of those are easily separable from
christi in flight except for
melampus, so I netted every
melampus I could get to (it was, at its shallowest, a 45° slope, with shale and thorns, and very difficult to negotiate). The one I lost had a very bright orange flush under the forewing and looked pretty good, but I lost my balance as I was transferring it to an observation box... Water under the bridge, spilt milk &c. I will go back very soon!!
No real scenic shots today - it was far too difficult just staying upright - but here is a small sample of what was on the wing today:
This is
alberganus (almond-eyed) - in the embrace of a spider.
And this is what passes for large blue in Switzerland! Large blues were very numerous today.
One of my favourite species - alpine grayling (
Oeneis glacialis)
An Apollo caterpillar
Ravenous small tortoiseshell caterpillars!
This is subspecies
eurydame of the purple-edged copper. It is quite different from the nominate subspecies, which flies near me in Vaud, lacking any purple and with narrower dark borders.
This is Darwin's heath,
Coenonympha darwiniana, in its pure form, which you essentially have to go over the Simplon Pass to see. In the Rhône Valley to the west of Simplon it is difficult to find one like this, lacking any trace of
gardetta. Well might the species be named after the father of evolution - it is seemingly in the process of active speciation. The relations between all members of this group (
darwiniana,
arcania,
gardetta and
leander) are poorly known but in areas of overlap the first three at least readily hybridise.
A female Escher's blue - my first of the year for this species. There were quite a lot on the wing but rarely within camera-shot.
Ever-present company in the Alps, the Apollo is one of the butterflies I would miss most if I moved back to the UK.
I am meeting Paul Wetton tomorrow morning, early! In a couple of days I'll see how he manages his 40kg of kit on that 45° slope, but tomorrow I shall be gentle and stick to relatively flat sites!!
Guy
)
.
