When the alarm went off at 05h15 I was sorely tempted to ignore it and go back to sleep but a little voice in my head reminded me this was probably my last chance in 2012 to get pictures of
warrenensis. So I got up, stoked up on porridge (amazing food) and cycled down the hill. Two trains later I was at 1400m. An hour's hike after that I was at 2200m, at the site where I found
warrenensis two years ago (the first records ever for that 5km square, so I think of it as my site). On the way up I paused to take a few shots of the Matterhorn, that iconic chocolate box peak:
Most of the way was in the shade but a few butterflies were poised and waiting for the first rays of sun, like this mountain green-veined white:
When I reached my site a few
Pyrgus were on the wing. I wanted non-netted shots if possible today, so I didn't always get upperside and underside of the early ones. I think this is
carlinae:
It wasn't quite small enough for
warrenensis, so never really got my hopes up.
This one is probably also
carlinae:
This one, almost exactly where I found
warrenensis two years ago, is probably
warrenensis, though unfortunately I didn't get any proof:
If that had been my only sighting I couldn't have counted it.
As the morning hotted up the
Pyrgus dried up so I decided to head higher. As I climbed I passed first an ibex's head and then (about 20m higher) its body:
I think this is a lynx kill. All the edible flesh had been taken and something powerful must have gone at the neck to sever the head!
This is the view down the slope from 2400m (the road visible at the bottom is at 2000m):
It doesn't look steep like that but actually the entire area was angled at 45° to the horizontal, as this picture shows:
Although I saw a few
warrenensis candidates on the way up there was little hope of manouevring over that slope to catch them, especially as I was carrying drink and other stuff in my backpack. There were several tiny
sertorius flying, adding to the confusion.
This was the view of the Matterhorn:
Then the clouds covered the sky, a strong, glacial (literally) wind got up and all the butterflies went down. They just started dropping, as it was too cold to fly, and
Erebia species could be seen lying flat on their sides, motionless on the dirt, where they failed to get into grass in time. This is
Erebia montana:
I started down the hill again, then something quite remarkable happened. As I was crouched down in the cold, looking at a butterfly, a gust eddy dropped a tiny, semi-torpid
warrenensis about six inches from my nose, where it immediately got caught in some grass. He couldn't fly - he could hardly move - and was just literally dropped in front of me.
I quickly transferred him to a plastic box, before the wind took him away again, and took some record photos while he recovered his senses in the still and relative warmth of the box:
Then I popped the box into my camera case and continued another 50m down the hill to where I thought I could find a little shelter from the increasing wind. For 45 minutes it remained bitterly cold but then a tiny hazy glimpse of sun appeared. I took the box to the lee of a large rock, tipped my precious charge (now completely torpid) onto the ground and covered him with the inverted box. A bit of greenhouse effect and he recovered enough to walk on his own and start looking for a place to spread his wings. Thus, I got my first confirmed 'natural'
warrenensis pictures!
He may be a tired, rather geriatric individual, but he was worth getting up for! A few minutes later he braved it on his own into the cold, got caught in a gust and disappeared.
Here are a few more pictures from the day:
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2012/phoebe1203.jpg)
(One of several beautiful, white knapweed fritillaries)
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2012/apollo1203.jpg)
(An Apollo)
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2012/comma1203.jpg)
(Silver-spotted skipper)
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2012/maera1204.jpg)
(An amazingly dark large wall)
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2012/argus1202.jpg)
(Silver-studded blue - in cloudy conditions, like most pictures today)
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2012/pluto1201.jpg)
(Either
Erebia pluto or
Erebia mnestra - I think
pluto. It was lying flat on its side in the cold on a path and never opened its wings until, after I had picked it up, it suddenly made an attempt at flying and caught the wind)
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2012/varia1201.jpg)
(A Grisons' fritillary against the Matterhorn - this was at the beginning of the day, when things were torpid because it was too early, rather than because of cloud)
![Image](http://www.guypadfield.com/images2012/gardetta1203.jpg)
(An alpine heath, showing the ermine band with enclosed eyespots distinguishing it from Darwin's heath)
I took many more photos and clocked up quite a nice species list for a very cold day! At 14h00 I had to head back down to civilisation so I could cycle down to the valley and get home in time to cook supper.
Guy