Padfield

[Padfield]

The last few days have been very mild, with mostly rain falling instead of snow at my altitude. Here is downtown Huémoz yesterday (the tiny person carrying a tennis ball is a Border Terrier I have been looking after for a friend):



At higher altitudes a lot of snow has fallen, guaranteeing a good early ski season, if any of you have booked winter holidays here!

Today the forecast was for wall-to-wall sunshine in Valais and this proved accurate, apart from a cloudy spell between 10h00 and 11h00. It felt warm too - my last vineyard ramble of 2012 (back to Suffolk tomorrow) was balmy and pleasant. But no butterflies flew. I checked the usual late hotspots for Queen of Spain, clouded yellow and red admiral without seeing a single lep, though loads of flies and Hymenopterans were on the wing.

This is a sunny bank where small tortoiseshells are guaranteed if a similar day happens after the solstice. Here, this species never flies before the days begin to lengthen but is quickly on the wing on the first warm day after this.



The usual winter flocks of finches and tits included a few rock buntings:



Here are some more pics of Martigny and the vineyards in winter. A mild Christmas is forecast so it is quite likely there will be butterflies flying here on a sunny day in January.









This picture, snatched from a moving bus on the way home, shows the dangers of going too close to the side of the road in this part of the world! That's the second person to go off just there in the last week.



Guy

[David M]

Beautifully evocative pictures, Guy (except for the last one)

Yes, the UK is now forecast to be mild and wet for the Christmas period. More floods expected but I doubt there'll be a frost before New Year.

[Wurzel]

Cracking shot of the Rock Bunting! How I'd love to see a butterfly in a few weeks time

Have a goodun (Christmas that is)

Wurzel

[Padfield]

Happy New Year to all!

It has been remarkably mild since I got back to CH, though not sunny till yesterday. As it was forecast to be really rather hot I nipped under the Simplon to Italy to see what my nettle tree patch was like in winter. Last year there were chequered blues flying as early as March 24 and I thought it might be like the Mediterranean, where a few species are circumannual. Quite the contrary: I discovered the line of mountains south of the site is so perfectly shaped as to follow the arc of the sun in probably February. In January the sun never rises and yesterday the ground was under frost, while in the summer the same area receives all-day sun. This might explain why it is such a fantastic spot for butterflies: hibernating stages are never disturbed or encouraged to raise their metabolism by the occasional warm week in winter.

Walking back from the cold of the hill site I was very glad suddenly to emerge from the shadows into the warmth of an Italian day:



This is at about 300m:



It was about 15° C and felt warmer but, wisely, no butterflies were flying. Despite appearances it is still too early for most species to do anything useful with a day in the sun. If things continue, though, that might change. There were plenty of nectar plants coming out:



Back in CH it was too late in the day to hope for anything on the wing (Queens of Spain can fruitfully make use of a couple of weeks of winter warmth, if that is what we are going to get) but I got off the train at Martigny to see the state of the terrain. It was very mild indeed, with carpets of speedwells, plenty of small, yellow composites and even storksbill showing in places:



It will be worth a trip before term starts.

Guy

[Padfield]

Last night was officially the mildest (Swiss) January night since records began in 1959 and daytime records were broken too - though it seems Swiss records don't date back very far. Despite this, nothing was coaxed out of hibernation in the Rhône Valley today. I had hoped for an early Queen sighting, since their foodplant is now abundant and in flower so a synchronised emergence could be fruitful:



Lots of other nectar flowers were also in bloom:



Speedwells, storksbills, composites and Potentilla species were everywhere but not even a small tortoiseshell was to be seen in their favourite hotspots. It seems temperature alone is not enough to make them stir - which for most species is a blessing. The weather will turn much colder by the end of next week.

Guy

[Padfield]

Another glorious day in the Valley, sunny throughout and quite warm by the afternoon. Flowers were out, lizards were sitting by their holes, blinking in the sunlight and flies abounded. But no butterflies at all were tempted out.





I spent quite some time looking for purple and brown hairstreak eggs, with no success. Three winters ago it was virtually impossible to find an oak tree without purple hairstreak eggs - this winter I have found none and my only brown hairstreak eggs have been my local ones, in Huémoz. Last summer I only recorded one adult purple hairstreak, though I didn't go out specifically looking for them, so I think they are at a periodic low. Today I did find this clutch of hatched eggs of some unknown species on blackthorn - probably not lep:



I also thought some might like this example of Swiss artisanal carving. The tree is chestnut and it depicts an old man at the bottom, stooping for a chestnut, a woman with a collecting basket at the top and a a chestnut and leaf in the middle:



Back home in the mountains at 15h30 it felt considerably warmer than the valley so I took a little walk and discovered this small tortoiseshell taking advantage of the last of the warmth:



Looking over the valley it is easy to see why the radiant heat has more force up here:



Perhaps I should have stayed at home today ...

Guy

[Jack Harrison]

Swiss artisanal carving

Forgive me Guy, but art-is-anal? This is a family group you know.

Jack

[Padfield]

You're forgiven, Jack - but do you know, that particular reading had never even crossed my mind!

Guy

[Jack Harrison]

Ah, the penny's dropped. (lying blighter). I understand now

Artisans' craftmanship.

Jack

[Padfield]

As expected (and as in the UK), things have turned cold again. This was the view from my classroom yesterday:



I've posted before that I frequently dream about butterflies - almost nightly in winter - and many others replied that they do too. Recent nights have taken me all over the world, from photographing (somewhat improbably) Chilades trochylus on the plains of Spain to (equally improbably) watching Catopsilia species in America last night, in the company of many other genuine US butterflies. The butterflies in my dreams are depicted with great accuracy of detail - so the trochylus had wonderfully gleaming blue half moons under the hindwing and was really quite beautiful. Anyway, full of thoughts of American species I decided this morning to scan some of my very old pictures from when I visited New England as a boy. My father was a crewman aboard Mayflower II when she crossed the Atlantic in 1957 and following a reunion in Plimoth in 1977 we took a family holiday in the cranberry plantations of Massachusetts.

The first thing I saw when we arrived at the estate and got out of the car was a monarch, flying into a tree. I grabbed my camera (my old SLR) and took a photo. Not my best picture ever but a defining memory for me now:



It was on that holiday I got my first taste of mimicry, as viceroys (Limenitis archippus - more closely related to white admirals than monarchs) are quite common in New England:



That individual shows evidence of having been attacked by some creature that hadn't yet learned to identify the warning colours!

Of all the butterflies I saw during that holiday the most exciting for the young Guy Padfield was this wood nymph, Cercyonis pegala. I'd never seen anything like it before - a huge (as I remember it), floppy Satyrid with gleaming blue eyes:



In those days a 36-shot roll of 35mm film lasted me a summer. First and foremost I watched butterflies, rather than photographing them, and in a way, though I can't share them, the pictures engraved in my memory are much more vivid and alive than any photo. In this digital age there is a danger of the pleasure of simply watching butterflies being forgotten, giving way to an obsession to have and keep (the photograph) not so dissimilar to the hunter instinct of the collectors of old. Certainly for me, the temptation to see every butterfly as a photo-opportunity, rather than as a moment to savour, is always present - though I do try to resist!

Guy

[The Annoying Czech]

Some lucky dreamer you are, I myself can't remember dreaming about butterflies recently, except hunting a first Spring butterflies which was, I don't know why, Easter Short-tailed Blue. My other dreams are rather macabre, hitting some spooky creatures with car in the night woods, being an arson and having fun of firemen behind the bush, etc. Any good shrink in there?

[Padfield]

My other dreams are rather macabre, hitting some spooky creatures with car in the night woods, being an arson and having fun of firemen behind the bush, etc.

I'm no shrink but I would surmise you have a fairly complex character!

Guy

[David M]

Funny how you should raise the issue of dreaming about butterflies, Guy.

Last night I dreamt I was at a garden centre in early February where I saw Large & Green Veined Whites, a Common Blue and a Small Heath!

[Jack Harrison]

Well my dreams at the moment are about how cold it is. Then I realise that they are not dreams.

Blanket AND duvet experiment tonight.

Jack

[Padfield]

I spent an enjoyable but ultimately fruitless morning searching for hibernating stages. First, I looked for ilia caterpillars in a young but prolific aspen plantation where I have seen adults in the past. It was easy to search there but I found nothing. Then I moved on to rougher terrain, where I soon destroyed my crampons (urban crampons, designed for icy streets rather than mountains - I get through about a pair a year) and things slowed down! Finally, I tried for populi at a nearby site where hibernacula have been found in the past (but not by me). There, the river was in fuller spate than the last time I tried and it was generally very difficult to search.



If that looks cold, well, it was cold! I wouldn't have liked to take a dip. But turning round, I saw someone through the trees who not only swam in that stream but made a living out of it:



As soon as I moved he scuttled off down a tributary. The best picture I got of him was this:



I was going to keep looking for ilia but had to come home early to sort something out. I kept the snapped crampons on, as the path was extremely icy in places!


(That's solid ice, not water!)

Guy

[MikeOxon]

Nice to see the Dipper(Cinclus cinclus) - an elusive bird that rarely hangs around for a photo! I have watched them do their famous trick of walking into the water and then along the bottom, in Welsh streams.

Mike

[Cotswold Cockney]

Nice to see the Dipper(Cinclus cinclus) - an elusive bird that rarely hangs around for a photo! I have watched them do their famous trick of walking into the water and then along the bottom, in Welsh streams.

Mike

Dippers are well named..

Quite a frequent sight up on the nearby hills in the beautiful clear streams. Even seen regularly in the streams in and around the nearby town of Stroud.

[Padfield]

Yes, I always enjoy dippers. They occur on most of the streams I frequent looking for butterflies and I see them regularly, especially in Camberwell beauty season!

It is amazing how they manage to eke a living out of the water in winter, though. For no very good reason, I took a video of the water running past an icy branch today - the sort of video you could put on a loop to help you get to sleep at night. If you were a dipper you'd have to launch into that and find something to eat ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ2uZf4HFHk[/video]

Guy

[Jack Harrison]

Love the pictures Guy.

Dippers are supposed to occur here in Tobermory on the river near the distillery but I have yet to see one. Mind you I only saw my first Sea (White-tailed) Eagle earlier this week so I guess I am not very observant; everyone tells me you can't miss them. I've had only three sigtings of Goldies since moving here three months ago.

Anyway, butterflies. A Small Tort wouldn't surprise me any day now. The only January sighting I have ever had of a Tortie was near Edinburgh many years ago.

Jack

[Padfield]

Here, the winter continues with sustained snow and no immediate prospect of any real relief. Certainly no butterflies!

This is the view from my classroom this morning - with snow tumbling out of leaden skies:



In the afternoon it stopped briefly ...



... but it was tipping down again by the time I went home. From the bus I could see that it had snowed right down to the valley.

The silhouetted birds on the skylights were put there by me after I noticed the reflective surfaces were causing a territorial white wagtail to self-harm. He would strut around on the paved surface, see himself in the glass and fly angrily at the imposter. Since the birds of prey went up (and I put them on all the skylights in the school) I have seen no more of this behaviour.

Guy