With warnings of sustained rain and a high risk of flooding and landslides in Switzerland there was no point in staying local today. The winds were from the north and it seemed there would be a Föhn effect south of the Alps so I headed into Italy yet again.
I cycled down the hill to Aigle in cold rain and arrived soaked to the bone. In the train I had to take my boots off and wring out my socks and I felt no drier by the time I reached Brig. There it was cold and cloudy and obviously hopeless for butterflies. I jumped on the train to Domodossola and was delighted to find that when I got off it was warm and sunny, just as predicted! There was a very strong wind, which lasted all day, but it was a warm wind and I soon began to dry out.
I reached my first site by 09h40, when things were just beginning to fly. Chequered blues were the commonest butterfly, though getting decent photos was well-nigh impossible in the winds. New for the year was large skipper, of which I saw several males, all perching territorially on leaves or grasses. I stayed about half an hour there, clocking up brimstone, sooty copper, small copper, holly blue, wall, speckled wood, red admiral and my first woodland ringlet for the year (also my first for that site).
(Large skipper)
(Chequered blue)
(Sooty copper)
(Woodland ringlet)
Next, up the hill to my Hungarian glider site - not that I expected to see any today, in this late year. Still the wind blew and most things stayed down, but I added small heath, wood white and another red admiral to the day list. The goatsbeard - the Hungarian glider foodplant - was not in evidence, or at least, not flowering, and after an hour I headed back down the hill again.
(Small heath)
(Wood white)
(The Alps in the distance)
Back at site no. 1 more butterflies had come onto the wing, including my first large wall of the year and a grizzled skipper.
(Large wall)
(Grizzled skipper)
This Queen of Spain was vigorously defending any high perch, launching out after large skippers, chequered blues, sooty coppers ... It would have been lovely to have caught him on the cocksfoot grasses where he was often to be seen swinging in the wind but that was impossible.
I passed him once and saw him in the same place when I came back - and then he pulled. He zoomed at a passing female Queen of Spain, landed next to her and immediately reached his pointy bits in her direction. She needed no encouragement and within seconds they were in a lovers' clinch.
(That's her on the left - I think she's a bit of a looker so well done him!)
Nearer to Domodossola I stopped off where I had seen a short-tailed blue earlier in the year to see if any tailenders of the first brood of that species were still around. There were none - but instead I found a thriving colony of silver-studded blues, the males showing remarkably broad, dark borders compared with those in my part of the Alps:
They were also almost entirely lacking any silver scales:
They stopped rarely, as they were trolling for females, but I got a few shots. I saw a single female, who flittered off over a virgin meadow and I didn't follow her because I thought I was trespassing (I wasn't, it turned out). Also at that site were common blues, holly blues and finally, I discovered, a colony of idas blues.
(Idas blue)
In Switzerland, there is sometimes the possibility of confusion between idas and silver-studded - but not here. The silver-studs were small with super-broad borders and the idas were all noticeably larger with linear borders.
I also saw a single lesser marbled fritillary - a bright orange male that never stopped but whose identity isn't really in any doubt. There was meadowsweet growing not far away. And this pair of small heaths also coupled up before my eyes:
I had to catch the 14h48 to be home at a reasonable time (because that train took bikes) and left Italy in wind and gathering cloud but still warm. Back in Brig it was raining, windy, at least ten degrees colder - probably more - and miserable. No point in stopping off on the way home at any Swiss sites.
So, I congratulate myself on having taken the right decision this morning!
Guy