Padfield

[Padfield]

The continuing unbroken heatwave means I have to pack my remaining butterfly trips in quickly before everything burns out. Today's target was Erebia sudetica, the Sudetan ringlet, one of
just three Swiss species I still have (had) to see. So I got up at 05h00 and set off for Grindelwald - no secret about where I went, as all the books will tell you Grindelwald is the only place in Switzerland this species flies. I've never been there before - my nivalis was not at Grindelwald or one of the other commonly listed places.

It seemed my lucky streak for lifers in 2013 had finally run out when the train from Interlaken to Grindelwald broke down. The driver said it was kaput, he couldn't fix it and he didn't know when, if ever, we might get moving again. My GPS told me we were about four and a half kilometres from Grindelwald so I asked him if I could get out - I can run that easily in half an hour. He said it was 9 km, it would take two hours and I had to stay where I was! But it turned out my luck hadn't run out after all - there must have been another Jonah on the train. By a curious and quite complex twist, I was soon driving to Grindelwald with a very kind Japanese lady, who had stopped to find a colleague and ended up with me instead. I don't really understand what happened, because it was in Swiss German, French and English - and maybe a little Japanese - but the colleague stayed on the train (he rang her while we were driving) and I found my first sudetica at 10h15!

First, the usual safety shot, in the shade, to secure the record:



Things to look out for in sudetica include the dark spot in the foremost red patch of the forewing and the evenly sized hindwing red spots, all of which include a dark centre, even if this is often vestigial.

None of my pictures of this species came out terribly well - mainly because they moved incessantly while nectaring - but I got a few looking slightly more natural, at least, and will know where to come back next year!



This is a different individual, with much less prominent spotting:



Here is a third sudetica:



This one was crawling all over my net but I hadn't netted it - it was just drawn to the smell of me:



It also enjoyed my backpack:



I watched a gravid female deep down in the grass but couldn't photograph her without interfering - I didn't see her lay.

Many of the areas I had hoped to explore were being mown, or had been mown, and if I had come a day or two later I might have drawn a blank.



I didn't photograph much else, but here is a rather lovely and very distinctive female manto ringlet:



My second name is Lawrence, after the former Governor of India (or maybe after Henry Montgomery Lawrence, who founded the Lawrence School in India, where my great grandfather was headmaster - I'll have to ask my Dad which). I hope future generations will remember me as Lawrence of Erebia!


(self portrait with the iPhone!)

Having found a good number of sudetica quickly, I decided to explore the unmown meadows at slightly lower altitudes but found nothing. Looking back up the mountain, I realised I had started my search at probably the only place where they were still common: lower down they were over, if they ever flew there, and up there most of the meadows had been mown.

Other butterflies flying included Erebia aethiops, euryale, oeme, pharte and epiphron, tit frit, high-brown frit, silver-washed frit, false heath frit, purple-edged copper, sooty copper, small heath, alpine heath, large skipper, small skipper, Essex skipper, large wall, meadow brown, black-veined white, Berger's pale clouded yellow, swallowtail, common blue, Adonis blue, and chalkhill blue. I needed to get back rather quickly so didn't hang around enjoying everything. Tomorrow morning is another 05h00 rise, this time for yellow-banded ringlet, Erebia flavofasciata.

Guy

[MikeOxon]

Lawrence of Erebia sounds good to me - you'll have to change your blog name.

Are you sure it is not against the Swiss criminal code to report a failure of the railways on a foreign website?

Mike

[Wurzel]

Cracking shots Guy I still can't believe your luck - how the hell did you end up in a Japanese woman's car It's like something out of a movie, a lepidoteran Clockwise

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[essexbuzzard]

Great stuff again Guy,they could write a book or film about you!

You raise in interesting subject there Guy,because when visiting the Alps,i too have often found that fields full of butterflies are suddenly mown down,destroying all the nectar sources,if not the caterpillar foodplants. Will females lay eggs on cut meadows?
The people there are doing nothing wrong,of course.

[Cotswold Cockney]

Always enjoy dipping into this thread. Lots of interesting stuff and superb illustrations.

[Pauline]

Morning Lawrence I'm enjoying reading about your recent adventures and admiring the beautiful scenery in your shots. Keep posting.

[MikeOxon]

Your otherwise splendid "Lawrence of Erebia" photo keeps bugging me with its cut-off mountain top It reminds me of a time when BBC Radio 3 cut the final chord of a sonata in a late-night program and, apparently, several people had to get up and complete the piece on the piano!

Perhaps you could paste the following on the top

Mike

[Padfield]

Thank you, all, for your comments! I'm glad to bring a flavour of Switzerland into UK living rooms! And I'm impressed with your orogenic skills, Mike!!

Buzzard, I didn't see any Erebia drifting over mown fields, laying or otherwise, but I did spot a female swallowtail obviously looking for fresh young shoots of foodplant in a cut meadow. Female Erebia tend to lay in longer grass - usually so low down you know what they're doing but can't photograph them at it - and although the mowing (if done at the right time) does no harm, it does seem to put an end to the egg-laying activities there. Where fields are mown in the traditional way, at the traditional time, the traditional species that have coexisted with man there for hundreds of years will survive.

Today's trip was with fond memories of Paul K, aka Reverdin, who joyfully followed me to the top of a mountain back in July, spurred on with hopes of yellow-banded ringlet, Erebia flavofasciata, only to find himself in a land of snow and very few butterflies. We had fun that day, but he would have loved to be here today, when Matt Rowlings joined me at the same site, with the same target! This picture perhaps sums it up:



That is a dusky grizzled skipper, Pyrgus cacaliae, with the flavofasciata.

Flavofasciata is probably the most easily and instantly recognisable of all Erebia. The yellow band is visible in flight and quite unmistakable at rest:







The upperside is less distinctive:





It was lovely to find so many flavofasciata, though they were a very difficult butterfly to approach and photograph. But butterfly of the day was Cynthia's frit, which was flying in plague proportions. Matt and I agreed we must have seen them in three figures - and that 100 would be a serious underestimate. They were everywhere, with males sparring in threes and fours while females sat around nectaring or powdering their noses, flirting pairs, mating pairs - just Cynthia's frit everywhere. They were certainly the most numerous species seen today. Neither of us have ever seen anything like it and though I'm not given to exaggeration I would go so far as to say that no one, ever, anywhere, has seen so many Cynthia's frits. Here are just a few:











This is a rubbish picture but if you look carefully you will be able to spot three male Cynthia's frits:



Here is a mating pair:



And here a female:



Unfortunately, the pink thing is my hand, holding the stem steady.

Other species flying were Mnestra's ringlet, small mountain ringlet, silky ringlet, dewy ringlet, Swiss brassy ringlet, blind ringlet, large ringlet, Eros blue, little blue, glandon blue, peak white, moorland clouded yellow, mountain clouded yellow, mountain green-veined white, small heath, alpine heath, mountain fritillary, shepherd's fritillary, marsh fritillary, and dusky grizzled skipper. Not a lot of species, but a really lovely mix. Here are a few:


(Swiss brassy ringlet, Erebia tyndarus)


(what appears to be an aberrant marsh fritillary, form debilis)


(a male dusky grizzled skipper trying it on with a female)


(a different male dusky grizzled skipper trying it on with a different female)


(Mnestra's ringlet)


(a female peak white)


(a cheap beer, quite honestly describing itself as Lager Hell)


(Matt photographing a flirting couple of Cynthia's frits)

Guy

[MikeOxon]

Another splendid series of photos - that flavofasciata is rather special, though one seems to have collected a rather large crop of red mites.

I'm impressed with your orogenic skills, Mike!!

Ah, you've discovered my Magrathean roots! I still feel put out over missing the Norway award.

I wonder how Lager Hell compares with this from China - nothing organic about this one:

Mike

[Padfield]

Ah, you've discovered my Magrathean roots! I still feel put out over missing the Norway award.

If you change your screen name to Slartibartfast I'll change mine to Lawrence of Erebia ...

No don't, really don't.

I fear there's quite a lot of My First Chemistry Set in Swiss beer too. It certainly tastes like it.

As you know, many Erebia carry mites and don't seem to suffer in any way from it. It doesn't affect their behaviour or, I believe, their productivity. Flavofasciata does seem to be adorned with more than most and it is rare to find an individual without any.

Guy

[Padfield]

I stayed local today, to catch up on some species closer to home. First call was to a (mountain) alcon blue site. Normally these fly from the end of June but a month ago there was still absolutely no sign of them - nor much of their foodplant, Gentiana cruciata. Today they were over, so their flight season must have lasted less than a month - probably nearer three weeks. There were plenty of eggs to be found, but not a single adult, though three wandering large blues had me wondering for a bit.


(Alcon blue eggs on a leaf - they will have been laid right close to the growing tip, then the leaf will have grown out)


(Alcon blue eggs laid on and next to the flowers)

So - there's a species I've missed this year!

I did find plenty of Damon blues, though:


(male)


(female)

It is the season of Scotch arguses and these were out in force!



At the same site, but in the shady, tree part, were plenty of Arran browns, Erebia ligea.



In this picture, a male (on the left) sits next to a female:



Continuing on the Erebia theme, I headed up a different mountain to look for cassioides, the common brassy ringlet:





Other Erebia flying included:


(manto - female)


(manto - male, on my backpack)


(melampus)


(euryale)


(oeme)

As usual, Scotch argus was the commonest species here and also the friendliest. Over the years I have taken dozens of pictures of Scotch argus on various bits of my body or equipment and today was no exception:


(this one could taste the sweat on my bicycle handlebars)


(this one preferred my feet)

The one Erebia I couldn't get a photo of was pronoe. I saw two or three but the only one I had lined up for a picture was put up by a couple of very determined Nordic walkers, who seemed oblivious to the fact I was trying to get the photo. I'll come back later in August for that, as I have rather few pictures on my site.

I did look for violet coppers but without much hope - the unbroken July heatwave finished them off. Their habitat was now completely overgrown and abounding in Titania's fritillaries, sooty and purple-edged coppers and various Erebia.


(tit frit - not a great picture but a beautiful underside)


(a triumvirate of chalkhill blues suppressing a northern brown argus)


(large grizzled skipper, Pyrgus alveus)


(carline skipper, Pyrgus carlinae)


(geranium argus - still looking fresh at 1800m)

Guy

[Padfield]

I found it intriguing that we had a near plague of long-tailed blues last year you and saw almost none in the UK, while this year, when I haven't seen a single LTB (so far), you are enjoying a glut. So today I set off for one of my regular LTB sites to see if there were any around yet.

The answer was no. I waited and watched and counted dozens of holly blues and Provençal short-tailed blues but no long-tailed blues at all. HOWEVER, something much rarer was lurking just around the corner ...

In 2005 I photographed a cardinal and discovered it was the first record of this species in Switzerland since 1947. Last year, les frères Baudraz, who run http://www.lepido.ch/, saw a second one within 200m of where I saw mine and in June this year a third was found about a kilometre away. I don't know what has happened since then, but today I doubled that total (at least), photographing three different male cardinals in the same region.

I first noticed a male silver-washed fritillary that looked greenish, like an old female, cruising around and never landing on some Buddleia. I thought of cardinal imediately but because I lost it I put the thought out of my mind. Then, a little higher up the road, I was very lucky to get distant proof shots of a definite cardinal, while I was actually stalking a large grizzled skipper! These are from about 10m away:





I lost that, too, and wasn't sure if it was the same one I had seen earlier, so went back to the Buddleia and just waited. Over the course of two hours I saw cardinals at very regular intervals, and though photography was well-nigh impossible I got proof shots of two further different individuals:





Here is one of those sharing a Buddleia with a scarce swallowtail:



I've e-mailed the Swiss recorder to find out if a general influx has been recorded recently - if not, I think there is a secret colony rather near me!!

Earlier in the day I failed to find Meleager's blue but did stumble across a very intense threesome of Apollos.



I'm not entirely sure what was going on, though I think a male might have been trying to fix a sphragus on an unwilling female - that is pure speculation. The fact is, three live Apollos were so intertwined they were doing themselves damage and I picked them up wondering if one had died in cop and the other couldn't escape. That wasn't it - all were alive:



Here's the last of several videos I took of them, in which the gooseberry manages to break free:

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

I didn't take too many other pictures, because I was rather focused on particular things most of the time, but here are a large grizzled skipper, a southern small white and a much more peaceful Apollo to close with!







Guy

[Wurzel]

Stunning shots and behaviours Guy. The last Apollo is one of those shots that I just love the look of

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

Thanks Wurzel. Apollos are very photogenic butterflies.

I got up early this morning and went back to the cardinal site. The bushes where I had seen the most yesterday began to fill up with silver-washed fritillaries before 09h00 but no cardinals were yet in evidence. The silver-washed frits were docile and relatively tame - happy to nectar in good numbers within eyeshot of each other! I was able to get a few practice shots on them, in the hope a cardinal would do likewise:


(a male - note the three bands of androconial scales, as opposed to just two on cardinal)



At about 10h00 I found the first cardinal, on a different set of bushes. It was relatively calm, compared to how they were yesterday, but only ever settled high on the Buddleia, so decent pictures were out of the question:



As the day hotted up I saw a total of 6-8 cardinals, all males, all zooming around on testosterone-fuelled missions. I got rather few pictures but had a marvellous experience of this huge butterfly, quite different in almost every way from the silver-washed fritillaries. Typically, encounters with it went like this: I am watching a bush covered in silver-washed fritillaries, marbled fritillaries, heath fritillaries, great sooty satyrs, swallowtails, scarce swallowtails, white admirals, red admirals, various whites, clouded yellows &c. - all at peace with each other. Then an olive-green fighter plane looms into view, charged with ethnically cleansing the Buddleia. He attacks each and every butterfly, one by one, never stopping for more than a second or two at a time but mostly not stopping at all, until there is desolation where there was once a butterfly paradise. Then, instead of hanging around to enjoy his victory he zooms off to cause mayhem elsewhere. Several times two cardinals encountered each other, with predictably violent results, and on two occasions, at two separate locations, I saw three meet in the air. I have never seen such an aggressive butterfly. One even flew at some nearby beehives to tell the bees where they could stick their honey. I thought of Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, who coped (and indeed still copes) with immortality by insulting every creature in the universe, one by one, in alphabetical order. He might have got his inspiration from the cardinal butterfly, though these, sadly, are anything but immortal.

All my pictures were long distance and very poor - and yes, I will try again tomorrow, now I know which bush is used earliest by the cardinals! But I was able to establish that at least two of the individuals I saw today were different from any seen yesterday and at least one was the same. This is one of the different ones:



This is yesterday's second individual, still hanging around:



I still haven't heard back from the recorder as to whether cardinals have been seen elsewhere this year. At the end of June this year the official position was that three cardinals had been seen in Switzerland since 1947!

Small fry by comparison, but I was very pleased to see quite a few purple hairstreaks today, having seen just one last year and found no eggs.

The only other species I photographed was large grizzled skipper, because it showed such interesting variation, from individuals that looked pretty much like slightly oversized Warren's skippers to more standard ones.


(this one was small and barely spotted on the upperside)


(the underside confirms the ID)


(this one is much more strongly marked)

I fear I have to do a final trip to the cardinals tomorrow, just in case I can get a decent picture...

Guy

[Padfield]

I left it till today for my next cardinal trip, as some cloud was forecast and I thought that might make them stop a little. When I got there there were no clouds and no cardinals either. There was a crop-spraying helicopter dropping sinister payloads onto the hill vineyards - rather indiscriminately and inaccurately, so I frequently saw whatever it was fall onto the forests and clearings - and maybe the cardinals were all off attacking that instead of the namby pamby silver-washed fritillaries. Eventually the helicopter flew off and shortly afterwards (about midday) I saw the first of at least 4 different cardinals. I only got rubbish photos again, but the undersides clearly show at least 4 different individuals.

Part of the problem for photography was the fact most Buddleia bushes were on the south, downhill, side of the road, so I was usually photographing into the sun:


(the transmitted light obscures the colours)

This one hung around in the shade for a very brief spell, but not long enough for me to move in close:



This next one appears to be nectaring happily but he had launched his next attack on some poor insect before I could get any closer:



Here's another:



And finally a still different individual:



If I seem to be overdoing the cardinals it's because this influx (if they are immigrants, not very local residents) is unprecedented in living memory. I have still yet to hear from the recorder, but Vincent Baudraz (of Les Papillons de Suisse) is unaware of any other sightings this year apart from the one in June. Despite my failure to get a single decent picture I am truly privileged!

Before midday there was plenty of other lep interest. I had two male purple emperors - neither in brilliant condition, but amazing just to be alive in mid-August, in the valley:



A single, rather worn, Meleager's blue was my first of that species for the year:



A surprising find was Eros blue, at a mere 750m:





There were several of them - it wasn't just a lost individual.

In an old quarry, whites were gathering by the dozen:


(there are damon, chalkhill and idas blues in the foreground of this picture)

Spot the southern small whites among the green-veined in this group:



A couple of damon blues:



Damons and chalkhill blue, joined by an idas blue:



This is a male idas:



And this is a female from the same site but photographed on Saturday - I forgot to post her:



And a dryad today, keeping out of the fray:



Joining the cardinals on the Buddleia were dozens of silver-washed fritillaries, including at least two valezina females:





There were also marbled frits, heath frits, Queen of Spain frits and high brown fritis:


(also the wrong side of the sun ...)

Other species of note included marbled ringlet, Scotch argus, red-underwing skipper and large grizzled skipper.

Here's a tiny bee fly - if anyone can identify it I would be grateful, but maybe there are many species and it can't be determined just from a picture:



Guy

[The Annoying Czech]

Hi Guy, since I explore a (slightly) similar biotopes as you do, I'd like to ask some questions.

What are the best biotopes hosting the highest species richness? Under what type of management?

What are the biggest threats? How about (illegal) aforrestation, gradual ingrowth of not grazed/mowed meadows or various forrest margins/borders, landscape abandonment?

If endangered, what's Swiss government attitude to butterflies and butterfly conservation?

Who are the owners of majority of biotopes you encounter? What does they say about? What about respecting privacy, problematic of trespassing and so on? I guess no one tend to rate you as a thief (or a suspicious person in general) in Switzerland. Are the people you meet friendly or not (or just don't care about)?

Thanks in advance

[Padfield]

Lots of questions! I'll try to answer some of them ...

For species-richness, alpine and subalpine meadows bordered by woods probably come tops, though there might be a slight exaggeration due to the fact a typical walk might take you up through many slightly different altitudinal biotopes.

The threats vary depending on which biotope you are considering. In the lowlands, intensive agriculture, urban expansion and general tidying up have done immeasurable damage over the last century and continue to threaten species of the valleys and plains. Vineyards occupy precisely the places many butterflies love, so the way these are managed is critical. Recently, there has been a growth in organic wine and this has helped butterflies enormously. Several species have returned in the Rhône Valley to places where intensive, pesticide-driven wine production had previously driven them out. But that is a small success story. On Saturday I visited a site where a variety of valley species fly only to find half of it had been planted with a new vineyard - and a man with a fungicide spray was doing his stuff ...

Forestry management is not always butterfly-friendly, as Trajan and his friends found out. Purple emperors are now seriously threatened in my woods because there's nowhere for them to lay eggs. My local foresters seem to hate aspen as well as sallow. The damage is done this year but a long letter from me to the foresters is in the offing.

In subalpine regions, conversion of agricultural land to building land is a major threat. Around every village and town are empty estates, with chalets and apartments kept heated, lawns mown and no one there most of the year (in some cases, all year). Near me I have seen this have a direct effect on several species, including tufted marbled skipper, violet copper and Osiris blue. Big, ugly, totally untraditional chalets, with huge windows looking over the coveted views, seem to sprout up like toadstools.

Most places I watch butterflies are privately owned. No one minds you walking in a hay meadow while the grass is short but as it gets longer these meadows become no-go areas. I've only once been told off and that was when Paul Wetton was with me, carrying 50kg of video camera and looking seriously on a mission (but we hadn't trampled any of the meadow). There are a few nature reserves, but not that many. Switzerland sells itself with its beautiful scenery, its spectacular walks and alpine meadows. Those who own private land in these areas are subject to quite tight restrictions on what they do and how they manage them. Where rare and local species fly on their land I am sure they get additional guidance (the cows are always taken off my main alcon blue site when the butterfly is in season, for example, and in Grindelwald the hay meadows are managed with sudetica in mind).

I don't know what the government's attitude is - but it certainly varies by canton and probably by commune. There are several conservation bodies and academic bodies that monitor habitats and advise land owners and in general I would say Swiss butterflies are in a stable state. But this is still a relatively sparsely populated country. Significant population growth would be a disaster, and in the long term I would suggest that is the single major threat to all butterflies, all over Europe.

Must get on with something else! Only part answered your questions, but that's better than not at all.

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

Great reports, Guy, and well done for persevering with the Cardinal - that really is the stuff of explorers

As we know, that Wetton chap can be a real troublemaker

Cheers,

- Pete

[Matsukaze]

Bee-fly key http://home.hccnet.nl/mp.van.veen/bomby ... ylius.html - not sure if it covers Alpine/central European species and it only covers the one genus (there is at least one other, Villa, that occurs in the UK).

[Padfield]

Thanks, Pete and Matsukaze.

There was just one question I couldn't answer in the key, but I think the beefly is Bombyilius minor - which makes perfect sense.

Guy