Padfield

[Chris Jackson]

Love the photos of Chequered Blues and Skippers, and Sooty Coppers further up, Guy.
Minnie is looking "en forme".
Snow in this season ? That's scarey - Your weather in Suisse is SO continental, you just never know what to expect next .
Now should no longer be the transition between Winter and Spring, but between Spring and Summer .
Cheers, Chris.

[Padfield]

I just love your picture of the Sooty Copper showing the meadow environment superbly.

How much do these spring butterflies suffer if there is a late snowfall? They can obviously cope with snow when hibernating [in an early stage] but snow when adults would seem to be a little unfair!

Jack

Thanks Jack. It's not always possible to get pictures like that but I try to when I can. As for the snow and adult butterflies - well, I was photographing geranium arguses in my garden on 2nd June 2006 (the garden of the same chalet, shown in the snow above). My theory is that if they can't fly, then the colder the better. Nothing worse than an overcast warm period, when the butterflies' metabolisms will be ticking over at a high rate, using up valuable energy. Better to be properly torpid. Of course, temperature is not the only factor. Snow crushes vegetation and the weight of it in leaf-bearing trees can do damage. Thinking out loud, sub-zero temperatures in spring and summer presumably have a greater effect on growing shoots and foodplants than they do on the butterflies themselves. But the long and the short is, the butterflies survive. They always do. It can snow in any month of the year and adult butterflies are always to be seen immediately afterwards.

Thanks Chris, too. Actually, it really can be scary! I remember a time not many years ago when my parents and I were caught in snow and hail in August, out on the mountain. Luckily, we got to a cabin and a roaring fire before my parents' extremities fell off.

Guy

[Padfield]

As evening falls and the clouds clear, the view from my chalet across to the Dents de Morcles:



The trees on my side have already lost all their snow.

Guy

[bugboy]

Those Emperors are really coming on now Guy , not long now before you'll see the shimmer of purple in the tree tops! I also really do like the pictures you get where the background habitat is in view, gorgeous imagies

[David M]

Thanks for the feedback, Guy.

It's incredible to think that the same date in two different years could throw up either 28c heatwave conditions or 3c with heavy snowfall!

Not sure if I could cope with that myself, but as you say, the butterflies seem relatively unperturbed by it and just carry on regardless.

Still, given what you've posted this year, I think the venerable Guy Padfield is due a break very soon. I sincerely hope it is forthcoming!

[Padfield]

Thank you for your comments, Buggy and David.

I did an emperor inventory today. Of the thirteen hatched larvae (two eggs never hatched) I followed in the summer/autumn of 2014, just one is still alive so far as I know - Sarasvatī. Of a further ten larvae discovered post-hibernation in 2015, five are still alive. How many will make it through the next two months is in the lap of the gods ...

Here are the six survivors:

Sarasvatī (4th instar):



She is the one I caught in the moment of emergence from the egg. Here she is on 3rd August last year, guzzling her eggshell:



When she was just one day old she fitted inside a raindrop very similar in size to the one she now carries on her tail:



Agni (5th instar):



Agni graduated to 5th instar today. This means, if he is spared, he should pupate in early June and fly about two weeks later.

Nakula (unknown instar - either 4th or 5th):



Nakula is high up in a sallow and I have had very few good views of him. It is difficult even to judge size, but he is clearly 4th or 5th instar. He has just changed leaves, suggesting to me he might be 5th instar, as when I first saw him I was sure he was at least 4th.

Māyā (early 4th instar):



She lives on a tiny sapling in the shade. Her cotenant, Sahadeva, did not survive the recent hailstorm. This is a good thing for Māyā because there is barely enough foliage on the sapling to support one, let alone two hungry caterpillars.

Rādhā (4th instar):



She is also on a tiny sapling but it is more exposed and in full leaf.

Yudhiṣṭhira (3rd instar):



Now over 1 cm long, he should moult into 4th instar soon. He hibernated in 2nd instar.

That's that for the iris cats. Here's a camilla cat to close:



Guy

[kevling]

Guy,

I've been enjoying your caterpillar photos all winter and they continue to get better. I simply love the one eating it's egg.

Regards Kev

[Wurzel]

Cracking cat shots Guy but that Chequered Blue is simply stunning Do you know if they fly in the Czech Republic in August, here's hoping.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

Thank you Kev and Wurzel - I hope at least one or two of these cats make it all the way through.

Yes, Wurzel, chequered blue is double brooded in the Czech Republic, the second brood flying in July and August. I hope you're in luck!

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

So many amazing photos - definitely deserves and article or two, in order to do the subject justice!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Goldie M]

I too love the one eating the egg, also the fantastic evening view Goldie

[Padfield]

There's definitely an article in the pipeline, Pete - I was just waiting until I'd seen this season's cats through ...

Thanks Goldie. Yes, it was amazing to see the tiny creatures eating their eggs, just like their parents and their parents before that ...

The forecast was for wall-to-wall sunshine today, so my plan was to head up early to my favourite mountain dappled white (Euchloe simplonia) spot, snap up loads of pictures of males nectaring and females laying, then zoom down to the valley, find some cardinals and get home by 15h30. Unfortunately, the forecast was very wrong. I arrived at the simplonia site at 09h30 to 100% cloud and didn't get a glimpse of sun until 11h30. I did manage to track down a few roosting blues in that time, including mazarine, Adonis and common, but not a sniff of a white. When the sun finally broke through there was about an hour when only wood whites flew, then an orange tip and a couple of small whites and eventually a single, manic, male dappled white, that beetled in, checked out some foodplant for females (without stopping) and zoomed off. Twice. Minnie was tired of walking and down the same road in the heat and had just convinced me to go home when a second dappled white stopped for about 5 seconds on a hawkweed sp. I took one shot and it was off:



Both the individuals I saw were highly active males, and the one that stopped was pristine, so I think it is still early in the simplonia season.

This is the foodplant (Erucastrum nasturtiifolium). Unfortunately, at this site all the foodplant grows along a road, so butterflying with a dog is not easy!



This is one of the roosting common blues, in a meadow off the simplonia road:



The delay meant we were late in the valley but I still wanted to check out the cardinals. We zoomed across to the place they were flying in May last year and within an hour saw two - first a female, then a male:







I felt a deep glow of satisfaction to see they had survived another Swiss winter. For those who don't know, cardinals are historically a very rare vagrant in Switzerland. In fact, none at all were recorded in the country between 1947 and 2005, when I photographed a female near Fully in the Rhône Valley. In 2012 a couple of friends of mine saw one in almost exactly the same place and then in the spring of 2013 a further two were observed. In August 2013 I discovered the epicentre of the colony and observed them almost daily until the end of September. They bred, survived the winter and thrived in 2014. It seems they are still thriving. Switzerland has a new species!!

Guy

[David M]

....and what a species, Guy!

I'd pay top dollar to see these critters flying around. It's great that the population seems to be relatively secure.

[bugboy]

Oh how you taunt us Guy!

[Goldie M]

Beautiful ! that's all that needs to be said I think Goldie

[Chris Jackson]

... Switzerland has a new species!!

Guy

How exciting to be in the front seat witnessing all that.
Chris

[trevor]

HI Guy,
For a picture i would go for your roosting Common Blue. For a species i would go for the Cardinal, if i saw
one in the UK.( Which i won't ) it would be easy to confuse with the Silver Washed Fritillary.
I am preparing myself for the exotic species that you Swiss and French types will be posting over the
coming months.

Best wishes,
TREVOR.

[Padfield]

Thank you for all your comments, David, Buggy, Goldie, Chris and Trevor.

Cold returned today, with the snowline hovering around my altitude. I had an unexpected afternoon free, so Minnie and I headed off to tropical climes in the afternoon, in the shape of the Papiliorama. I always enjoy spending an hour or two with exotic butterflies in a warm, humid environment! It's always different, with different behaviour to watch and different butterflies to see.

The milkweed corner was full of monarch caterpillars today, and several monarchs were flying around. This species breeds freely in the Papiliorama. The larvae are the original two-headed monster:





Other species that breed freely include Papilio thoas, Morpho peleides, Danaus chrysippus and various Caligo species (owl butterflies). This is a Caligo caterpillar enjoying the bananas (he's on the leaf, bottom right):





Today, just two species of Morpho were flying around - peleides and polyphemus:


(peleides)


(polyphemus)

I think Hypolimnas bolina must also breed freely, as it is always present and engaging in reproductive behaviour. Today I watched a contest between a worn male and a younger, fresher male for a rather fine female. The young one won - and in the moment of coupling the pair suddenly dropped from sight deep into the vegetation.


(the female is the higher one on the right - the worn male, having lost at this point, is on the left)



This is Doleschallia bisaltide:





Papilio polytes:



And one of the ubiquitous Kallima species (inachus or paralekta):



This is Junonia iphita, one of my favourite butterflies because of memories of the first time I saw one, in the Chamundi Hills, near a great soapstone statue of Śiva's bull:



Hebomoia glaucippe:



Heliconius ismenius:



I've never seen this before, but there was a fruit bat hanging in a corner near the bananas, all wrapped up in himself:



I took that picture without flash as it seemed to be opening its eyes a little. I don't like seeing mammals in captivity, but as prisons go this is quite a luxurious one. Under Swiss law it is illegal to keep just one of a social animal in captivity so there must have been others there.

A more familiar resident is the red-crested turaco:



As always, I could go on and on, so I'll stop! Back to the cold ...

Guy

[Goldie M]

Fantastic photos of fantastic Butterflies Guy, Goldie

[Padfield]

Thanks Goldie - I do like to escape to the tropics occasionally ...

Outside in the wild it is still cold. I'm now down to just three emperor cats! Both Agni and Sarasvatī have gone awol over the last week, though this doesn't mean they are necessarily dead. Later instars like sun and warmth and both these were low down in shaded trees. As the spring advanced and the canopy above thickened their haunts became increasingly cool and it is possible they have simply made a break to higher, lighter parts. Unfortunately, I am very unlikely to find them there before pupation, so dense is the foliage. Because so many leaves have been guzzled by so many different species it is no longer easy to spot the presence of an emperor by the feeding signs. BUT Māyā, Yudhiṣṭhira and Nakula are all still locatable. Yudhiṣṭhira is laid up for his 3rd-4th instar moult, Nakula is laid up for 4th-5th and Māyā is mid-4th. Here she is today:



Despite the cold and clouds I took a gamble and went up the mountain this morning to look for violet coppers. A cold wind was blowing and it didn't look at all promising but I did manage to find a male, lurking low among the bistort and other vegetation:







Other than this I saw one small white, one little blue and one northern wall, my first of the season.

Guy