www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

You're full of surprises, Guy.

We expect the landscape shots but this is a new diversion for you - mid flight images!

What settings are you using for this?

I'm glad you liked those shots, Nick and David - I was very pleased with how they turned out.

I just used my normal settings, David, and didn't set out to take mid-flight pictures. I was just very lucky. Obviously, I saw the incoming butterflies and tried to time the shots to catch them - but it's actually quite difficult with my compact as there's a 0.6s time delay between depressing the shutter and the picture being taken. For the record, if it means anything beyond the world of Canon compacts, I had the camera on 'P' setting, with point metering (I always use that for whites) and ISO 80 (small sensor, so grainy if I use higher ISO). If I'd set out to get flight pictures I would probably have used a higher ISO and maybe shutter speed priority.

I took just one shot each of the in-flight wood white and in-flight orange tip. It was pure chance that both pictures caught the butterflies with their wings in favourable positions.

Guy

Very nice flight shots and a reminder to everyone - always have a go. With digital, there is nothing to lose and, as in your case, one might be lucky

Mike

MikeOxon wrote:Very nice flight shots and a reminder to everyone - always have a go. With digital, there is nothing to lose and, as in your case, one might be lucky

Mike

I've tried, Mike, but my shots always come out blurred!!

Superb in flight shots, I love them

Cheers,

Neil F.

Thanks, Neil. A couple of lucky shots, but there's nothing wrong in a bit of luck!

Yet another weekend of iffy weather. A dense belt of cloud was to sweep northwards through Switzerland today so I tried to get some advance on it by setting off early for the Jura to recce potential sites for large and chestnut heath - two species I've never seen in this country. I also hoped to see spring brood map somewhere on my walk and possibly even violet copper. This species normally flies from late May at over 1500m near me in the Alps so there was a chance of seeing it at lower altitudes in the Jura by now.

In the event, it was a very interesting but almost butterfly-free day. The sun shone, as predicted, until the cloud mass arrived at 11h30, but it was cool and had the feel of early spring. I found what I am certain is the large heath site - there is only one in Switzerland! - only to discover the entire region was fenced off as a nature reserve with no entry allowed (I had tracked down the area with Google Earth and Swiss topological maps). Large heaths do have a tendency to wander, so I think I will still be able to find them in season on the peripheries. There were far more, and more accessible, areas suitable for chestnut heath.

I walked about 20km in total and found several other places of interest. At two different sites marsh marigold, bistort and aconite-leaved buttercup were growing in boggy land - precisely the conditions I associate with violet copper - and I found at least one woodland site that looked perfect for small pearl-bordered fritillary - a rather scarce species in Switzerland. But the species I actually saw could be counted on one hand (orange tip, small tortoiseshell, red admiral, small white and green-veined white). It was bizarre, walking around in the sun in May not seeing butterflies.

Here are some marsh marigolds in a damp meadow (not in a potential violet copper site):



It was strange to walk sunny woodland rides without any butterflies at all:



I had lost the sun by the time I found this wood, where I hope to find small pearl-bordered fritillaries:



It's not really going to get better ...



This shot, taken from my balconey this evening (looking towards La Dent de Morcles), shows how low the snow is still lying:



I think mountain species will be late getting off the ground this year.

It was nice to spend a day in the Jura but lovely to get back to the Alps. You can see the line of the Alps from the train as you come back south, looking higher, craggier, more imposing, and yet to me also more homely.

Guy

padfield wrote: But the species I actually saw could be counted on one hand (orange tip, small tortoiseshell, red admiral, small white and green-veined white). It was bizarre, walking around in the sun in May not seeing butterflies.

Sound just like here!!

This has to be the first time ( and probably the last) when I've seen more than you Guy Still I expect it'll be business as usual in the coming days and I'll be back to my jealous ways

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Wurzel wrote:This has to be the first time ( and probably the last) when I've seen more than you Guy

Quite.

Disgraceful how 'global warming' has left southerly latitudes so bereft of butterflies in late May.

I will drop that particular hot potato smartly, if you don't mind, David! But certainly, predictions of gloom for the skiing industry have proven wildly inaccurate in recent years, when the snow has never been so good. And butterflies specially adapted to alpine conditions must be laughing in their pupae or larval skins!!

I popped up my mountain this afternoon to check out the conditions, considering especially that the violet coppers would normally be coming onto the wing about now. In fact, there was no point heading in the direction of the coppers, as I could see from far away that they were buried deep under the snow. Instead, I climbed the Grand Chamossaire, where I will be taking my parents in about a month's time...

These pictures were taken with the iPhone around and above Bretaye (all above 1800m):









I wanted to photograph ibis and chamois from the top, where they are easily locatable on the ridge walk when there aren't too many humans about, but the clouds set in too heavily and it started to snow. I didn't want to get caught up there in a blizzard so came back down without waiting. This was about as far as I could see, in terms of scenic views, from the summit. I do hope it's not like this when my parents come - there are supposed to be swallowtails hilltopping here ...



As I began the descent from Bretaye to Villars I met a couple whose off-road buggy had broken down. I helped them push it back onto the road and then enjoyed a downhill freewheel instead of a walk, in return for getting out and pushing it up the few uphill inclines on the way:



This is Col de Soud, at about 1500m, where we stopped to attach the buggy to their other car and tow it for a longer uphill stretch:



The mountain butterflies will most definitely be late this year!!

Guy

Quite incredible images are these, Guy. It's almost JUNE!!!

When is the latest you've ever seen snow at that altitude?

David M wrote:When is the latest you've ever seen snow at that altitude?

There are two different questions there, David. Snow can fall at that altitude - and much lower down - at any time of year and there is no 'latest' date. Except when it falls as hail this does little if any harm to the butterflies - they just take a day or two out. But persistent winter snow is a different thing altogether. I asked the couple I met today (who have a chalet at Bretaye) whether the snow at that altitude had melted and then fallen again or had persisted unmelted since the winter. The latter, apparently. Normally, winter snow melts during April and May, leaving just a few isolated patches in the shade by the end of May at 2000m. Above 2000m more snow persists, and later, but still only in shady spots. Above 2500m some snow will stay all summer.

This picture, taken in the Pyrenees in mid-July at 2300m in 2008, shows the kind of snow that persists in summer:



This is very local snow, though. When I took that picture, Lefèbvre's ringlets were flying over the slope to the right and false dewy ringlets were a hundred metres higher up the mountain. The present snow cover on my mountains is more or less complete, even on south-facing slopes, holding back vegetative and insect development. It will melt very quickly if things warm up but then the plants have to grow ...

This, of course, is why many mountain butterflies - particularly Erebia species - have two-year life cycles. Above 2500m there is very little time to go through a full generation between the snow melting and the first snows of winter falling (the first high snow usually falls in September and there is fequent snow in October).

Guy

Thanks for that, Guy.

I recall there were similar pockets of snow above 2000m in the Pyrenees when I visited in late June of last year - this seemed quite incongruous given that the temperature in the valley bottom reached 37c at one point!!

padfield wrote:Snow can fall at that altitude - and much lower down - at any time of year

I suppose that it is not too surpising that the same is true in the more northerly latitude of Scotland. My photo is of Ben Macdui (1,309m), taken from Cairngorm in August 1968. I remember the trip well, as we heard on the radio about the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

incidentally, my Mother who is posing in the photo, is currently enjoying her 100th year!
Mike

MikeOxon wrote: ...incidentally, my Mother who is posing in the photo, is currently enjoying her 100th year!

That's fantastic, Mike. I hope she's still able to get outside and enjoy the fresh air! When she reaches three figures, do let us know what the telegram says!

Guy

And so it goes on - week after week of cold. The snow has crept down the mountain and I awoke this morning to the eerie sight of green trees in full leaf laden with the stuff:





It is approaching the end of May and I have yet to see a pearl-bordered fritillary. The birds have almost stopped singing and I'm sure broods have been lost. Imagine flying all the way across the Sahara to your favourite alpine breeding sites only to find there are no insects because winter refuses to release its grip ...

More snow is forecast for tomorrow and Sunday.

Guy

After my last post a clear patch passed over so I went out to look for my betulae cat. The egg hatched on May 1st but the blackthorn leaves were still furled and I couldn't find him. Subsequent searches were equally fruitless, but I continued to believe in him because there were signs of nibbling and many leaves remained furled long after he hatched. Today I was proven right. There he was, still tiny, on a leaf on the same twig as his egg:



That leaf is about an inch long, so you can see he is not huge yet!

I didn't stay long because I was surrounded by cows and the last time I did this they came over to invvestigate and started eating the blackthorn! But I got a couple more poor pictures - the second showing the incredible camouflage of this fascinating creature:





It is hard to see where the caterpillar ends and the leaf begins!

When the cows are moved into the next field I'll take some time to get good photos.

In the woods a few whites were braving it and a single pearl-bordered fritillary was zooming up and down a ride too. It's a seriously rubbish spring for butterfly-watchers but the butterflies themselves will get the job done, I think.

Guy

Guy, having read your latest report I'm definitely going to stop moaning about the weather here! Great photos so keep posting.

Do you know, Guy, this is the first time ever that I've felt sorry for you...I mean, normally you're teasing us with your stats of 40+ species seen by May Day, but this year thus far Switzerland seems as though it may as well be Sweden!!

I'm absolutely certain that fortunes will change very soon, and when they do it'll be back to unbridled envy.

David M wrote:Do you know, Guy, this is the first time ever that I've felt sorry for you...I mean, normally you're teasing us with your stats of 40+ species seen by May Day, but this year thus far Switzerland seems as though it may as well be Sweden!!

I'm absolutely certain that fortunes will change very soon, and when they do it'll be back to unbridled envy.

But he's still seen way more butterflies than any of us!!