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The Villars Palace hotel, viewed here from my morning walk, was just below the snowline:



That's about 1300m, so my violet coppers, at 1700m, will certainly be under snow.

Another cold, wet day, with more chance of treading on a butterfly than seeing one, so Minnie and I went to the Papiliorama. They provide free kennel facilities there, so after she'd had a little walk I left her and went into the warmth. Because of our walk in the cold and wet, it took longer for my camera to acclimatise and I missed good photos of the upperside of a new species for me, Parides photinus:





This is its close relative, Parides eurimedes:



Parides iphidamus was also flying.

A second new species, that I haven't got round to identifying yet, was this:



A few more piccies to brighten the rainy day:



There are three Papilio thoas in that picture, two mating and one trying to get in on the act. After he left them the other two resumed reading their Kama Sutra and adopted a new position:



Elsewhere, their cousins, Papilio palinurus, were doing it differently:



Anartia amathea:



This is one of two empty chrysalids I found of Dryadula phaetusa:



Several freshly emerged adults were flying around. Here is one:



And this rather fine silk moth is Rothschildia arethusa:



When we got back I took Minnie on a proper walk to see cats in the rain. Here is a white admiral:



Things might get drier in the next few days ...

Guy

I worked in the morning then took Minnie on an 18km forest walk in the afternoon, with lots of hillwork. I don't say this often about man or dog, but she is fitter than I am! Towards the end there is a steep 1km uphill stretch so I ran it, to test her and see if she will be ready for real mountain butterfly work: she raced cheerfully past me and wasn't even panting at the top. I had no idea Jack Russells had this kind of fitness and endurance.

It was brilliantly sunny but still cold, with the Bise (our cold wind) blowing. Hostilian was still laid up for his moult, having entered this meditative state on 11th May:


(Hostilian today)

I checked him first thing in the morning, then in the afternoon on our way out, again on our way back and again on our early evening walk, in case he had done the deed during the day - but no change. While he has been laid up, Quintillus has been quietly guzzling all the best leaves on their tiny sapling. He is now over 2cm long and I wonder if I muddled up Q and H last week, as they have been wandering all over their tree. Maybe he is already 5th instar. Here he is:



I didn't photograph many butterflies on the walk as I was pressed for time. We covered the 18km in a little over three hours. Part of the route involved tracks I've never taken before, so it was an interesting reccie. The butterflies flying were orange tips, brimstones, speckled woods, pearl-bordered fritillaries, dingy skippers, common blues and whites - so pretty much like an English woodland walk at this time of year. Oh - except there were plenty of chequered skippers too:



Anyone trying to solve today's Torygraph cryptic crossword will find the answer to 19 down ('Mousy female's attire revealing thighs, we hear') in all of these pictures:







Guy

Padfield wrote:Anyone trying to solve today's Torygraph cryptic crossword will find the answer to 19 down ('Mousy female's attire revealing thighs, we hear') in all of these pictures.

I think "19 down" would be a great name for a pooch, myself

Cheers,

- Pete

Pete Eeles wrote: I think "19 down" would be a great name for a pooch, myself

Rule no. 1 for naming your dog: 'Remember, at some stage you are likely to find yourself standing in a public place calling your dog's name at the top of your voice'.

Guy

Padfield wrote:

Pete Eeles wrote: I think "19 down" would be a great name for a pooch, myself

Rule no. 1 for naming your dog: 'Remember, at some stage you are likely to find yourself standing in a public place calling your dog's name at the top of your voice'.

Guy

Indeed - heaven help the chap that names their dog "What you lookin' at?"

Cheers,

- Pete

I can think of worse, but the funniest ones I'm reluctant to mention here, let alone call out across the local forests and meadows!

Guy

We went up the mountain this afternoon.

First, to where the alpine grizzled skippers and alpine arguses will soon be flying ...



Then back down just a couple of hundred metres (in altitude, that is) to where it turned out the violet coppers actually were flying:



This was a bit of a surprise. The vegetation didn't look advanced enough yet and I began looking for caterpillars. Then suddenly a violet copper caught my eye and before long I had seen half a dozen. They weren't all that fresh. This one had a bit taken out of the wing:



Here is another:



The great difference in colour is probably due to different light conditions - clouds were coming and going so sometimes I was using cloud settings and sometimes sun settings (not always correctly!).

Hostilian is still laid up ... That is the longest I've ever known an iris cat spend in skin change. The reason is doubtless the great cold we have had recently but I do hope he is OK.


(late afternoon)

Guy

I love that view with Minnie and the snow. What a great environment.
Chris

Great report,Guy. Those coppers were,i assume,under snow just a few days ago-remarkable.

It's just incredible how things are so tenuous in your part of the world at this time of year, Guy.

Loved the Violet Coppers Guy. I saw the species for the first time in Poland a couple of years ago. It was interesting that they were fresh on arrival, but a week later when I returned to the site, they were in rather poor condition, probably due to the searing heat at that time. It is a beautiful species when fresh, especially the males.

Regards
Mike

Thank you for the comments. Yes, the coppers were certainly under snow during much of the last week. Fresh May snow seems to do no harm to butterflies - and it melts very quickly anyway. Last year I didn't see the first violet copper until 6th June (because of heavey winter snowfal), and that was a single precocious individual - these butterflies are very responsive to the varying conditions each year. Mike's (False Apollo's) comment about the short flight period in Poland doesn't match the situation here, where fresh butterflies can be seen over a long period. This pristine male was photographed on 13th July last year at the same site:



It was sunny here today but I stayed local. Hostilian was still in limbo this afternoon - now the 8th day of his interdermal:





I have never known a caterpillar spend this long on a skin change. He is obviously still alive so I presumen now the mercury is climbing again he will finish it off. I do hope so.

His neighbour, Quintillus, is thriving:



It's almost impossible to photograph Quintillus now because he's eaten so much of his leaf it trembles in the slightest breeze, like an aspen leaf.

Baby Sextus is tiny still, but moving around all over his bush:



Novus is also doing fine:



I found duchesses in two different places in the forest - one of them a new site for me:


(site 1)


(site 2)

Other species flying in the forest were common blue, Provençal short-tailed blue, small and green-veined whites, wood whites, orange tips, brimstones, a Colias sp. that looked very like hyale but never stopped, pearl-bordered fritillary, comma, speckled wood, dingy skipper and chequered skipper. Not a lot, but these are deep, dense forests.





Guy

It was mostly cloudy today but I haven't been to the valley for ages and needed to do a cardinal transect so we can keep an accurate record of the phenology of this new Swiss population. Other targets were Iolas blue, also at the western end of the valley, and Swiss Zephyr blue and Provençal fritillary further east.

Despite the cloud and, as it turned out, very strong winds, I saw at least three and probably four different cardinals at two different places. At one point there were two interacting, but both appeared to be females. Only one, a male, paused briefly for a photo:



Under almost permacloud at the iolas site I still managed to see probably four individuals, including one female. Again, only one paused - a male - and he was off again before I could get a better shot:



But it is seeing them that really counts, and it is a privilege to be able to see these two extremely rare species (in Switzerland) virtually on demand.

A few more piccies from the western end of the valley - none very brilliant, in part because of the continual wind:


(safflower skipper)


(Camberwell beauty)


(chequered blue)


(baton blue)


(Queen of Spain)

New for the year were Apollo and large wall, neither of which I got presentable pictures of.

By the time I reached the second site it was completely overcast and really quite cold in the wind. Nothing flew at all. In fact, the only lep I photographed there was this pygmy moth, Thyris fenestrella:



So I took Minnie for a walk by the Rhône and came home again:



Finally, a photo taken in the tinted glass of the Co-op in Visp, to show how a cycling lepster takes his dog from A to B ...



Guy

Ooh - I forgot to mention - Hostilian has finally shed his skin. He laid himself up on 11th May. I checked him last night, when he was still laid up, but not again until this evening, when I returned from the valley. Here he is, in his fifth and final instar:





Quintillus, his slightly younger sibling, laid himself up today. Clearly I didn't confuse them last week.



Guy

And then there were three ... Quintillus was nowhere to be seen this morning - just an empty leaf:



Unless Hostilian (who is fine) dislodged him to make more room on the tiny sapling he must have been taken by a bird. If he wanted to go wandering I would have expected him to do it before laying up for his skin change. Here's Hostilian, looking very vulnerable now ...



He was still there this evening, I'm glad to say!



I also checked the sloe bushes on our evening walk, finding just one betulae cat - still tiny, at about 4mm:





And when I passed the white admiral spot this afternoon, two of those cats were visible:





These are about 1cm long now.

As for adult butterflies, it was pretty overcast this afternoon but pearl-bordered fritillaries were very common in the forest:



Guy

Great larval images again, Guy. Your eyes really are tuned in for this kind of thing.

Thanks, David.

Here's something you don't see every day:



That's a white-letter hairstreak caterpillar crossing a forest stream. There's a lot of felling going on in that part of the forest and I suspect he found himself homeless and just went wandering.



There was clearly no future for him there so I looked for the nearest wych elm and plucked a leaf to transport him on:



I took him to an elm and tipped him carefully onto the underside of a living leaf (which I held underside-up while I did this), then moved my hand away. What I hadn't reckoned on was him already having attached silk to my hand so as it moved away he went with it and dropped off into the leaf litter. Ten minutes later I found him again and repeated the operation without making that mistake!





I hope he appreciates my efforts!

Here's something else you don't see that often:



That is the discarded skin of a white admiral caterpillar, presumably moulting into his final instar. The caterpillar himself was sitting proudly beside it, all new and spiky!



On a different honeysuckle, this one looks as if he is about to do the same thing - the head is very strange:



And in other cat news, Hostilian is looking very fine:





Sextus is laid up for ecdysis - in his case, presumably 3rd-4th instar as he is still tiny, and elsewhere, in a deeply shaded part of the woods, Novus is also laid up, 4th-5th:



The woods are full of chamois, so I have to keep a close eye on Minnie as if I don't catch her in time she hares off after them. Luckily, I can see them before she can. I got her on the lead in time this morning to get a quick shot of one grazing in Huémoz:



Guy

That's an amazing place to see any caterpillar, let alone a White Letter Hairstreak!

He/She was lucky to be on the move at the exact time the larvasmeller pursuivant passed by.

Hi guy
Loved the picture of Minnie in the snow field - she has certainly fallen on her paws finding you as her new owner
Kind Regards
Mark

I've never been called a 'larvasmeller pursuivant' before, David, but I take the title as an honour!

Yes, Minnie's a lucky dog - many have a rough lot in life. But I'm luckier, to have found her.

Guy