Padfield

[Pete Eeles]

Fantastic and insightful post, Guy. I must admit, I've become somewhat-besotted with Erebia of late - despite there being only 2 species in the British Isles. I think that each Erebia species has its own characteristics about it, which adds to the charm. So thanks for bringing that to life (or death!) in your posts.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

David: yes, I'll get back to you with my thoughts on the pales/napaea question, though if anything, spending a day with them has muddied the waters. Pales is very variable!

Chris: we are still on canicule alert here. There was a renewed warning from Météo Suisse only today, running until 21st, but they said it is likely to continue beyond that - it's just that they only issue warnings valid for a certain number of days. Last year July and August were written off by rain. This year it has been virtually unbroken sun (by day, that is) since the end of June.

Pete: the problem with having 26 resident Erebia species, as we do in Switzerland, is that you don't spend enough time on each. There's definitely something to be said for having just two (or three?) and really getting to know their habits. It is a truly fascinating group, with many species having a two-year life cycle.

I think tomorrow I'll go for Piedmont anomalous blue again. There's no hurry for that particular species (though it would be nice to photograph some fresh males) but some of the other butterflies that fly at the same site, like blue-spot hairstreak, will be burning out soon.

Guy

[Cotswold Cockney]

Nice image this which reminds me. On a trip with four other entomologists back in the summer of 1981, our camper van took a break in one of the high passes in the Border region of Italy and Switzerland. I distinctly remember standing below a sheer upright over hanging rock face I estimated was one thousand feet high. Bit scarey... That experience suddenly filled me with foreboding. So I moved away. The open grassy area in the narrow ravine had many flowers and some form of Dock or Sorrel which I did not know exactly. Looking more closely at the leaves in an attempt to identify it ( Alpine Sorrel at a guess if such exists ) I spotted several ova which were obviously some form of Copper. No idea which species. I was familiar with the similar ova of our Large and Small Coppers in my breeding cages but these were new to me. I collected a few and on arrival back home in the UK, placed them on a small potted Sheep's Sorrel which is a common plant and our Small Copper I have seen laying on this plant in my own little Nature Reserve. The ova hatched and the larvae fed slowly and whilst still very small, overwintered on dead Sorrel Leaves. The large Copper larvae do exactly the same passing the winter on small pads of silk on dead leaves of the Great water Dock.

The following Spring they pupated and a few weeks later, produced some fine alciphron imagines. Only then I knew what they were...

EDIT to add ..

The late Peter Cribb, who organised that memorable Alpine trip, was obsessed with the various Erebia. He readily identified many species we came across on that three week tour. His main focus was E. christi .... I soon lost count of the total of species seen on that trip. Great days gone forever but not the memories.

[trevor]

HI GUY,
It's good to know that we in the UK can also pull some unusual Butterflies out of the hat .
Seriously, many thanks for your observations and comments, we live and learn.

Best wishes,
TREVOR.

[Goldie M]

Sensational shots Guy, the Butterflies, the scenery, sad about the drowned Butterflies I can't understand how that happened.
I've saved a few drowning Bee's before today but Butterflies, Wow!!! Goldie

[Padfield]

I remembered you had spent time in christi country, CC ... There are three or four valleys on the Swiss side and a couple on the Italian side where the butterfly flies and all are quite scary, as you say! Purple-shot, purple-edged (eurydame), sooty and scarce copper fly throughout the region so you are forgiven for not knowing what the eggs were at first sight! All are beautiful butterflies.

Thank you for your comments too, Trevor and Goldie. Yes, there are just as many unusual and special creatures in the UK - just not of so many species. The danger in high density parts of the world is of becoming a superficial twitcher instead of really getting to know the butterflies. I try to get to know them but the twitcher is there inside me, too - probably inside all of us.

As decided on the spur of the moment yesterday, I set off for the Aosta Valley today to photograph Piedmont anomalous blue, Polyommatus humedasae. Before heading to the dry grasslands where this species flies I had a quick look for geranium bronzes in Aosta itself. Sadly, they must have got in a different gardener since last year as there were very few geraniums around and no bronzes. Tant pis.

Even before I reached 'the site' I saw a male humedasae energetically defending a territory near a dung heap. This was the wrong side of the river, about half a kilometre as the crow flies from the usual spot, showing that the species may be local but it does disperse. I suspect it can be found in all suitable habitat in the region - but it has never managed to escape the Aosta Valley, presumably because too much Alpine terrain separates it from other suitable grassland. Once I reached the main humedasae stretch I found the species was very numerous. Unfortunately, by this time the clouds had come over and it soon started to rain warm rain. A thunderstorm was brewing ... This did not stop the butterflies flying but it did stop them opening their wings. The temperature was in the high 30s and there was no sun so they all posed showing only their undersides. In the overcast conditions good pictures were difficult to take.

NEVERTHELESS, here are a few shots of humedasae. In some of them you can see a faint hint of a 'damon' stripe. In others there is nothing at all.






(this one is sheltering from the rain)




(that one must have gone to bed on a crumpled pillowcase)





I took dozens but there's very little variation in this butterfly and not a lot in my pictures either!

This female was the only one that briefly opened her wings:



Damon blues were flying at the same site. Here are a male and a female:





This butterly is in the same subgenus, Agrodiaetus, as the anomalous and furry blues. Escher's blue and Chapman's blue, although very different in appearance, are also in this subgenus. Both were in evidence today. No blues were settling with uppersides visible because of the weather, but if they had been the furry androconial patches would have been obvious in the males. Common (and Eros) blues lack these patches.

Another blue in evidence today was Meleager's - Polyommatus daphnis. Here are a male and a female:





The commonest Satyrid was dusky meadow brown, Hyponephele lycaon. Although this looks superficially rather like a meadow brown the females are instantly separable by the second black ocellus on the forewing:



In the field, however, as so often, Hyponephele is immediately different from Maniola, by size, habit, everything really. It is a shame most butterfly books focus so much on the 'still life' appearance of butterflies.

Almost the first butterfly I saw on arrival was a woodland grayling. I did get a single shot at this but I had the camera on ISO 100, for bright conditions, and it was totally overcast then, so the picture is rubbish. But it does confirm my 'eyebrow' method of separating woodland from rock. I knew this was woodland anyway because of its sheer size, and saw another later that was equally huge. But size is not apparent when you are asked to identify species from photos!

For the skippers, I saw Oberthür's, safflower, (southern) grizzled, large and small - I didn't check specifically for Essex as I was concentrating on other things. Here is a female safflower skipper:





And why not close with that most English of butterflies, the small heath?



I was lucky with the weather. When I got back to Aosta the heavens opened and a violent storm struck. Even more luckily, I had decided not to take my bike but to catch the bus back to Martigny. I couldn't have cycled home in that weather - and certainly not with a little dog-head sticking out of my backpack!

Guy

[Padfield]

The first white admiral eggs are appearing in my local woods:



This one was laid right next to the edge of the leaf:



There are no purple emperor eggs yet, though I did see a female today, high in the canopy not far from the main laying areas.

Woodland browns are still flying, though looking tatty, and Arran browns are slowly being replaced by fresh, bright Scotch arguses:



Yesterday I saw a southern small white in Huémoz. This species has dramatically extended its distribution and altitudinal range in Switzerland in recent years. Once, it was only found in the Rhône Valley east of Martigny, and similarly hot places. Now it reachces mountain villages like Huémoz and La Barboleuse, where I used to live. A change in foodplant is said to be the reason.



Guy

[Padfield]

Up at 05h00 again yesterday, this time to travel to warrenensis country - apart from anything else, to illustrate my answers to recent warrenensis queries. The idea was to arrive on site early (though it is a cycle ride, two trains and over an hour's climb from my house, so I didn't get there before about 10h00) and catch them warming up. It didn't work like that. For the first two hours, on uncomfortably steep slopes, I saw nothing I could confidently say was warrenensis. Most importantly, everything except a very small red-underwing skipper just seemed too big. Warrenensis is a tiny butterfly. Confusingly, almost all the Pyrgus at that great altitude showed diminished, dotty markings, so when the intense heat caused doubts as to size it was not easy to be sure. I had my net but because nothing looked good for my target species I didn't catch anything, preferring to get what photos I could.

I'm the only person officially to have recorded warrenensis from this site (indeed, from this 5km square). I think the reason is obvious - you have to be slightly mad to go there:





As you can see, it's not a simple thing to follow a tiny, buzzing skipper ...

Here's an example of a male Pyrgus that looked just a bit too big and had too well marked hindwings:



This female is tempting to call from the photo - and the underside is good - but again, she struck me as too big. In the field I didn't think she was warrenensis:





I think these are just rather small alpine forms of alveus - or in the case of the female, perhaps a high form of carlinae (normally, carlinae doesn't fly this high).

At about 12h15 I did, eventually, see a few definite warrenensis. I was exactly where Minnie is in the picture above and two or three came tumbling down the slope, stopping for seconds only on flowers before interacting with one another and moving on. They were visibly tiny butterflies and when I caught a glimpse of the undersides they were rather greyscale. I got poor shots of just one of these:







At about the same time I also photographed this one. I approached it thinking it was warrenensis, and it was small - but I wasn't sure and I had left my net a few metres away so went for the photo not the catch:



From the upperside alone it could easily be serratulae - and I didn't get a look at the underside. I don't think the wings are pointy enough for warrenensis.

To illustrate how tricky these high mountain Pyrgus can be, here are a couple more from the same site, each challenging in its own way!




(note - no cell spot at all)

By about 13h30 Minnie had definitely had enough. There was no real shelter, nor anywhere to lie down and wait. In addition, the presence of marmots, and my refusal to let her near any, was drving her mad. So we walked on and down to a convenient garden bar I spotted in a village some distance away. That's one advantage of a superzoom camera ...



Between the parasols I could look up at glaciers ...



Minnie was glad of the cool and shade:



Then back on the road again:



I didn't photograph much else apart from Pyrgus but I was glad to get reasonable shots of a female purple-shot copper - nearly all my photos are of males:





Other species flying included Niobe fritillary (common even up to 2550m), Grisons fritillary, shepherd's fritillary, knapweed fritillary, Queen of Spain fritillary, almond-eyed ringlet, lesser mountain ringlet, marbled ringlet, alpine heath, Apollo, scarce swallowtail, little blue, eros blue, Escher's blue, silver-studded blue, idas blue, small skipper, silver-spotted skipper and all the usual whites and yellows (though no moorland clouded yellows at this site - quite the wrong terrain).

Here is a pair of lesser mountain ringlet:



Guy

[Padfield]

Today was a rest day - but Minnie still needed walking so we did the longer local wood walk in the morning.

The white admiral egg I posted a couple of days ago has hatched. The caterpillar is absolutely tiny - virtually invisible to the naked eye and just discernible in these photos:





Elsewhere in the woods, eggs and caterpillars are widespread. This is by far the easiest time of year to find white admiral caterpillars - a casual glance over honeysuckle is enough to spot the absolutely characteristic feeding marks of the first instar larva.









&c. &c. - they're all over the place. My woods do not have a high density of white admirals but they evidently do their stuff.

Interestingly, this leaf has feeding marks at the end - though no sign of a caterpillar - and a hatched, eaten, egg (top left of picture), as well as an unhatched egg (a little down the left-hand edge from the hatched egg). I don't know what the silver mark is in the middle. It looks like a hatched, eaten egg but white admirals do not lay on the midrib, so far as I know.





The class of 2016 has started its challenging, one-year course!!

Guy

[David M]

Superb stuff again, Guy. If you really are "slightly mad" then this forum is all the better for it!

[Cotswold Cockney]

Superb stuff again, Guy. If you really are "slightly mad" then this forum is all the better for it!

Agreed. Given the dangerous terrain I think I would have skipped those skippers ... Been there done that and do not wish to do that again. Mind you, four decades on, the old joints, muscles and agility arn't what they were..

You have highlighted how easy it is to locate White Admiral Larvae this time of the season, usually the first two weeks of August in local Gloucestershire Woodlands. Regarding that leaf tip extension where they rest when not feeding, many other species of butterflies do this including some of the largest and most beautiful The fabulous Neotropical Agrias and Prepona for example. This is what Prepona larvae did to my fine Avocado plants I grew from stones from those fruits bought at a supermarket back in the 1980s.





That larva is in its penultimate instar and when fully grown is possibly more than x1000 the volume of the little White Admiral first instar larva.

[bugboy]

I don't mind admitting all those Pyrgus look the same to my untrained eyes , thank god there's only the one in the UK

[David M]

I don't mind admitting all those Pyrgus look the same to my untrained eyes , thank god there's only the one in the UK

If you're going to travel abroad, Bugboy, then you have to prepare yourself for these ultimate identification challenges!!

I can't say it's easy, but in its own way it's highly enjoyable.

I reckon it'll be 10 years at least before I even consider myself adept, let alone expert!

[Pete Eeles]

This is by far the easiest time of year to find white admiral caterpillars - a casual glance over honeysuckle is enough to spot the absolutely characteristic feeding marks of the first instar larva.

I couldn't agree more - even given my limited experience! An egg I've been monitoring hatched in the last couple of days and the briefest of scans of a honeysuckle sprig was enough to find the blighter!

I think you've also caught very well the silk-and-frass combination that is the platform at the end of the midrib ... something many books will describe simply as the uneaten midrib, which is just WRONG, and is right up there with "Mountain Ringlet only fly in bright sunshine"; absolutely tosh that I'll be describing further in my PD when I get a mo!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Thank you all for your comments.

CC: That trapeze artist Prepona is one of the most weird and wonderful caterpillars I have seen! And I know the adults are gorgeous butterflies too.

David and Buggy: Pyrgus is definitely an acquired taste - a bit like Erebia. I met a professional Spanish lepidopterist in the Val d'Aran some years ago who openly admitted he just didn't do them. But in their own way they are every bit as exciting as the big stuff.

Pete: Yes - the life of the 1st instar white admiral cat is truly fascinating. I think it was you who pointed me to an article describing this bizarre behaviour, as well as pointing out what an inhospitable environment the hairy honeysuckle leaf is for a creature barely 1mm long on emergence.

I was going to go east to look for Melitaea asteria today, bivvying on the mountainside like last year, but various factors have led me to postpone this until later in the week. Instead, I dropped down to the local woods again this morning to look for purple emperor eggs. Strangely, there are none to be seen yet. Last year the first hatched on 3rd August, meaning it was laid by about 22nd July, and I was finding them regularly at the end of July. I'm wondering if the canicule caused the females to hold back - because eggs laid into intense heat and solid sun would be at a grave disadvantage. Now the canicule has broken (in the last couple of days) I hope the females will start striking into those sallow groves.

In contrast, white admiral eggs and larvae were everywhere. There was at least one and often more on pretty well every honeysuckle bush in shady parts of the woods. Here are three:



The next picture is interesting. I initially thought there were two adjacent leaves with a caterpillar each, but on closer inspection I noticed there was no caterpillar on the left hand leaf. However, there is a hatched egg (or its remains) on the left hand leaf and an unhatched egg on the right. I think just the one caterpillar has made both feeding traces, moving from the left leaf to the right for some reason. This caterpillar will soon be joined by a second. We will see what happens!


(Notice that the tip of the right hand leaf has not been extended artificially - something the tiny caterpillars do to facilitate movement when first hatched - but is simply eaten away. This to me confirms it is a second leaf, not the leaf this caterpillar hatched on)

Here is the caterpillar from the right hand leaf, showing how they make those scything arcs:



In the main ride I spotted a female Everes flitting around low vegetation. Assuming it was alcetas, and remembering Sylvie H's thread about this species, I followed it to see what plants it preferred and if perhaps it would lay an egg for me. But when it landed I could see it was actually argiades - the first of this species I have ever seen on my local patch.





That was quite a coup!

In the same ride, alcetas was present, as always:



It will be very nice if both these short-tailed blues breed in my local woods!

Guy

[Cotswold Cockney]

CC: That trapeze artist Prepona is one of the most weird and wonderful caterpillars I have seen! And I know the adults are gorgeous butterflies too.

Guy

The fully grown larvae have another remarkable trick that I only observed twice by chance when I accidentally nudged the growing Bushes the larvae were on. That kind of disturbance maybe resembles a bird or other predator in the bushes or trees so the larvae adopt a defensive stance. Hunching their heads back into the first few segments of their bodies. This results in what at first glance even to my eyes looks amazingly like a the head of a Snake. Complete with two upward facing fangs ~ the two "horns" on their heads ~ and the pointed process placed high on the "swollen" area of the first few body segments. Any bird searching the bushes coming face to face with that would soon have the bird shocked and flying away rather than risk an attack from a snake. It is that effectively similar to a Snake.

Despite my deliberately nudging their potted plants in an effort to get them to assume that defensive pose so I could get a decent image, they never obliged and I tried several times without luck.

This composite shot of four old 6x4" Prints shows the fully grown larva in the top left picture. Note the profile of the larva shown by the shadow to its left, our right. This clearly shows the various head and body components which when correctly positioned and aligned, result in that remarkable Snake Head ... eyes and all!



Top right and lower left pictures show suspended pupating larvae and pupa, and freshly emerged adult. Bottom right is an emerging Poplar Admiral.

[Cotswold Cockney]

IIRC, which is not always the case nowadays, the White Admiral Larvae use their own little particles of frass and their silk to extend that mid-rib at the leaf tip where they rest. Again subject to memory, the Prepona shown above do the same only on a much larger scale as does the Poplar Admiral.

No conclusive idea why they do this but, it may be another protective ploy to avoid being discovered by marauding ants and against adverse weather. Ants must cover all the vegetation in any wood over a period. I clearly remember schoolboy me climbing high in an Oak Tree in my favourite wood to inspect a Buzzard's nest to observe many Wood Ants high up there too. Sixty years on, the wood ants are still there and so are the White Admirals but, nowhere near as numerous as they were back in the 1950s. The wood ants are more numerous...

The leaf tip extension may also assist during periods of prolonged rain when all the leaves would be saturated and loaded with rainwater but, that extension would enable rapid draining without harm to the minute larva.

All guess work and there could be other reasons too. .

[Pete Eeles]

This caterpillar will soon be joined by a second. We will see what happens!

Excellent report, as usual, Guy! I hope you're able to see what does happen regarding the second egg. I've not had a chance to return to Pamber to see what has happened regarding the pair of ova I found (one of which subsequently hatched) and fear that the recent heavy rainfall in the south of England will not have done them any good at all.

Well done on the argiades!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Your musings remind me I should go and look for poplar admiral cats, CC. If they are like white admirals this should be the easiest time of year to find them.

The second egg has still to hatch, Pete, as of today:



The tiny emergee will have no chance against that thumping great (c. 2mm) oldie so I hope it realises what is going on and tries a lateral vein until it is big enough to find a leaf of its own.

I'm still seeing white admiral larvae wherever I look. These two are quite close to my house:



However, still not a single purple emperor egg. The canicule is over and the butterflies have been on the wing for more than a month now (in principle - because in practice I have only seen three individuals in these woods this year) so they should jolly well start laying ...

Guy

[Padfield]

Filler, so my next post goes at the top of a page!

Guy