Every day out in the countryside with my faithful dog is a good day, Wurzel!
With Roger casually mentioning in CFB's diary that the commonest butterfly in his friend's garden at the moment is iolas blue, I thought I'd check on the Rhône Valley iolas blues today. One of the spring cardinal nectaring sites coincides with my most reliable
iolas site so that was where I headed.
The only plant of any real interest to
iolas is bladder senna. In French, this is called
le baguenaudier, a name presumably related to the verb
baguenauder, meaning to amble or stroll around. So I guess it is the ambler's bush. I've certainly spent a lot of time ambling around bladder senna. There was no point today, however, as it wasn't in flower. One or two bushes had a few florets but most were completely bare, adorned only with last year's bladders. Iolas blues will nectar on other plants but only if flowering bladder senna is in the vicinity.
Nevertheless, by an amazing stroke of luck, I saw a male
iolas bounding across the site, obviously in a hurry to be elsewhere. This is Europe's largest Lycaenid and when it flies, it moves in giant steps from one place to another. It forms populations rather than colonies, and males may cover many kilometres in a day, checking out all the bladder senna in the region for females. Anyway, I moved to intercept this one and was able to snatch a quick, distant shot before it leapfrogged into the next commune.
There were no cardinals, here or at another nearby nectaring site, so I think they are not on the wing yet.
A strong wind brewed up during the morning, bringing cloud by the afternoon, when I moved on further down the valley. That kept the butterflies at bay to a certain extent but I took a fair few photos during the day. Here are some of them:
(scarce swallowtail)
(Chapman's blue)
(a pair of Glanvilles getting intimate)
(their antennae seemed to be touching)
(turquoise blue)
(chequered blue - I wanted to do some 'Padfield shots' of him but what you can't see there is that it's blowing a gale!! That was the only picture that even came out)
(safflower skipper)
(wood white)
(Minnie guarding the beer, bike and backpacks)
(a strongly marked rosy grizzled skipper,
Pyrgus onopordi)
I tried looking for southern white admiral caterpillars but this was very difficult because the honeysuckle was going frantic in the wind. My normal method is to scan for nibbled leaves, then home in on what might be causing that, but it is very difficult to scan a mass of madly flailing foliage! I did manage to find one, however, by another stroke of luck - it wasn't even near any nibbled leaves. And what a strange creature! Initially, I thought it was dead but on closer inspecting I think it was just being very creative. If all the others were concealed in the same way it is little wonder I didn't see any. Last time I found them they were sitting on leaves on a sunny morning ...
This was my first view of the
reducta cat:
Not at all a typical caterpillar!!
Here are a couple more pictures from a different angle. It was difficult getting good pictures in the wind and dim light:
(Look! No hands!)
A very strange animal.
Guy