I'm getting very behind on these European top tens, but others have covered most of my favourites and it's been a pleasure to see the pictures and stories.
Anyway, here's the rest of the Swiss vote!
No 5: 2020 is likely to be the first year since 2006 I won't see
Asian fritillary (
Euphydryas intermedia wolfensbergeri). Not necessarily, if I can get back to CH by the beginning of July, but that is currently a forlorn hope. Every year since Matt Rowlings first showed me a site in 2007, I've headed up the same valley and spent time among the blue honeysuckle and rhododendrons with
intermedia and a host of other beautiful butterflies. The name 'Asian fritillary' is misleading, as the European subspecies is quite isolated from the Asian populations and is a rather rare, alpine specialist.
(male)
(female)
(underside)
And for those who've never seen one in the flesh, a couple of videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccbdITeRVQY[/video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLWyDZYJtJk[/video]
No 4: Cynthia's fritillary (
Euphydryas cynthia) is a wonderful species and others have quite undertandably placed it higher. The only problem is the number of favourites competing for the top slots!
I saw my first one in 1987, high above Crans Montana, when I was holidaying in Switzerland with a tetraplegic friend. I pushed his wheelchair, he paid my holiday. I can't remember where he was when I saw the
cynthia, but I loaded him onto plenty of funiculars and télécabines so he was probably with me, or not far away. We went again in July 1988 and then in August 1989. By that last trip I had fallen so much in love with the country I rang every school in Vaud one morning and secured a job for 1st September. The rest is history.
My 1987
cynthia, taken on my old Praktika Nova I SLR (which sadly died in 2004):
Some more recent pictures:
(female)
(final instar caterpillar)
No 3: Thor's fritillary (
Boloria thore) is among my all-time favourite butterflies. I had never seen one until 2013, when I did a concerted search, using Google Earth and the published 5km square data. To my delight, I found a thriving colony, spread out over a large region, and have revisited almost every year since. I don't know what it is that makes it so special. Quite possibly it is, as Pete mentioned for
cynthia, the fact it has stared out of European butterfly books at me since I was a child. Then finally to see it in the flesh ...
I had a particularly enjoyable day with
thore last year. These first two pictures were taken then:
(with
aegeria)
Here are some more, from previous years:
(a female oviposturing)
(a male, surveying his shady world)
(two males by the same bridge, a year earlier)
(with my best friend)
No 2: Some might be surprised, but my second favourite fritillary has to be Queen of Spain. Those who have followed my diary over the years know I see it every month of the year and that it is often my first butterfly. From memory, my latest sighting was 20th December and my earliest 6th January. How many sunny days in January and February have I spent among the vines of the Rhône Valley, with the chalky smell of grape terraces, searching for and finding Queens ... And when I find one, I crack open a beer, give Minnie a bowl of water and enjoy the moment. Sometimes there are small tortoieshells there too, and sometimes the odd clouded yellow, but it is the Queens I am there for.
My first picture is a view along the vineyard road in December 2015, with a Queen on the rock on the left:
This is probably the same butterfly (I took the photo on the same day):
By March, numbers are usually high - sometimes in the hundreds - but the land is still bare:
The underside is extraordinary, with its silver pearls:
Courtship is extremely brief. I was watching the female of this couple (the upper one) when a male flew past and picked her up. They were coupled within a second and immediately landed:
The caterpillars feed on
Viola tricolor agg.:
No 1. I have no choice - it has to be the cardinal (
Argynnis pandora). My name is now written into the history of this species in Switzerland, and its name is written into my history in Switzerland. As I've noted before, when I had my final interview before becoming Swiss, I presented the panel with a paper I'd co-written (with Yannick Cittaro and Vincent and Michel Baudraz) on its establishment in the country and after that all we talked about was butterflies. I'd learnt by heart all the citizenship stuff about the history, geography and politics of Switzerland, but when the chairwoman asked the others if they wanted to ask their stock questions they all said no - butterflies was fine. So here are a few photos of what is now my favourite butterfly of all:
This is a frame from a video I took in 2005, when I didn't have a proper still camera. I didn't know it at the time, but it was the first confirmed record of cardinal in Switzerland since 1947:
(for the rest of that story, see:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ymphalidae)
(a male)
(a female)
(male underside)
(female underside)
(an aged female, showing the extensive green tarnishing that matures with the months)
And finally, a video of the flight of the cardinal. See how soon you can pick up the butterfly, flying left-right (in slow motion). At the end, the butterfly changed direction and flew over my left shoulder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKgsq5XdpFY[/video]
Guy
