I'm so glad rain is falling in Spain, David. That heatwave and drought was deadly to wild creatures.
At the same time, we have finally got proper sun here in Switzerland! I was able to go out on Friday, Saturday and today, Sunday, to catch up on a few special species. On Friday, it was violet copper. Again (this was my second attempt this year), I discovered at the last minute that the train wasn't running, but Minnie agreed to walk up (from 1250m to 1800m) providing we took the wooded route most of the way:
I have to be careful with her as she's 11 years old and no puppy any more, but she made it OK and even got back down again afterwards!
As expected, it was still early days for the coppers, but I saw three males at about 1650m (Minnie had to go back down from 1800m to 1650 to the site, then back up to 1800m!) and another four at a different site at 1800m. Here's one photographed through the vegetation:
There was amazingly little flying at all - my regular refrain this year! Normally I would see loads of coppers (including sooty coppers too), as well as chequered skippers, dingy skippers, little blues, tit frits and much more besides. On Friday, a single little blue, a single dingy skipper and none of the others. Lots of green hairstreaks, though. Here's one on a gentian and one on a forget-me-not:
The first northern walls of the year were flying at 1800m
Yesterday, we checked out two sites in Valais, the first for Iolas blues and the second for Provençal fritillaries. The Iolas site is increasingly shrubby and there are hardly any bladder sennas left, but I did see a single, male Iolas blue bounce through, so the species persists. I heard today they are going to clear some of the site and plant fresh bladder sennas in the autumn. I've been constantly pointing out that this was, until recently, the Swiss epicentre for Iolas blue and it had really run to seed. A single, female cardinal flew through.
At my second site, things were equally thin on the ground but I did find a few Provençal fritillaries - all fresh males:
This was nice, but in a way even nicer were the spanking fresh southern white admirals, in constant battle with ageing hippy Camberwell beauties! The southern white admirals were defending territories conspicuously ...
... while the Camberwell beauties actually spent most of their time flat out on the ground:
But the beauties were also cruising up and down the track, and when they passed an admiral, the latter would zoom out and chase it off. At least, that's what it looked like. But I took some iPhone video as they dog-fought around me and in flight it was always the beauty chasing the admiral. These are cropped frames from the video:
New for the year was black-veined white:
Today's mission was mountain dappled white, to add to the western dappled, Portuguese dappled and green-striped whites I saw in Spain. I cycled Minnie to the bottom of the road where they fly but she did then have to walk up the road herself and this was another tough day for my little fighter! Right at the top, we always look for meadow butterflies rather than dappled whites, and she had a moment's relaxation up there:
But the dappled whites themselves were an adventure for her. There was so much traffic on the road, including weekend motorbikers, I decided to climb a gully where the foodplant grows. This is the general scene:
The foodplant,
Erucastrum nasturtiifolium, grows sparsely but widely all over those rocky surfaces:
The male butterflies drift up and down the gully (which extends a considerable way up and down the mountain), checking the plants for females and occasionally settling on them. There was no shade at all for Minnie, so I arranged my bags and stood at a suitable vantage point, providing some relief for her:
Sadly, the males never stopped on the plant I was positioned by, but they did stop about 30m up the hill and with the help of superzoom I was able to get identifiable shots:
This picture shows where that was, in relation to where I was standing (the foodplant heads are the tiny yellow dots just out of the shade):
We then had some considerable difficulty getting back down again! The narrow shale track had collapsed and there was no safe way, so Minnie had a real adventure, during which either or both of us could have ended up with broken legs. But she trusted me completely, did exactly what I said ("Tu restes là ..." when she was on a precarious precipice and I had to scale down first) and made it down safely!
Wood whites were drifting up and down the same gulley, but they ignored the
Erucastrum completely and were easily identified by their slower wing beats and gentler flight. They occasionally landed on nectar-rich plants up the banks.
So finally, the season is moving!
Guy