www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Hi Benjamin. I'm pretty sure it is a male. Even that can be deceptive sometimes, when you are only going from photos. I should go up my mountain with a net occasionally, to do a proper répertoire of the Erebia. I always carry a net for Erebia missions further afield but on my local patch I have a different mental setup!

Hi David. We all have a species that eludes us! In my part of Switzerland, dryads are widespread and common, though they come on the wing late - no earlier than mid-July - which might explain why you haven't come across them so far. They are big fans of nectar, especially pink flowers like hemp agrimony, field scabious and - it appears - crocuses. I find them typically from the Rhône Valley up to about 1400m. I often cycle from Montreux or Villeneuve to Aigle along the Rhône and invariably see this big, floppy, dark butterfly along the way when it is in season. They fly in Leysin, where I live now, and in my old home of Cheisères/Huémoz. I also see them regularly in the stretch of Rhône Valley from Martigny to Leuk. Once you've seen your first, you'll start seeing them everywhere!

Guy

Great to see the Dryad Guy took me right back to the Dordogne This big and dull brown plopped down in front of me and then those eye spots Cheers for kindling the memory

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Padfield wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2024 6:58 pm...We all have a species that eludes us! In my part of Switzerland, dryads are widespread and common, though they come on the wing late - no earlier than mid-July - which might explain why you haven't come across them so far...

That's exactly the reason, Guy. I'm never in the right place at the best time for them. Same with a few other relatively commonplace (albeit sometimes localised) species - Autumn Ringlet, Catalonian Furry Blue and Portuguese Dappled White spring to mind.

I'll catch up with them all sooner or later. Often, a long wait makes the eventual encounter all the more enjoyable.

Thanks Wurzel and David. Yes, big, floppy dryads - a sign the season is over the hill ...

We had rain and snow last week, with the snow briefly as low as Leysin. Butterfly numbers since then have been very low, though I also have very little time to go out and look for them. This silver-washed fritillary on 16th September is likely to be the last of that species I see at this altitude:



Three days later, on 19th September, my local walk turned up very little indeed. Locally - at one particular spot - there were a few blues, including Adonis, common, Chapman's, chalkhill and northern brown argus, but elsewhere the meadows were largely lifeless. This brimstone looked very fresh:



He's feeding up for hibernation.

In the valley on 14th September, more was flying but it was chilly and clouded over completely by early afternoon. Here is a clouded yellow from that day - not a species that has had a good year:



For once, an emperor dragonfly actually stopped and let me photograph him:



Spotted flycatchers have had an amazing year. I've seen them in large groups almost everywhere I've been. Here is one from 14th September:



One day, I'll get a decent photo of a black woodpecker. A couple of days ago, one ventured out onto a bare branch for a few moments, but unfortunately I was very far away and looking at it into the sun. It's such a brilliant bird that its character shows through even in these awful shots:





And to close, the September full moon:



One night, in 1987, I was meditating on a full moon and it occurred to me my life would span only a finite number of further full moons. A human life is about 1000 full moons in total ... Ever since then, I've sort of been counting down, without knowing what number I'm counting from, of course!! And so every full moon has become a celebration of life for me!

Guy

It's been mostly cloudy and wet since my last post. Last Sunday, it was sunny in the morning and I took a trip up the local mountain, but it was far too cold at the top and cloud had moved in by the time we got lower down.









After another week of wet, today was sunny, so we headed off along the Rhône to see what was still on the wing. Things are definitely closing down earlier than usual - I think Nature has got tired of 2024 and is drawing herself in, to gather strength for what we hope is a wonderful 2025! Nevertheless, enough was flying to make it a very enjoyable butterfly walk.


(Setting out on the walk)


(Tree graylings - the harvest butterfly - were by far the commonest species)


(There were a few graylings with them)


(Walls are still common)


(Queens fly year-round in the Rhône Valley)


(This was the only spotted fritillary I saw today)


(Adonis was the commonest blue)


(This is Chapman's blue. Chalkhill and common blues were also flying)


(A confirmation glimpse of the underside of the same butterfly)


(Clouded yellow. Berger's clouded yellows were also on the wing)

There are still dragonflies on the wing, including southern hawker, migrant hawker and common darter:


(Southern hawker)

This is the brown morph of praying mantis:



The green morph is more usual. Here is one I photographed a couple of weeks ago on another rare, sunny day :



And to close, a few piccies of my best friend, still up for long walks at nearly 13 years old ...







Guy

Beautiful, scenic images, Guy. So good to see Minnie enjoying the great Swiss outdoors as she approaches her teens!

All that exercise Minnie does must be doing here the world of good Guy I wish/hope I'll be running around mountains at 91 Great to see the Chapman's Blue, they always seem to drop off my radar when I'm abroad

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Thanks David and Wurzel. Yes, for a tiny dog, Minnie certainly puts in the kilometres - many tens of thousands of them over the course of her life. She is definitely slowing down now and I carry her when I think things are getting too much, but she still gets excited about going for long walks. The day will come when she can't do it any more, and then she'll just spend more time in the backpack - which she loves! I say to her, 'Est-ce que tu veux que je te porte ?' and if she does want a lift, she stands still and looks at me - so I pick her up. If she doesn't, she puts her head down and hastens on! We communicate well!

Still generally grey here in the Alps. We took a walk in the vineyards today, where very little was flying - mainly because of the weather. Walls are prepared to brave the cloud but apart from them I saw just one red admiral, one Queen of Spain and one Berger's clouded yellow today. Hummingbird hawkmoths were out in force and a few lizards scuttled along the tracks.









Here is a kestrel hiding among the vines ...



... and here a raven and sparrowhawk battling it out against a grey sky:





Half-sun at the best of times ...



... and grim weather at the worst. This is the view over the vineyards towards Martigny:



Any hopes of seeing the comet tonight were dashed by rain!

Guy

Cracking Berger's Guy "We communicate well!"...its sounds like Minnie has a better communication skills than half the pupils that I teach

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Hi Wurzel. I've always said that if two people want to understand each other, they will, even if they don't speak the same language. If they don't want to, they won't, even if they do speak the same language! I brought Minnie up in French and she does have quite a good grasp of that, but she communicates back by means of long, meaningful stares and other forms of body language!

Today was very cloudy but the forecast was for this to clear in the evening and I had hopes of glimpsing the comet. From my house there is no clear view of the western horizon so Minnie and I went out to the Corbelet - an open hill at the bottom of Leysin village - to sit it out. Sadly, it looked very unpromising, as clouds were gathered in the west, catching the sun's last rays:





Comets are harder work in the Alps because the sun sets behind the mountains a considerable time before before true sunset, meaning that near-sun objects have to be viewed against a brighter sky.

Nevertheless, we stuck it out, and as the sky darkened I eventually saw what we came to see, bright enough to be visible through thin cloud:



As the night drew on and the comet headed for the horizon, the tail became visible too:



If any of you in the UK have clear skies tonight, you will have had much better views, as you could have waited until the sky was darker still. It will continue to be visible for about a fortnight before disappearing again for another 80 000 years ...

Guy

I think it’s cloudy pretty much everywhere tonight, Guy, but I will certainly look for it when the sky clears. You’ve managed quite a good picture, considering.

Thanks Buzzard. I talked my sister in Norwich through getting some piccies of it tonight and she had good, clear skies - so I hope you got a chance.

I was back out again too, as after a cloudy day it cleared up in the west in the evening.



(the two stars top left are in Serpens Caput)



(that's Arcturus on the right, over Leysin)

Minnie didn't really share my enthusiasm:




('Can we go home now?')

Guy

"If they don't want to, they won't"...sums it up nicely, I do and they don't, the joys of teaching a 'core' subject
Love the first photo fro the last post Guy - almost as if it's a volcano smoking away

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Minnie in the moonlight - sounds likea Chopin opus.

I've wanted to go look for this comet for a few nights now, but we've been under Atlantic cloud for several days.

I was happy with that first shot too, Wurzel.

The comet's still very visible, David, to an iPhone at least. Not so much to the naked eye, though, because although it is moving away from the sun and thus in principle into darker skies (because it sets later), it is also fading - and the full moon now means those skies are not actually dark at all.

I was out last night, getting shots from different vantage points, and again tonight, though on both these nights clouds have been a problem. This is last night:



You can see the comet is closer to the two stars of Serpens Caput above it to the left.

Tonight it was closer still:



It will keep moving in that direction and set ever later but as it distances itself from the sun it will also become much fainter. Note that it is moving the opposite way from what you might expect, looking at the tail! The tail points away from the sun, so at this stage of its orbit it is moving in the same direction as the tail is pointing.

Here is Minnie, standing proudly by the Swiss flag, with Leysin in the background. This flag stands on unlit land away from the town and proved an excellent place to photograph the comet from. The comet is not in this picture:



Guy

EDIT:

By resizing and re-orientating the pictures so the two stars from Serpens Caput exactly aligned, I've produced this clumsy composite of the comet's movement through the heavens over the last three days (those stars weren't visible in the picture of 13th October):

OK - I'm obsessive. But as the sky was clear tonight, I couldn't resist it:







She's got that weird expression because I had told her to stay there while I backed off, and she was watching me for further instructions!

I added tonight's position of the comet to my collage, but I don't think I'll carry on with this!! In fact, I'm not even sure I used the right two stars (I used the first picture). I'll check later!



Tonight's supermoon was distorted by something of a heat haze here, or some other atmospheric turbulence. But how lucky was this shot (if not particularly clear)?



Guy