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Yesterday’s highlights on the Cold’Agnel.
Momtain fritillary, Male and female both in good nick, a rather worn Male Cynthia's Fritillary, and an assortment of Erebias that I shall need help with at a later date, cold at the moment hoping for sun to get some action 10.37.

Padfield wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:01 pmIt's really great to follow your trip David, with all these wonderful butterflies. As you know, most of them were on my doorstep (some literally) until recently, and I do miss them. Poplar admirals are a particular favourite - rare, beautiful and with such an effortlessly commanding presence. It is always a treat to be granted an audience with one.

I think I understand how much you miss these species, Guy, given my own levels of frustration this year due to Covid restrictions.

The Poplar Admiral is a magnificent butterfly. I've probably only ever seen about ten, but that one was easily the freshest I've encountered, and even the kids walking along the path were somewhat taken aback by its imposing presence.

Friday 10th July - Savoie sortie....

For my final full day, I wanted to investigate new territory, so I travelled north of Briançon and over a 2,500m col into the Savoie departement.

I passed over the col as it was early and I doubted anything would be flying, but I stopped at the first likely looking spot on the north side at about 2,100m:
There was enough protection provided by the slopes and the dips for butterflies to be active, and I quickly realised that the default erebia up here was Blind Ringlet. All the specimens I saw settled were the regular pharte form and there were decent numbers of them around.

There were also a handful of Mountain Fritillaries up there:
Several Whites were flying around the steep slope near the road. One came down and nectared for about 5 minutes, which is about 4 minutes 50 seconds longer than I have ever known for a normally turbo-charged Mountain Dappled White:

Wow, what a cracker that poplar Admiral is! Must have been one of the highlights of the trip-amongst many!

Yes, Mark, more so because of the unexpected nature of it. Any butterfly that dwarfs a Purple Emperor is an exciting find.

After leaving this peaceful location, I simply drove lower in altitude until I saw the next likely looking spot to park. This was only a couple of kilometres further down the road, and what attracted me was the steep bank by the road that was sheltering a flowery hillside immediately behind:
This area was swarming with butterflies, and I finally managed to nail down a couple of Coppers, a group which was thin on the ground the whole week. Here is a Sooty Copper:
...and its close relative, Purple-Edged Copper:
With this being new territory for me, I was keeping a close eye on the erebia flying around at this 1,900m location. I was delighted when one that had caught my eye for landing mainly on the rocks suddenly decided to settle on some greenery fairly close to me. It was my final 'lifer' of the week - Marbled Ringlet:

David M wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:25 pm It was my final 'lifer' of the week - Marbled Ringlet

And a beauty of an Erebia it is David! I love the undersides of these. Hope to be knee-deep in them myself in just over a week!

Yep. No mistaking that one, Pete.

Be interesting to see how many there are when you visit. Is it like euryale, flying in good numbers or is it like aethiopella, teasing you with just the odd one here and there?

Ristolas, l’Echalp .
A simple drive up to l’Echalp from our campsite and found the place we had parked a few years ago, I had no great expectations, in the event it turned out to be one of the most exciting day’s butterflying I have experienced, on my first visit I was excited to find my first Damon blue, today they were everywhere, in the afternoon, a group measured in hundreds in front of our van taking salts, mixed with equal number of Silver-studded-Blues, elsewhere they were also numerous in groups of forty plus.

Erebia aethiops , I may need to be corrected, were as numerous, I even had three sitting on my hand, others visiting the van, a magical day to be remembered.
One Small Apollo , and many many other species, I shall be very busy on my return.

Jim, I have very fond memories of L'Echalp!
I wonder if your aethiops were perhaps euryale? Maybe not, but when I was last there, Large Ringlet was very enthusiastically mud-puddling, and by far the most numerous Erebia, very friendly, landing on hands/legs/rucksacs etc...
Damon Blue was about along with many other blues.
I have a poor quality photo of some mud-puddling from the very spot along the river bed, just past l'Echalp, taken back in 2012:

In some years I have found Damon Blues to be extremely common, although I have never seen aethiops in SE France prior to mid-July.

I'll be very interested to find out which species both of you have encountered as I have not spent time in the area in late July/early August.

Medard wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 5:49 pmRistolas, l’Echalp...

Those images you sent me are montana, Jim. I presume you're seeing a lot of them?

I left this productive little location in mid-afternoon and decided to stop at the col itself on my way back.

It was clouding over a bit by this time and I wasn't sure I'd see anything by climbing the steep rocky slope up to the trig point at about 2,600m.

It all looked pretty austere up there:
However, in the sparse, grassy areas there looked to be potential:
The sun peeped through the clouds and I saw a Small Blue battling against the wind. Then something else caught my eye and I fancied it was something very desirable:
This was only the third female Alpine Blue I'd ever seen. They don't come along very often, so you need to make the most of it when you are lucky enough to find one:
There were also erebia flying here. It took me an age to see one settle but I wasn't going to risk my life trying to approach it on the edge of a huge drop. This distance shot proved that they were Sooty Ringlets:
With skies darkening, I left around 5pm. By the time I got past Briançon the heavens opened which reinforced just how lucky I'd been with the weather during my time here.

David M wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:32 am The high altitudes have been odd ever since that Siberian cold snap in March 2018. Cynthia's were almost absent for me in 18 and 19, but I found them easily this year.

I'm not surprised Dewy Ringlets had gone, Roger. Many of them were on their last legs when I visited the area round the refuge on 5 July.

Maybe there have been highly localised conditions in SE France this year which has led to certain parts being more in advance than others?

I've just returned from the Austrian Alps, where I spent the 17th to 23rd July in the hills around a town called Mallnitz. I too was going to post about this years weather and whether this had had bizarre impacts on the butterflies.

At lower levels of around 1300m, most of the meadows were pristine or near pristine, yet there were hardly any butterflies at all not even Meadow Brown's, Marbled White's or any of the "Golden" Skipper's, despite great weather conditions.

It was similar at very high levels of 2500m to 2800m, where there was still quite a bit of snow, and there had been fresh snow and very cold conditions in the week before I arrived. There was nothing flying at all apart from the odd hill-topping individual.

Yet in the middle altitudes, of around 1500m to 2000m, there were many more butterflies, even though not all the meadows were in good condition, with it feeling like the summer butterflies were just emerging at the end of the week.

Local people suggested it had been a highly late and cold early summer. My theory is that the prolonged very cold and wet weather in early July killed off all the butterflies that emerged at low levels in late June. At middle altitudes, they hadn't emerged in late June, and so delayed emergence until as late as late last week. At high altitudes they haven't emerged at all yet, and may only be doing so now and next week.

26-07-2020.
David thank you for the ID (Montana) another first to add to my growing list of French butterflies.
Checked out the moth population in the ablutions, and then prepared to return to l’Echalp, this morning I drove to the upper park.
The access road is a stone track but drivable, we parked short of the highest parking,
A good number of species seen including some interesting species, for me a new species of a Burnet moth.
I have now reached the limit of my Data roaming.

selbypaul wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 3:37 pm...Local people suggested it had been a highly late and cold early summer. My theory is that the prolonged very cold and wet weather in early July killed off all the butterflies that emerged at low levels in late June. At middle altitudes, they hadn't emerged in late June, and so delayed emergence until as late as late last week. At high altitudes they haven't emerged at all yet, and may only be doing so now and next week.

Perfectly plausible theory, Paul. Strange things happen at altitude, something we don't really see in the UK.

So, in summary this was an exceedingly enjoyable week, especially given the restrictions on travel that were only lifted the day before I returned.

Over 100 species seen and identified. Here they are:

Hesperids

1. Tufted Marbled Skipper (Carcharodus flocciferus)
2. Dingy Skipper (Erynnis tages)
3. Large Skipper (Ochlodes sylvanus)
4. Large Grizzled Skipper (Pyrgus alveus)
5. Safflower Skipper (Pyrgus carthami)
6. Southern grizzled Skipper (Pyrgus malvoides)
7. Olive Skipper (Pyrgus serratulae)
8. Dusky grizzled skipper (Pyrgus cacaliae)
9. Red-underwing Skipper (Spialia sertorius)
10. Essex Skipper (Thymelicus lineola)
11. Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris)
12. Silver spotted skipper (Hesperia comma)

It's always good to see this group taking fluids. That way you can sit and scrutinise them, looking for anything unusual.

This 'pyrgus convention' is typical of what you see in damp spots round these parts:

I guess the only mildly disappointing aspect was the dearth of Coppers & Hairstreaks. Didn't see a single Small Copper, for example, and apart from the handful of Sloe Hairstreaks seen at Nevache, the only other members of this group sighted were a solitary, battered Green Hairstreak at altitude and a single male Purple Hairstreak in the trees next to my AirBnB:

37. Purple-edged Copper (Lycaena hippothoe)
38. Sooty Copper (Lycaena tityrus)
39. Scarce Copper (Lycaena virgaureae)
40. Green Hairstreak (Callophrys rubi)
41. Purple Hairstreak (Neozephyrus quercus)
42. Sloe Hairstreak (Satyrium acaciae)