Padfield

[Padfield]

Again, no emperors in my local woods today. It is a great shame - I just hope conditions return as quickly as possible to what they were. There were no white admirals there today, either, which is quite shocking for late July. Parts of the woods are still lovely to walk in, though:



Other species have been less affected by the removal of crucial trees. Silver-washed fritillaries are out in force. I watched a male chasing a female in vain up and down the track and noticed that he looped under her and back over her continuously as he flew, always facing forward. She followed as near as she could to a straight line while he was like one of those pesky, annoying third-formers that run around you pestering you with some pointless question.

When she tired and took a rest he persisted:


(female at top)


(female on right)


(female below)

After a few minutes of this he gave up and left her in peace.

Meanwhile, this female high brown fritillary was busy laying eggs near the base of violet plants:



This is the sunny bank where she was laying. It will be worth looking for caterpillars on the violets there next spring:



Elsewhere, the thistles were covered in insects, including several Arran browns:



Nearby was this female Scotch argus:



A lone white-letter hairstreak was stuck to one flower head and this lovely hoverfly (I believe) to another:



Guy

[Matsukaze]

The hoverfly has the look of Volucella zonaria, though being Switzerland there are probably half-a-dozen lookalikes that we do not get in Britain.

[Padfield]

Thanks Matsukaze. I'll check it up in case there's a Swiss alternative but in the absence of any further evidence I'll go with you!

Guy

[Padfield]

When the alarm went off at 05h15 I was sorely tempted to ignore it and go back to sleep but a little voice in my head reminded me this was probably my last chance in 2012 to get pictures of warrenensis. So I got up, stoked up on porridge (amazing food) and cycled down the hill. Two trains later I was at 1400m. An hour's hike after that I was at 2200m, at the site where I found warrenensis two years ago (the first records ever for that 5km square, so I think of it as my site). On the way up I paused to take a few shots of the Matterhorn, that iconic chocolate box peak:



Most of the way was in the shade but a few butterflies were poised and waiting for the first rays of sun, like this mountain green-veined white:



When I reached my site a few Pyrgus were on the wing. I wanted non-netted shots if possible today, so I didn't always get upperside and underside of the early ones. I think this is carlinae:



It wasn't quite small enough for warrenensis, so never really got my hopes up.

This one is probably also carlinae:



This one, almost exactly where I found warrenensis two years ago, is probably warrenensis, though unfortunately I didn't get any proof:



If that had been my only sighting I couldn't have counted it.

As the morning hotted up the Pyrgus dried up so I decided to head higher. As I climbed I passed first an ibex's head and then (about 20m higher) its body:



I think this is a lynx kill. All the edible flesh had been taken and something powerful must have gone at the neck to sever the head!

This is the view down the slope from 2400m (the road visible at the bottom is at 2000m):



It doesn't look steep like that but actually the entire area was angled at 45° to the horizontal, as this picture shows:



Although I saw a few warrenensis candidates on the way up there was little hope of manouevring over that slope to catch them, especially as I was carrying drink and other stuff in my backpack. There were several tiny sertorius flying, adding to the confusion.

This was the view of the Matterhorn:



Then the clouds covered the sky, a strong, glacial (literally) wind got up and all the butterflies went down. They just started dropping, as it was too cold to fly, and Erebia species could be seen lying flat on their sides, motionless on the dirt, where they failed to get into grass in time. This is Erebia montana:



I started down the hill again, then something quite remarkable happened. As I was crouched down in the cold, looking at a butterfly, a gust eddy dropped a tiny, semi-torpid warrenensis about six inches from my nose, where it immediately got caught in some grass. He couldn't fly - he could hardly move - and was just literally dropped in front of me.

I quickly transferred him to a plastic box, before the wind took him away again, and took some record photos while he recovered his senses in the still and relative warmth of the box:



Then I popped the box into my camera case and continued another 50m down the hill to where I thought I could find a little shelter from the increasing wind. For 45 minutes it remained bitterly cold but then a tiny hazy glimpse of sun appeared. I took the box to the lee of a large rock, tipped my precious charge (now completely torpid) onto the ground and covered him with the inverted box. A bit of greenhouse effect and he recovered enough to walk on his own and start looking for a place to spread his wings. Thus, I got my first confirmed 'natural' warrenensis pictures!









He may be a tired, rather geriatric individual, but he was worth getting up for! A few minutes later he braved it on his own into the cold, got caught in a gust and disappeared.

Here are a few more pictures from the day:




(One of several beautiful, white knapweed fritillaries)


(An Apollo)


(Silver-spotted skipper)


(An amazingly dark large wall)


(Silver-studded blue - in cloudy conditions, like most pictures today)


(Either Erebia pluto or Erebia mnestra - I think pluto. It was lying flat on its side in the cold on a path and never opened its wings until, after I had picked it up, it suddenly made an attempt at flying and caught the wind)


(A Grisons' fritillary against the Matterhorn - this was at the beginning of the day, when things were torpid because it was too early, rather than because of cloud)


(An alpine heath, showing the ermine band with enclosed eyespots distinguishing it from Darwin's heath)

I took many more photos and clocked up quite a nice species list for a very cold day! At 14h00 I had to head back down to civilisation so I could cycle down to the valley and get home in time to cook supper.

Guy

[MikeOxon]

Wonderful photos, Guy, and great that you found your warrenensis (not that I had even heard of it before ) It looks as though your 45 deg slopes go on for even further than those in our Lake District! Also love the Grison's Frit against the Matterhorn (or did you hold up a chocolate bar cover as background )

Mike

[Padfield]

Thanks Mike. And yes - I've spent an undue amount of time this year on absurdly steep slopes, usually with shale or other unstable substrate underfoot. It may look more Sound of Music than Cliffhanger but when you're on your own you need to be careful - it would be easy to fall or slide quite a long way and end up with broken limbs.

Pyrgus warrenensis is a very local butterfly in the Alps. Matt and others visit sites best accessed by car and then a short walk. My site is only accessible by hiking and I suspect that is why my records are new for the 5km square. It suggests there might be more sites than currently known, as most butterfly watchers I know tend to drive around rather than walk for miles!

The Matterhorn has become such a cheesy image it's always quite odd to see it in the flesh, so to speak - real, towering and majestic.

Guy

[philm63]

Guy

Such stunning scenery and amazing butterflies, it must seem like heaven. I visited St Etienne in France a few times as part of a new work project, the hills were nothing like the Alps, but every visit was in winter, I would have loved to have seen it in summer.

Phil

[David M]

Amazing stuff, Guy. In a way sudden changes in the weather can sometimes work in favour of we butterfly enthusiasts. Looks like that was very much the case today.

[MikeOxon]

My site is only accessible by hiking and I suspect that is why my records are new for the 5km square.

We need to remember that a butterfly record requires the presence of both the butterfly and the recorder!

I suspect that there are many more unrecorded sites than recorded ones. In UK, I suspect Mountain Ringlet and Chequered Skipper are amongst those species that have many unrecorded colonies.

Mike

[Jack Harrison]

Guy:

This was the view of the Matterhorn:

Not good enough Guy. I want a view FROM the Matterhorn not OF the Matterhorn.

Jack

[Padfield]

Thank you for the various comments. Yes, David, there is an enormous amount of luck involved in finding rare butterflies, though you do have to create the opportunities for the luck to work with (like getting out of bed ... ). That last warrenensis was quite extraordinary good luck, or a blessing. I didn't find it at all - it was dropped next to my face by a freak gust when it was too cold for anything to fly. My jaw simply dropped open with amazement. If it had landed a metre away I almost certainly wouldn't have seen it as I was crouched down looking at the ground.

I won't be climbing the Matterhorn anytime soon, Jack. The mountain has claimed over 500 lives ... It would certainly be quite something to stand up there, in the canopy of the Alps, looking at the world below. My school does occasionally climb Mont Blanc, so I might do that instead one day, in considerably greater safety. If I do, I'll post a photo!

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

On the subject of warrenensis, do you have any thoughts on this one, Guy? It was seen at a site where I saw warrenensis for certain last year (when the underside was identical to yours). It was particularly small and the only Pyrgus flying there were cacaliae and malvae and it certainly wasn’t either of these. My feeling is that the combination of size, markings and wing shape suggest that it probably is warrenensis.

I’d like to say that I got up at 4am and hiked across 20km of dangerous scree to see it but the thoughtless little blighter deprived me of this by landing 10m from where I had parked the car.

Luck can work both ways sometimes: we were in Savoie a few days ago and had made quite a few treks up various mountain paths and I saw one likely spot at around 18.00 and thought I would try one more. My wife elected to sit this one out and when I got back she showed me the photo of the Purple Emperor that had come and landed at her feet, and of course long since departed.

Can’t see the Matterhorn without remembering Round The Horne. You have be of a certain age.

[Padfield]

Although it would be good to see an underside, that looks spot-on for warrenensis, Roger. The spots are small but well defined, some of them neatly round, the ground colour and texture are good and the wings are suitably elongate. From my limited experience I'd say it's far more likely to be warrenensis than a tiny alveus or carlinae and it's the wrong colour and texture for cacaliae.
Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

Thanks, Guy. For such rare species I always like to get confirmation before adding it as a year-tick.

[Padfield]

Over the last few years I've increasingly come to believe pale clouded yellow (Colias hyale) and Berger's pale clouded yellow (Colias alfacariensis) can be told apart in the field, even though orthodoxy increasingly has it that they can't. In Switzerland, alfacariensis is a widespread and very common resident, while hyale is a sporadic immigrant. This makes it difficult to prove that the occasional individuals I've confidently claimed as hyale really are that and not simply one extreme of the natural variation present in alfacariensis. Today I was able to justify my confidence.

I had borrowed a book from the vicar in Montreux some weeks ago and decided to cycle there to return it today. On the way back I first visited the nature reserve of Les Grangettes, at Villeneuve (where there were very few butterflies), and then cut across fields to rejoin the Rhône, to cycle home along the towpath. Suddenly I involuntarily cried 'hyale!' and screeched to a halt as a yellow butterfly flew past me. It settled and all my hyale instincts bubbled up with the usual confidence. The identity was confirmed by the fact I found myself standing next to an extensive field of white and red clover, with at least three male and two female pale clouded yellows drifting over it. I photographed several individuals and all screamed hyale at me. It was particularly obvious in the males in flight - but also when they rested, with seemingly long, pointed wings swept back, quite unlike alfacariensis. Here are some pictures:




(Two shots of the same male)


(Probably a different male but I can't guarantee this ...)


(A female)

This was the habitat:



This female was right down among the clovers:



I hoped to film her ovipositing but a male found her first and they did an aerial dance across the field. Bizarrely, they both flew backwards, the female leading backwards, as if trying to back away from him, and him following backwards. I wish I could have filmed it.

That colony (albeit doubtless a temporary colony) was a very useful discovery. I then continued to the Rhône...



... along whose grassy banks I found fresh male dryads flying:



Guy

[Padfield]

For the second day in a row I cycled over 50km today - this time in the Canton of Geneva and in temperatures of over 30°C. After all those weeks of rain it feels as if summer is really here now.

I visited two sites, one south-east of Geneva and one west. The first was for emperors, but although I got there at 09h30 and stayed till after 12h00 there were none to be seen. I caught a glimpse of a female darting from a sallow bush at one stage (in fact, that was across the border in France) but that was it. The males are already finished there, it seems. I was also hoping for map butterfly but that didn't appear either. What did appear - a Swiss tick for me (!) - were dozens of gatekeepers! This is the first time I've been to their Swiss stronghold in season.



There were also thousands, probably literally, of white admirals, roosting in groups in the trees, decorating almost every flowerhead and dangling from the grasses:



The other really common woodland butterfly on the wing was silver-washed fritillary, which could also be seen in groups of four or more on some plants. Here is a female:



At my second site I saw both the argies - argyrognomon (Reverdin's blue) and argiades (short-tailed blue). Here is a female short-tailed blue, my first of this species for the year:



This is a male Reverdin's blue:



This female was on the foodplant so I left her alone after taking a record shot:



Dryads were very common in shady, grassy sites near the river. They are normally an unapproachable butterfly but perhaps because of the heat, kilometres and sweat I soon had one on my boot and one on my hand:





Here is a pair of (well, two - she wasn't into pairing) Berger's pale clouded yellows:



They were flying in association with many chalkhill blues:



I didn't see any of the hoped-for large coppers but it is still early in the second generation and a longer visit in mid-August would be better. Instead, just sooty coppers:



This is a brown argus - something not common in my part of Switzerland, where northern brown argus predominates:





Guy

[Padfield]

Another 05h00 rise today, this time to get to the Jura in time to see hermits (Chazara briseis) warming up. To those who frequent southern Europe, like Roger, hermits are familiar butterflies. In Switzerland they are an extreme rarity. In their former 'strongholds' (Switzerland has always been in the northern limit of the range and the butterfly has never been common here) they lost out to competition from humans, who also, it seems, like living in warm, sunny places. My Swiss Bible (a fantastic work produced in 1987 by La Ligue Suisse pour la Protection de la Nature, of which the first two volumes cover the butterflies) includes a sad little map of the eight known colonies in the region of the Lac de Bienne, together with the dates of their extinction: 1926, 1954, 1900, 1970 ... (the exact dates are not given for four of the colonies but all are extinct). The book concludes that the butterfly is practically extinct in Switzerland and that just two very threatened colonies remain.

I don't know to what extent that is true now but I was privileged to watch and photograph many fresh males today, all within a very small area. I was on foot and walked through as many suitable habitats as I could see, comparing the known distribution with satellite pictures from Google Earth, but only the one had hermits. I have to admit, gratefully, I had been given the precise location.

The species looks and flies as a typical grayling, with the same bouncing swoops and glides as the British species, though this one is smaller and weaker in flight. It behaves like a typical grayling too, spending a lot of time on the ground immobile, dropping its forewing a certain time after landing, when it is easy to approach and photograph. It also nectars.

Here are some piccies:













As the morning hotted up they orientated themselves more and more perfectly so the sun lay in the plane of their wings. Here is the shadow of one, showing the legs quite clearly on both sides!



It couldn't have positioned itself more perfectly!

When a great banded grayling flew across their patch it looked absolutely enormous - the hermit is a small grayling. On my subsequent walk through the Jura I found British graylings, which also looked much bigger and more powerful. Here are two, photographed from some distance, with quite different patterns beneath, illustrating the variability of this species even in a small region:





A ubiquitous Satyrid in the Jura today was Scotch argus. Here is a female:



I photographed a few other things, including my first map of the year, but it was the hermits that made my day. I will be going back for females in a week or two.

Guy

[David M]

Do Hermits ever settle with their wings open, Guy?

[NickMorgan]

Lovely pictures Guy. I particularly like the Hermits. Their antenna look like little golf clubs!

[Nick Broomer]

Lovely photos of the Hermits Guy. I always enjoy reading your posts with a host of butterflies i only dream of seeing.
All the best, Nick.