I have managed to sort out my pictures of butterflies from Spain. I didn't see as many species as I had hoped and I think this was because of the exceptionally hot and dry year they have experienced in the south of Spain. While we were there the temperature reached 38 or 39 degrees most days.
The garden of the villa we rented was well irrigated, but the surrounding countryside was very dry. There was very little in flower, other than the odd more shaded patch of thyme, however it was obvious that earlier in the year the place must be covered in wild flowers.
I tried searching for butterflies at various times of the day and found that the best time was early morning. I generally left the house at sunrise and searched the surrounding hills until about 9am. By then the temperature had risen to such a degree that the butterflies were taking shelter from the sun and I was struggling in the heat.
Why is it that the first butterfly I see on our Mediterranean holidays is almost always a Geranium Bronze? I only saw these in the garden of the villa checking out the geraniums, but there was no sign of any eggs of evidence of caterpillars. Despite the irrigation the plants were quite dry and tough.
The other butterfly that was regularly in the garden was Lang's Short-tailed Blue.
The only place I saw them in the garden was around a plumbago plant, which seems to be their favoured plant to lay eggs on. The flower heads were covered in eggs. I tried to take pictures of the eggs, but they were very small. When I checked the pictures I saw that I had also managed to photograph a caterpillar. I returned to the plant and could barely see the caterpillar, it being about 2mm long.
My daughter and I spent hours searching for larger caterpillars without any luck. They are just so well camouflaged amongst the buds.
The other regular visitor to the garden were Southern Brown Argus.
Not far from the villa a track had been cut in the hillside up to an olive grove. This offered a bit of shade to the plants on the track meaning that the thyme was still in flower. This was the area where I saw the most butterflies in the area and was the regular spot that I walked to most days. The first morning I looked there I was really excited to see some small butterflies. When I managed to get close enough to have a good look they turned out to be Common Blues. They were considerably smaller than the Common Blues back home. I wonder if this is because of their food plants being less lush than those in Scotland.
Probably the most common butterfly in the area was the Dusky Heath. I had only previously and very briefly seen one of these, so I was pleased to be able to get a better look at them. Many of them were quite faded and damaged, but there were a few in better condition. They tended to settle in the shade amongst coarse vegetation and fly up when I walked past knocking their wings against the stems, which probably explained the condition that many of them were in. I love the silver edging to their wings.
The other butterfly that was fairly common was the Southern Gatekeeper. Again, they would tend to spend most of the day hidden in the shade and seemed to fly out occasionally for a bit of sun. When they landed they would occasionally flap open their wings, but spent most of the time with their wings closed. The first one I saw flew past me and landed in the shade under the roots of a fig tree in a bit of a ravine. I thought this rather unusual behaviour, but a few days later I walked up a narrow gorge of a dried out stream where there were hundreds of them hiding in the shade. As I walked up the stream bed I would have 20 or 30 Southern Gatekeepers and Dusky Heaths flying up in front of me. Had I been a few feet away from the stream I would have seen nothing!
Those were the main butterflies that I saw during my time in Alora. One day I got up early and walked up to the top of the highest local hill. The only butterflies that I saw on this walk were Wall Browns. The males seemed to have taken up territories at regular intervals along the path. The hills were totally parched and even the rosemary plants were dried out. So much so that they didn't smell at all when I walked on them. I was hoping that a different habitat would have resulted in more butterflies.
I thought that I should try somewhere a little cooler and damper, so took a look along the Guadalhorce River. The river obviously contains a lot more water in the wet season, but there was a reasonable flow of water between the shingle banks. The were also quite a lot of wild flowers still in flower. There were a lot more Small White butterflies here than elsewhere.
A couple of days earlier I had seen a Southern Brown Argus chasing a small grey butterfly and managed to catch a picture, which suggested it had been an African Grass Blue. I was pleased to see a lot of African Grass Blues down by the river enjoying the flowers.
There were also a few more Small Coppers than in the drier areas I had previously searched.
WRT the menage a quatre cracking shot of some unusual behaviour is that down to them trying to catch up after the poor weather?
I have not seen one at any stage down here for several years 
When I was growing up they were perhaps the most numerous of all butterflies for me. I have found Comma and Red Admiral larvae recently. We have huge amounts of Nettle around here as I am sure most people do, so I do not really understand why they are so elusive 