Padfield

[Padfield]

I must admit I'm surprised to see High Browns are still on the wing. Are they double brooded in central/southern Europe?

I think it's just one, long, straggly generation, David.

Apart from the red admirals cruising around Villars whenever the sun shines I have seen almost no butterflies these last two weeks. The weather turned cold and wet, with snow down to just above Villars, and last weekend I was stuck in bed nursing a streaming cold. That, and a big workload this term meant I couldn't get out at all. HOWEVER, the sun shone today and I took advantage of it with a trip to the Valley.

There is still plenty to see here in Switzerland but the species count is more and more modest every time I go out. Today I made it 22 species: small white, southern small white, green-veined white, Bath white, clouded yellow, Berger's pale clouded yellow, brimstone, small copper, common blue, Chapman's blue, chalkhill blue, Adonis blue, Provençal short-tailed blue, northern brown argus, comma, wall, large wall, speckled wood, grayling, tree grayling, Erebia sp. (see below) and a silver-spotted skipper. There were no swallowtails, no fritillaries (not even a Queen of Spain today!), no Vanessids and no skippers apart from the silver-spotted.

I don't take a net on these autumn jaunts because I don't expect to see anything that would require one.That proved to be a mistake today when a single Erebia butterfly flew through the meadow, pausing very briefly to nectar on dandelions but not long enough for me to get close. I got a couple of record shots from some distance:





At the time, I thought it had to be montana, even though it was by no means typical for this species. It was only looking at the photos afterwards that I suddenly wondered about nominate pronoe. The normal form of pronoe in the Swiss mountains is vergy - very dark and rather large, with virtually no orange. The nominate form is very different from this - and I've never seen it. Could this butterfly be it? There do seem to be some violet reflections on the underside... On the other hand, the well-defined dark discal band is not really there.

The more I think, the more I think it has to be montana. If so, what an incredibly variable butterfly this is!

Here are a few more pictures from the day:


Adonis blue


(Small copper)


Tree graylings


Southern small white


Chalkhill blue


Male silver-spotted skipper


Wall


Common blue


Northern brown argus

I'm very pleased with the Panorama mode for the camera in iO6. You just swing the phone around through as many degrees as you want and it automatically generates a panoramic picture, without stitch lines or exposure problems. This is a short swing on one of the paths I walked today:



That's compressed but not cropped. I've tried all the way up to 360° panoramas and they come out just as good - though obviously much longer and thinner in proportion.

2012 was a rather lean butterfly year for me, though there were some high points, as there always are (nettle tree butterflies in March, Hermits in July and August). Apart from trips to the UK to see my parents I didn't go further afield than North Italy. Last week, however, I agreed to accompany our headmaster and some sixth formers on a trip to India at the end of this month. We will spend three days in Mumbai before moving on south to the educational projects we sponsor in Tamil Nadu for a further week. So, weather permitting, it looks as though I might be able to add some exotica to the year's list! I began making a small page on Indian butterflies a couple of years ago (http://www.guypadfield.com/speciesindia.html) - I need to finish those species pages and track down some new species to include too!

Guy

[Padfield]

Having spent most of the rainy day inside doing maths I decided at about 15h00 to chance it and look yet again for Tiberius. I lost him in September, when he was in his second instar, but I never give up on my friends. Then, I had looked very throughly three times without success. I had searched the upperside of every single leaf on his tree, individually, as high as I could reach, and he wasn't there. There were four possible conclusions: a) he had moved up higher, b) he had moved to another tree, c) he was spending his time on the underside of leaves or on the branches and twigs or d) he was dead. Of the four, I favoured (a).

It was still cloudy as I cycled to the woods:



To my immense pleasure, I found Tiberius within minutes of reaching his sallow tree:





I believe he is now in his third instar. Aurelian hibernated between 30th October (the last time I saw him on his leaf) and 2nd November 2011(the day I found him in hibernation). So I guess I know what the first thing I do after returning from India on 3rd November will be ...

Guy

EDIT: This is him as a second-grader, on the same leaf, the last time I saw him, on Sept 3rd:



You'd think he'd never moved (apart from the new bite-marks in the leaf...)

[essexbuzzard]

22 species?! I cannot believe the stuff you still have flying over there in CH,Guy,and i don't think i'm alone in being a bit jealous,to be honest-it's not fair!
Only the odd Comma and Small White left for us poor East Anglian folk in the last few days,even the Red Admirals present last week seem to have gone.

[Cotswold Cockney]

In the UK, some years you can still find Apatura iris larvae on leaves well into November before moving to the twigs and trunks to select a suitable hibernation site to spend the winter months, always fully exposed to everything the weather throws at them.

Some mild winters see leaves on the Willows and Sallows still in good condition even in January. I discovered this when needing decent Sallow leaves for a few larvae which fed on to produce second broods. Also when breeding closely related Apatura species which are usually double brooded.

I often used to prune the potted Sallows used for breeding so that they would produce new leaves in the summer which would last far longer into autumn and even the colder winter months.

The Great Purple Emperor of China and Japan actually crawls completely off its Celtis tree and hibernates on the underside of fallen leaves. In Japan, they would spend many days covered by the snow on the ground. In my garden on potted trees, under fallen Celtis leaves carefully collected and layered in the top of the pots around the trunk of the shrub. The larvae found them easily and settled down underneath the shallow pile of dead leaves. Protected from those numerous predators searching for food in the leaves during winter, close to 100% survival. Something which would never happen in the wild. Same applies to our single representative of this extensive family of Butterflies.

I have observed wave after wave of groups of insectivorous birds systematically working through the bare leafless Sallows each day during the winter. It's a wonder any larvae survive. However, in captivity, female PEs lay several hundred ova and no doubt that many in wild conditions. They need to.

[Padfield]

Sorry Buzzard! Interestingly, it's mostly UK species that remain on the wing so late in the season here - and the first emergers in the spring will be on the British list too, even if some of them (large tortoiseshell and Queen of Spain, for example) are rare immigrants.

Thanks, as ever, for your observations, CC. I've been watching iris larvae for only three years but to date I've never lost track of any before 5th instar, regardless of when I found them. The fact the eggs are laid extremely sparsely here probably means there is less chance of small birds getting a taste for them and learning the skills needed to find them. If proportionally more eggs do indeed survive, and since the population isn't constantly increasing, it would suggest proportionally fewer adults successfully meet, mate and produce offspring (a possibility consistent with these huge, sparse colonies).

My own woods are largely devoid of tits in winter. They are bitterly cold and usually snow-covered and the small birds move up en masse to the villages, where we all hang out food. Why waste time scouring frozen twigs for the very, very occasional hibernating iris (or other) cat when you could be guzzling as much as you can eat at Padfield's assorted goody-bags?

Guy

[Cotswold Cockney]

Haha Guy ... feed the local birds and increase butterfly survival rates ... splendid nature assist ploy

[NickMorgan]

Guy. I am looking forward to hearing about what you see in India. It is somewhere I have always wanted to go and there are some amazing butterflies there. Your pictures should cure our November blues!

[Padfield]

I am looking forward to hearing about what you see in India.

I hope not to disappoint you! We will be three staff and 25 students so although I'll be there primarily for work, rather than tracking down and photographing exotic butterflies, I should get some time to myself during the trip...

In Switzerland things are continuing to cool down. There are still butterflies to be seen, including some fresh individuals, but numbers are dropping. I arrived at my chosen site today at about 11h00 and discovered that it was still far too cold (900m altitude) for things to fly. By 11h30 I had seen my first grayling and by 12h30 there was general activity. Here are a few photos:


This small copper was one of the fresh ones. Even his hindwings were gleaming with burnished gold!




Adonis blue


A different Adonis blue
EDIT: Actually, probably the same one. I thought this one had lost its left antenna but the pictures before and after show the antenna is present.


Common blue


Grayling


Grayling


Tree graylings


Wall


Berger's pale clouded yellow

Just one fritillary was flying at that site - or at least, I only saw one. It was this violet fritillary:






Northern brown argus


Two female Adonis blues and a northern brown argus

I left early, before 14h00, because a friend had tipped me off about one of the only places left in Switzerland where the Siberian damselfly, Sympecma paedisca, flies and I wanted to visit the site before it got too cold. Unfortunately, even though I got there soon after 15h00, it already was too cold and all I saw were common darters. It was good to watch them: several were paired up and were flying around the tiny étang in tandem, the female regularly splashing the tip of her abdomen into the water to oviposit. The problem was that the site was overshadowed by trees to the west and very little of it was in the sun. I will need to visit earlier in the day.


Common darter


Clouded yellow.

Guy

[Padfield]

Too gloomy a morning for good pictures, but here is Tiberius, still munching his way through his yellowing leaf:





I have to jack up the ISO in poor light, whence the graininess. I should take a tripod down to the woods, then that wouldn't be necessary. Nevertheless, in both pictures you can see a pale band of silk running down the leaf. I think this is a kind of Ariadne's thread, by which he relocates his home when he goes wandering (correct me if I'm wrong). It also helps to secure the leaf to the twig as more and more layers are added at the junction.

Guy

[Neil Hulme]

Hi Guy,

Glad to hear the little chap is thriving. Yes, you're spot-on; in addition to the resting pad, which allows him to hold on tightly in high winds, and leaf-attachment silk, there will also be a thin thread laid down whenever he goes wandering for a good feed next spring/summer. As the larva becomes larger these distances become quite impressive and there seems to be a trade-off between energy expended in travelling longer distances to feed, and the greater security afforded during rest periods, by being a greater distance away from obvious feeding damage. Later instar caterpillars will regularly travel back to the trunk, then several metres up the sallow before venturing out onto much higher branches. With a silk trail to follow home the journey across bare wood is very rapid, which is very sensible given the caterpillar's vulnerability at these times. When feeding ceases, often as the air cools in the early/mid evening (although they will happily feed at night in still, warm weather - and I believe night feeding is common in captivity), I have watched large Emperor caterpillars returning to their resting pads at a phenomenal speed, virtually galloping along the branches and trunk. The contortionism as they perform a U-turn on their resting leaf, prior to adopting the 'praying position', is particularly impressive.

BWs, Neil

[Cotswold Cockney]

That silk trail laid by the pre-hibernation larva each time it moves to feed will usually secure that leaf to the twig. Come winter frosts and the larva moves to a hibernation site, most of the leaves on the sallow will fall and the silk will hold the leaf in place until strong winter gales. To the observant in winter, that can be an indicator that there's a larva about the place until strong winds eventually tease the silk away from the twig. I have found Purple Emperors every month of the year including during rainy mid-January in a wood I had no idea the butterfly was present.

[Padfield]

Thank you, Kipper and CC.

Last year I took this photo on 30th October, showing the stem of Aurelian's leaf, with its gossamer covering:



This year I photographed Aurelian doing exactly the manoeuvre Kipper describes:







As he says, it is amazing how fast an iris cat can move!

Guy

[Padfield]

Morning spent writing half-term reports. Afternoon will be spent on last-minute shopping for India, as I leave on Tuesday night. LUNCHTIME allowed some quality time with Big T.

When I first reached his spot he was sitting at his usual jaunty angle to the leaf, meditating. Here is a large picture of the scene, which is now quite autumnal (though he enjoyed his first snow last week):



I carried on to look for other iris cats - in vain, as I expected, as I had found no other eggs back in August and eggs are the easiest stage of the life cycle to find. When I passed his sallow again I found he was actively feeding:



I didn't touch his tree but I'm sure he was aware of me because he rapidly moved round and adopted his original position again:





I left him exactly as I had first found him.

He has eaten a lot of his leaf but I estimate he has only grown to about 11mm. I presume he is storing up carbohydrates to last that long winter, from November to April, without feeding at all. He will be inert until March, when he will move out to the end of his branch, but very basic life-functions have to keep ticking over all the same.

Guy

[MikeOxon]

I hope that you have a great time in India. I photographed what I thought were two different butterflies in a garden in Gwalior and, on my return home, realised they were both Hypolimnas sp. with the female being a mimic for a different species (I forget which now, without looking it up again) It all served to increase my own interest in butterflies.

Mike

[Padfield]

Thanks, Mike. Yes, mimicry is rife in the tropics - I found some wonderful examples when I visited India two years ago. As I said, I have no idea how much time I will get to watch and photograph butterflies on this trip but I will carry the camera at all times!

It was a glorious day today so on my way to the valley I dropped in at a favourite local spot to spend a few minutes with the red admirals.



There were at least a dozen of these zooming around or defending sunspots - and as the weather is forecast to be good tomorrow too I'm sure they'll be at it again then. I saw a single long-tailed blue but unlike earlier in the year he wasn't defending anything. He darted past me and though I waited he never returned. There were no other blues or Lycaenids around, so no competition and no mates. I'm surprised there have been so few reports of long-tailed blues from the UK this year. It has been really exceptional for the species here - I've never known them so prolific.

Apart from the admirals and the lone blue there were a few small whites and clouded yellows. One female clouded yellow was energetically leaving her seed all over the meadow:



I didn't tell her, because she seemed so happy, but in truth there is little hope for her little ones. Most winters see clouded yellows completely killed off except in the hottest parts of the Rhône Valley and their numbers don't build up again until late summer, from immigration and home-grown generations. She didn't need to know that - and anyway - who knows what mild or freezing weather this winter will bring?

Guy

[David M]

Have a great time in India, Guy.

I'm sure your photographs will be equally as captivating as those taken in Europe.

[Padfield]

Thanks, David!

I've just had one of those moments when you're in a rush and somehow you lose everything you've just written! I don't know exactly what happened, but I'll have to post again in haste, without the wise words...

13 species seen in a hurried hour in the Rhône Valley today. I had very little time, which was a shame, because the butterflies weren't in a rush at all and it is still a glorious day as I write this. The species were: Small white, clouded yellow, Berger's pale clouded yellow, small copper, long-tailed blue, northern brown argus, Adonis blue, chalkhill blue, common blue, Queen of Spain, red admiral, wall and tree grayling. Some piccies:


(Clouded yellow)


(Berger's)


(Small copper)


(Northern brown argus)


(Adonis blue)


(Chalkhill blue)


(Common blue)


(Queen of Spain)


(Wall)


(Tree grayling - edited picture, after David M pointed out I had posted another picture of walls)

Many, but not all, of these species should still be on the wing when I return from India. The heat this weekend seems to have brought fresh butterflies out and inspired them to feel the joys of spring ...

Guy

[David M]

Have you duplicated your last two images, Guy?

They look incontrovertibly identical to me.

[Padfield]

Thanks David! I've just got back in and will now replace one wall photo with a tree grayling photo! I had written up a whole illustrated piece on the state of Lepidoptera in Switzerland on 21st October 2012 when I lost it for some unknown reason - hence the haste.

Guy

[David M]

Thanks David! I've just got back in and will now replace one wall photo with a tree grayling photo! I had written up a whole illustrated piece on the state of Lepidoptera in Switzerland on 21st October 2012 when I lost it for some unknown reason - hence the haste.

Guy

No worries, Guy.

I notice that your Walls are a little bit more 'hazily' marked than ours in the UK. They have a 'softer' appearance on the undersides at least.