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Some help please on identifications of various species seen in South West France (Lot Departement), two weeks ago. d and e are the same individual. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos
Thank you.
Edward Pollard

Alright there? I'm no expert so some of these could well be corrected but to get the ball rolling...
a Knapweed Fritillary
b Heath Fritillary?
c Southern Grizzled Skipper
d and e Spotted Fritillary

Have a goodun

Wurzel

a. Knapweed fritillary (Melitaea phoebe)
b. Heath fritillary (Melitaea nevadensis - formerly athalia)
c. Best guess for now, Oberthür's grizzled skipper (Pyrgus armoricanus) - an upperside would be very welcome!
d and e. Spotted fritillary (Melitaea didyma)

Guy

EDIT - I see Wurzel beat me to it, while my screen was saying 'Internal Server Error'! See what others make of the skipper.

Guy

Thank you for the speedy replies.

Unfortunately I didn't get any upper wing photos of the Skipper, but Oberthür's grizzled skipper was my thought too.

Not bad for the garden of a gite ! (accompanied by Adonis Blue, Cleopatra, Southern White Admiral, Lesser Purple Emperor, Woodland Grayling and previous years at the same place Queen of Spain Fritillary, Provencal Short-tailed Blue, Scarce Swallowtail)

Next I'll try your knowledge with a couple of tricky ones from Western Russia

I agree armoricanus. It's not nailed-on but on the balance of probabilities it is a strong favourite. And according to Lafranchis, it flies in most of the Lot, so one reason for precluding it has been removed.

Roger