www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Could anyone advise me where the most reliable sites on the continent (as near to the French coast as possible!!) are for seeing Camberwell Beauties or Black-veined Whites.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

My (uncorroborated) experience is that Camberwell beauties have wintering 'sites' but in summer are dispersed through broader regions. Thus, I have seen many together in Chamonix (nowhere near the French coast, I'm afraid!) in April and this last Saturday saw three in rapid succession at a site in Switzerland (see http://www.guypadfield.com/butterflyyear.html if you are interested). As this is an exceptionally early year here they had been on the wing a while and were nearing the end of their days. In July I find them distributed throughout the mountains and very rarely see more than one in a day.

Black-veined whites abound in the Alps (again, I guess this doesn't help you much). See http://www.guypadfield.com/blackveinedwhite.html for a picture of a sizeable assembly in the Rhône Valley, as well as others taken readily in my local region (near Villars-sur-Ollon).

I can thoroughly recommend a trip to the Swiss Alps for both these species, and hundreds (literally) more!

Guy

padfield wrote:I can thoroughly recommend a trip to the Swiss Alps for both these species, and hundreds (literally) more!

For those two Finland will do as well, but the number of additional specialties is somewhat lower.

The Swiss alps are indeed beautiful, but there is a reason why I'd prefer France or Italy for a dedicated butterfly trip.

I have seen this in the black forest in germany too.

This site (in French) has distribution maps for butterflies in France - click on the family name to access the maps:

http://www.tela-insecta.net/wikipapillo ... oPaloceres

Hi,

I have lived in the south of France for 3 years (Alpes Maritimes in Grasse) and I have photographed camberwell beauties at Lac St Cassien (not far from Grasse direction Draguignan), a beautiful site for birdwatching also (little bittern, spotted shanks, egrets, kingfishers, night herons, subalpine warblers etc.) and for dragonflies (lesser emperors, norfolk hawkers etc...).
You will also find lesser emperor butterflies and two tailed pachas as well feeding on the sap of trees on the side of the lake!!! There are also spanish festoons. I used to go there quite a lot in any seasons and never got bored, Lac St Cassien was definitively my favourite spot!!
I have also found one camberwell beauty in Le Rouret (in the ' parc naturel') between Nice and Grasse and that was my first sight of this beautiful butterfly. Hope this helps! Good luck !
Sylvie

I forgot to mention that black veined whites abound in the Alpes Martimes.
You can see them on Plateau de Caussols ( behind the village of Gourdon again between Grasse and Nice). They are everywhere in the Alps !!
This part of France is definitively worth going to for butterflies!!
Sylvie

Paul,

The area that Sylvie describes is quite near where I spend April to October. As she says, there is such a large number of species, it is impossible to get bored. I have seen Camberwell beauties (unusually two or three at one particular site), Large tortoiseshells, and Southern festoons at a site near the Lac de St Cassien in early April. I suspect the two Nymphalid species were overwintering there and the festoons had just emerged. I’m reluctant to go public regarding sites with such coveted species (there are unscrupulous collectors out there), but if you drop me an email I’m happy to let you have the location details. There are never any guarantees of seeing Camberwell beauties, though! The Pyrenees are also a stronghold for this species.

The area around the Lac is also good for the strawberry tree (arbutus unedo), the larval foodplant of the rare Chapman’s green hairstreak (another early April emerger) and the two-tailed pasha.

As for Black-veined whites, I heartily concur with Sylvie that they are everywhere in the French Alpes. They are often the most common butterfly and you could count 50 or more in a few minutes in some places. They seem to be most numerous in the mountains at around 1000-1300m altitude, although they occur from sea level to 2000m plus. The road up to Isola 2000 in the Alpes Maritimes was full of them last year, along with Scarce coppers, Purple-edged coppers, and good numbers of Silvery argus, Geranium argus, Large blue, and many other interesting species.