www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I'm looking to take a long weekend in the spring with a focus on butterflies. Hopefully somewhere with reasonable length budget flights from the UK and non UK species either accessible via public transport or with a hireable guide for a day or two.


anyone done anything similar or have any recommendations?

To be honest, Owen, if you want to find the rarer stuff, you'll ideally need a vehicle. As you know, most good butterfly sites aren't accessible via public transport.

Spain or SE France would be the nearest options at that time of year (indeed I'm running two tours in Spain at precisely that time, although they are both a full week in length).

Thought that might be the case. I’m still a little daunted by the idea of taking a hire car on rougher roads and I opening up damage expenses so a guide seemed the way to go

Your tours look great but as a teacher my windows of opportunity are limited and a lot of tour companies avoid those windows. And this is very much a smaller scale thing to replace a quick Gibraltar visit

I actually disagree with David about the car thing. I don't drive and I've found plenty of super-rare stuff! It all depends on your willingness to foot it: I regularly put in days of 40-50km walking when I'm exploring new places. The big advantage of doing it like this is that you discover sites others miss, because you pass through all the intervening habitat.

That aside, your biggest challenge for a long-weekend in spring is the weather. Switzerland, for example, is brilliant in late April, early May, but it would be crazy to come for just a few days because there's a very real possibility of finding yourself under rain, snow or fog for the whole time. Even Málaga, one of my regular boltholes, is unreliable in spring. I remember one April holiday when I got just two-and-a-half days of sun in an 8 day trip. And in Málaga, nothing flies if the sun doesn't shine! So my advice, if you want to book up in advance to get good prices, would be to choose somewhere where the sun always shines ...

Guy

Hi Owen
I agree with both Guy and David here. I've done Switzerland in July without a car, travelling by train, cable car and foot for a whole week and racking up 98 species. But in late April and early May for a long weekend your options are limited in Europe for guaranteed decent weather. Possibly parts of Greece, and Southern Spain really. Also the Canary Isles and maybe some of the Mediterranean islands.

However, I did the second week of May in Sicily this year and had a poor first half of the week. Had I just done those days it would have been a disaster, the full week was necessary to ensure some good weather and good butterflies.

With enough thorough research, canny use of public transport may get you to some less accessible spaces, and allow you to discover places others don't discover. But it reduces your flexibility. Hiring a car allows you the flexibility.

On that, most of the roads are actually pretty good, depending on where you go. I've driven in Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Tenerife and never had to drive on rough tracks, only good surface roads, to access great butterflies. Having been on many group trips too, most good butterfly places in Greece and Switzerland didn't need off road driving either. (Again, only Sicily let me down on the poor road front!!!)

Hope this helps!
Paul

Padfield wrote: ↑Mon Nov 07, 2022 7:43 pmI actually disagree with David about the car thing. I don't drive and I've found plenty of super-rare stuff! It all depends on your willingness to foot it: I regularly put in days of 40-50km walking when I'm exploring new places. The big advantage of doing it like this is that you discover sites others miss, because you pass through all the intervening habitat.

You are practically a one-off, Guy, with your willingness and ability to yomp what is effectively a marathon in a single day!

I can easily do 10 miles, and probably 15 at a push but in a narrow window I suspect most folk will want some reasonable expectation of finding something precious and unusual, and whilst I admire anyone's ability to try and achieve this by foot, for the majority the only realistic likelihood of doing so is by using a motor vehicle.

Owen - you don't need to travel on 'rougher roads', but southern Spain is a part of Europe where good habitat is somewhat at a premium, and to get to the coast, the lakesides or the lower mountain areas, you'll struggle to do a long weekend justice unless you are mobile.

I was involved with the Spanish potato industry and visited the Cadiz and LaRioja Provences for many years in April and May. I agree with David that relying on public transport will limit the number of accessible sites, but roads are fine and plenty of good habitat and butterflies within a short walk (<2km) of car parking. I know one car park where Festoon, Cleopatra and various blues etc can be seen from the car. In 20 years, I never damaged a hire car. However, I have been frustrated by the weather on many occasions in April/May especially in the mountains, but lots of other nice entertainment in Spain that is not spoilt by rain.

Hi Owen - in 9-13 May this year we managed to find around 34 species within 2 km walk of the Provençal village where we were staying, including Spanish Festoon, Nettle-tree, Chequered Blue, Southern White Admiral...if you choose the right place to base yourself you won't need transport whilst you are there, nor will you need to walk far. What you are looking for is somewhere with a bit of low-intensity agriculture, providing meadows (these provide lots of the relatively common species), and rocky limestone areas that often have a few trees around but haven't been totally afforested (this is where the rarer species live).

Your best bet might be a small town accessible by public transport - Digne-les-Bains, which appears to be accessible by train from Aix-en-Provence, would fit the bill well (it used to have the highest concentration of butterfly species in Western Europe - this may still hold true). A couple of other possibilities from the same general area would be Moustiers-Sainte-Marie and Gréoux-les-Bainx, though I'm not sure about their accessibility by public transport. These places should have enough about them to be worth a visit even in the event of continual bad weather.

Thanks again everyone I might have to overcome my resistance to hire cars but there's a lot to think on there

You could compromise and hire a bike. I do this in the Pyrenees, and it greatly increases my range. The only thing is, you have to remember to pack a helmet and lock in your luggage when you fly ... (As you might have gathered, having never driven in my life, I hate the whole idea of the private car! ).

I spent a week in the Canaries (La Palma) one March and I don't think I had a single day of cloud. The number of species is small, but the number of endemics is high! Public transport is good around the perimeter of the island and I think my longest single trek was about 25km, from the west coast, where I had my hostel, to the east coast, passing through the volcanic region in the middle. On my descent towards the east coast I found plenty of Canary speckled wood and Canary Lulworth skipper (which wasn't then a species, so regrettably, I neglected it). Canary blue and Canary large white were randomly everywhere. La Palma brimstone and plain tiger flew around the south-east of the island.

Guy

Back in March 2019 I spent 6 days based in San Roque, just north of Gibraltar. I was travelling with a driver at the time (like Guy I've never actually sat behind the steering wheel of a car), but I can't imagine it would be difficult to get between the two places without the need for a car and on The Rock, I found Provance Orange-tip, Cleapatra, Geranium Bronze and Spanish Festoon. I know Two-tailed Pasha and Monarch are also found there. In the hills north of San Roque I also added Provance Hairstreak and Red Underwing Skipper. Looking at google it looks like it would have been about an hour's walk to get to them if I was doing it on foot.

I guess it depends on what you want to see.