www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I'm going to Sardinia for two weeks on Monday next. Does anyone know of any good places to visit? We are based in the North of the Island opposite Corsica.

David

I used to do occasional private tutoring on the Costa Smeralda and went walking for butterflies between sessions. Being an island, Sardinia has relatively few species, but those it does have are very interesting. I can't give you sites, as I just wandered around very locally on foot, but I much enjoyed the Corsican heaths, which were common, southern graylings, southern gatekeepers, Sardinian meadow browns, Cleopatras, swallowtails and some large fritillaries. If you're on holiday you should see a lot more than I did and I hope to see the pictures when you get back!

Guy

PS - I also learnt to windsurf on those beautiful, clear blue waters - you'll have a marvellous time!

Guy,

Many thanks for that I will let you know how I get on. I think we are staying a bit further west than you were based.

David

Well back from Sardinia. Saw a lot of butterflies in terms of quantity but not that much variety. Definately saw the following

Swallowtail, Two-Tailed Pasha, Silver-Washed Fritillary, Meadow Brown and Sardinian Meadow Brown, Corsican Wall, Small Copper, Common Blue, Speckled Wood and Red Admiral, together with hundreds of Whites! Some examples below. The Fritillaries and the Blues were quite tatty by this stage in the year. Disapointments were my failure to see a Swallowtail other than in flight and the lack of sightings of any Corsican Fritillaries.

It was also interesting to be a country with no particularly idea of sites to visit to see Butterflies. Almost all the ones seen were by the sides of roads apart from one site near Tempio which is about 15 miles in from the North Coast where there was more variety than anywhere else we went on the island.
















I would appreciate confirmation of what the last one is.

In case you'd missed it, or weren't sure (you didn't list it), that last picture shows a male cardinal.

I haven't heard of Corsican wall. Is it a subspecies of wall?

Guy

Thanks Guy,

I did wonder if the last one might be a Cardinal but it was so tatty it was difficult to tell.

The Corsican Wall Brown (Lasiommata paramegaera) is listed seperately in Lafranchis as endemic to Corsica and Sardinia although it does say it may be a sub species of Lasiommata Mergera. I only saw one and didn't mange to get a picture. It did look quite different to Wall Brown's I have seen in the UK.

David

Ah yes. I have lafranchis but I hadn't registered that he regards paramegaera as a separate species. My bible is Tolman, who doesn't.

As for the cardinal, it's a definite. The sex brands give away that it's a male, and the green on the hindwing especially, together with the rosy colour showing through, rule out silver-washed. Nice!

Guy

This is actually a female silver washed fritillary and not a cardinal.
When I lived in the South of France, I photographed these females along with males, they are definitively females silver washed. Nice picture !!
Sylvie

I don't want to start a fight, but I am equally certain this last picture shows a male cardinal!!

Firstly, there is the obvious sex brands, marking this out as a male. Secondly, green female silver-washed fritillaries have different spotting on the upperside. Notably, they have large, roundish spots near the cell of the forewing, as in this valesina photographed in Switzerland in 2006:



This area of the wing is quite clear in the last butterfly in the original post.

I'm very conscious I'm often wrong, so other opinions invited, but for me this is classic male cardinal in every way!

Guy

They are very similar, but there's no doubt Guy is right. I put valesina on the pandora page for direct comparison, as below (enlargements at bottom of page).

http://www.butterfliesoffrance.com/html ... andora.htm

Ok guy and guys, you have convinced me! I have learned something today which is great!! I have checked also my pictures this morning after reading your posts and the pictures I took were indeed of female silver washed!
Sylvie

If I had a pound for every butterfly I had 'definitely' identified as something and then found it was something different, I would be a rich man, Sylvie!!

Look out for cardinals when you return to your old haunts - they are a very rare sight for those of us who live further north (I have seen exactly one, a vagrant female, which I photographed in the Rhône Valley of Switzerland in 2005).

Guy

Hi Guy,

I have seen Cardinal butterflies also in the South of France but only on one particular site where they seem to be quite numerous. It is very difficult sometimes to identify butterflies and if you don't have the time to take a picture or see the underside then identification is not possible or can go really wrong especially when 2 species are nearly identical!
I am glad I found this site as I still have to learn a lot about these beautiful creatures!!
Sylvie