www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Despite one of the hardest and consistently snowy winters I've known in my 20 years in Switzerland, this Queen of Spain fritillary made it out of the chrysalis in time for me to clock it up as a February butterfly. It was the only one I saw today, but I was working all morning and when I got down to the valley there were plenty of walkers and runners out enjoying the sunshine and frightening things off the path.



I also saw 20-30 small tortoiseshells, but nothing else.







Guy

PS - thanks for the link, by the way, Matsukaze. I've been too busy recently to look at it, but I shall.

What a super QoS.. every week that goes by brings the season closer, - do you think things where you are will be less early this year, given what you say about the winter

It certainly looks as if it will begin later than in the last couple of years. What happens after that depends on the plants' growing season. Last year, grizzled skippers were already flying on 2nd March and their foodplant was in full flower. I visited the same site today - no flowers at all. We'll see! That's the excitement of our hobby!!

Guy

Nice QoS. Seems more and more is being seen now, except me who has seen no butterflies yet. Hope more comes your way soon Guy.

It's still winter, really, Dave - out here, at least. All these early sightings are very welcome but the real season is still a few weeks away, sadly!!

Tim Cowles reckons the QoS looks like a female and suggests it might be a hibernator, not a chrysalis emergence. I simply don't know. I have seen the species for three consecutive Februaries now, and it flew in January in 2007 and 2008, so adult hibernation does look like a possibility. If I lived a little closer to the Rhône Valley I could do daily checks over the winter.

Guy

I always thought the Queen of Spain struggled to colonise southern England because the butterfly could not survive the winter. Is the Rhone valley typically warmer in winter than southern England?

East of Martigny, the Rhône Valley enjoys an essentially Mediterranean climate in summer(with breeding populations of hoopoe, bee-eater and crag martin, for example), but actually gets very cold indeed in winter, often going for periods of several weeks without the temperature ever rising above 0°C. This is the vineyards in winter (31st Jan, this year, to be precise):



What it does have, however, which is lacking in England, is a lot of sun, including during the winter. Being that much further south, the day-length in the cold months is also greater. This means that even when the official ambient temperature is low, there are hotspots on south-facing slopes where insects and lizards and other cold-blooded things can get out and about. Of course, there's no point in being out and about if there's no foodplant - but last year I did notice that wild pansy leaves and even some flowers were already out in February.

In my experience, QoS is a great sun-loving butterfly. Perhaps it is this, rather than the winter temperatures, that keeps it from setting up home in England.

Guy