Austria

[Jack Harrison]

Guy P is probably in best position to answer this.

One of my sons Miles (the other has the very distinguished name of Guy!) is currently in Austria. Out of interest, I looked up butterflies of Austria (OK, not relevant this time of year) and came up with a lovely quote from this website:

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory ... /story.htm

where they say:

“Around 4,000 species of butterflies live in Austria”. That is of course nonsense (I suspect they are including moths in that count)

Even allowing for some exaggeration, presumably Austria is pretty good for butterflies. If by any good fortune, Miles stays on in Austria into the spring, then it might be worth a butterfly visit.

Thoughts Guy P?

Jack

[Padfield]

The perils of translation!!

The German word Schmetterling covers butterflies and moths. German books on butterflies alone refer to Tagfalter (as opposed to Nachtfalter).

The situation is similar in French, where papillon is a general term covering butterflies and moths. To specify butterflies in particular you need to say papillons de jour or papillons diurnes, or, if you are talking to an actual entomologist, rhopalocères. HOWEVER, it seems the burnets are included among the rhopalocères!! My mate Yannick, who is the Swiss butterfly recorder/cartographer, always includes 'les zygènes' on lists of butterflies for me to annotate or send in records for.

4000 seems a reasonable or even modest figure for Lepidoptera in general, given that Austria is in one of the seriously Lepidoptera-dense parts of Europe. I seem to recall a figure of 2000 for the UK - or is that just my imagination?

Guy

[Padfield]

And to the second part of your post, Jack, yes, definitely worth a visit in the spring!! I think of Austria more in terms of its summer specialists (E. claudina, for example!) but the valleys must be fantastic in spring too. I would get Miles to do some reconnaissance for you over the winter, to see where the best likely habitats are. I'd be glad to help with educated estimates of what you might see where but I have only once, briefly, passed through Austria (in July, when I saw lesser purple emperors).

Guy

[Padfield]

Oh, and finally, the article was absolutely right about the winter of 2006-7, but rest assured one warm winter won't frighten the altitude butterflies, particularly when followed, as that one was, by a cool summer!! The winter of 2007-8 was normal, with a very cold and snowy late flourish, while the winter of 2008-9 was the hardest for decades, leaving more persistent snow at altitude during the summer than I have ever known. Even in July, alpine meadows that I've never seen under snow were laden with the stuff, and ground flora was late. This year many mountain species packed up good and early, as if in anticipation of another cold winter, though some in the valley have dragged on surprisingly long. I'm very interested to see what will happen. Heavy snow fell today, and will fall throughout the week, but this is no guarantee of a long freeze.

Guy