www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Jack brought this up in the March 2010 sightings post, but I thought I'd carry on in a separate place, especially as I don't like sticking my foreign sightings on the UK sightings pages.

Today, though I didn't have a thermometer with me, I paid attention to the temperature. At 11.30am it was clearly 0°C or less in the shade (at a site along the Rhône Valley half an hour or so east of Martigny). Puddles were frozen solid, quite dry to the touch, and a 'running' stream was apparently entirely ice:





Most standing or slow-moving water in the open sun had an icy crust:


(That picture looked better before my friend's dog jumped into the stream)

But just a few metres away a small tortoiseshell was sunning itself in the grass and I saw more than a dozen in total. About 1km away from these icy spots (so in the same general airstream) a couple of Queen of Spain fritillaries were active from 10.30am until I last passed them at about 2.00pm.



The Rhône Valley is at about 46°N (as opposed to, say, 51°N in the south of England). I was on the south-facing bank today and yesterday.

Guy

I'm suprised that I haven't seen my first sighting of the year YET because we have had lots of warm days which is good but I think its the freezing cold wind.


WHEN WILL IT STOP!!

Felix

Guy. Is that really a dog?

Jack

Hi Guy, I presume the Queens of Spain you're seeing have hibernated as adults.

Interestingly, Tolman states this species can hibernate as all 4 stages of the life cycle - that's unusual in Leps isn't it?

Cheers

Lee

That's a little shitsu, Jack. Small dog, big character.

His mistress was on duty all weekend so he came to stay with Uncle Guy. He was great company, but I do wish she'd taught him that essential command, 'Don't pretend you're interested in butterflies every time I try to photograph one'!

You're almost there, Felix123! The season is just around the corner. I look forward to reading your diary as you start seeing some butterflies.

Guy

Lee Hurrell wrote:Hi Guy, I presume the Queens of Spain you're seeing have hibernated as adults.

I just don't know, Lee. I've got no real evidence either way. The species is more or less continually brooded and when I've seen them in January and February it seems quite likely they're the same individuals that were flying in November. The last brood and the first brood are both small compared to the high summer broods, so the size doesn't help distinguish. They usually appear in the Rhône Valley at the same time as the small tortoiseshells and well before any non-hibernators. Some research is in order!

Guy

I take it that Q of Spains are not rare in your area Guy so in the interest of research, it would be worth risking the odd loss. So perhaps capture a few adults in the autumn and then keep in fridge to find out what happens.

I have kept Peacocks and Small Tortoiseshells successfully through the winter – it’s lovely to see them wake up in the spring on a warm day (in the shade initially then in sun when more active). I routinely keep chrysalides (Orange tip, etc) in the fridge over the winter and they thrive. I did have one failure. I very naughtily brought back at couple of Monarchs from America. They died quickly in the fridge but I was at that time ignorant of the wintering habits of the species. (They don’t hibernate in the true sense, merely become less active). Indeed, I’m not sure the wintering grounds Mexico, California, etc had in fact been discovered then
.
Red Admiral would be another good species to research. The is some evidence that they don’t hibernate in the true sense and need to refuel from time-to-time during the winter – activity at remarkably low temperatures adds to the evidence. But can they survive a long period of cold without refuelling? If we have a good Red Admiral season (ie, some can be risked), then I will catch a few and see what happens if they put in the fridge for several months at +4C.

I had a neighbour with a shitsome dog. It did. Yappy little blighter.

Jack

You know me better than that, Jack! Precisely because they're common here I wouldn't do the experiment you propose. Their commonness would mean I was doing it only out of curiosity, and I wouldn't deliberately endanger the life of a butterfly (or anything else for that matter) out of curiosity. No moral judgment on you there, it's just that I wouldn't do it. It would break my heart to take a free, wild butterfly and lock it in my fridge just to see if it would live.

However, I might propose an alternative to my biologist friends at the CCFS (Centre Cartographique de la Faune Suisse) and local universities. If a few of us were to sweep down the vineyards one day in October, marking and releasing as many QoS as we could, it would simply be a matter of checking whether any of the marked ones appeared again the next year. The marking would have to be something discreet, that wouldn't increase the chances of predation &c. over the winter - but the experts, I'm sure, have dyes and methods for this. I'll see what they say, because, in the end, I am curious to know. It may even turn out they've already done something similar and know the answer.

As an addendum, the Rhône Valley Queens might, for all I know, be a genetically distinct population, adapted to the very particular conditions there (essentially, a Mediterranean climate in central Europe). In the valley, they emerge synchronously with the small tortoiseshells. Here in the mountains they emerge about a month later.

Guy

Guy here are some suggestions for marking the Queens of Spain:

What do you think ?


Charles

Very good!

You're pretty quick off the mark with the old Photoshop, Charles!! Or was that one you prepared earlier, in case the occasion arose?

Guy

Glad you like the markings. Did you recognize the second one ( it was not British ) ?

The photo was taken in the South of France.

Charles.

At lunchtime today, at about 1000m, brimstones were flying along woodland rides where there was still snow on the ground:



But the snow is melting and I think the temperature was quite high - perhaps 8°C or more.

What a wonderful time of year!

Guy