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Hi all,

from 25th June to 2nd July we went to South-West Bulgara around the Pirin Moutains (staying at Bansko and Melnik). I'll post each days diary and pictures as soon as I can. I hope some folks enjoy the rambling nature of the posts!

Michael

Saturday, 25th June – Long trip to Sofia – Bansko...

We left the house in the early hours of the morning and made a 2 ½ hour trip to Heathrow – it had rained heavily the night before so at least the garden had a good soaking. Heathrow was dull and cold and when we arrived into Sofia, Bulgaria at about 2pm (Bulgaria has a 2 hour time difference) the weather there was overcast and cloudy too - not what we had been expecting! Our rented car turned out to look like it had already seen a hard life, and after a long journey of around 3 ½ hours we arrived in Bansko, south of Sofia and at the foot of the Pirin mountains. The roads on the way varied from good to very full of deep potholes (sometimes extremely large), making a long trip down in the car more like the feel of a long day on the dodgems on a very hard wooden seat. The road-signs were largely unreadable / untranslatable / and often different from our Bulgaria map – luckily we had a Sat-Nav which was a godsend. Usually we like maps but in Bulgaria there aren’t any published to the necessary detail.

Before the trip I had a hard time imagining what Bulgaria would look like, and driving through the countryside I understood why. The landscape varied from dilapidated cities (looking like they came from an early 60’s soviet-block film set), to very dry landscape similar to Southern Spain or France, to woodland forests similar to the French Pyrenees and finally to Swiss-like meadows at the towns around Bansko. I could see that many of the locals who make a living from the country had a very hard life. I mean - a very, very hard life. Driving through one of the forest region there were locals at every couple of hundred yards with a makeshift stall trying to sell bottled honey, hoping to catch the tourists on their way to the ski-resort. How many times can anyone buy a jar of honey?

We would stay initially for the first 3 nights at Bansko at Hotel Avalon: this turned out to be a good move as the owner James is British and had been extremely helpful regarding previous emails and booking questions etc. He turned out to be just as friendly ‘in person’ and had plenty of ideas about where we could go, the only drawback being that a few regulars that knew the territory well were not at the hotel during our stay. The only foreboding news was the very strong breeze on our arrival (on the local news the weather had been so bad that the ‘big event’ of a local rock / Jazz festival had been cancelled due to the late withdrawal of Jamiroquai and the high winds). Our room was pleasant and we slept well (though we would find out that night, that eating-out takes a long time as the pace of service in most restaurants / bars is extremely slow).

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=129624

Sunday, 26th June – up and down a mountain...(Gotse Delchev)

I hoped in general to follow up some of the spots visited by Peter Eeles and Tim Noriss from their Bulgaria trip in 2007, but also followed sites in the book ‘Prime butterfly areas in Bulgaria’ by Abadjiev and Beshkov (2007). First off we decided to go up to the Besbog Hut via the ski chair-lift at the Gotse Delchev hut (near Dobrinishte). The Besbog Hut is 2240 metres above sea level. This turned out to be a fortuitously bad move, as in fact the trip in 2007 had never gone as far as the Besbog Hut! It was worth going this far up the mountain, though getting on a ski-lift with a big backpack and a tripod is not the easiest experience. There is a lake right by the Besbog hut and although there were lovely flowers here there were very few butterflies apart from a few small skippers and the odd Small Tortoiseshell. In the Abadjiev/Beshkov book there are Cynthias Fritillaries on the Pirin Mountains, but I guess I would only find these on another trip with better (and local) research.

As neither I nor my wife fancied another battle with the Ski lift, we descended from the Besbog hut via one of the walking paths. As we walked down we could often see the colonies of the butterflies change depending on the height of the walking path and the various types of landscape and local wild flowers, though it was great to see such a range of flowers throughout the walk, and the landscape certainly wasn’t dominated just by firs.First up we passed familiar Nymphalids such as Small Tortoiseshells, Painted Ladies and Peacocks, and a continuous flow of unidentified Heath butterflies and some Northern Wall Browns. Even at the higher spots the butterflies were flying very fast and getting pictures was troublesome. Next up we would pass Clouded Yellows, a couple of species of unidentified Ringlets and Fritillaries, again flying very quickly. Some of these were easier to identify (Queen of Spain, Pearl-Bordered and Balkan Fritillaries) and going further down some of the springs would stop the smaller butterflies would crawl picking up salts (Common Blue, Mazarine Blue, Ringlets). Skippers would continue to fly through (Yellow-Bandied, Small and possibly Grizzled Skippers).


View from our Bansko hotel room on Sunday morning.


The Besbog Hut after going up on the Ski-chairlift...


The area around the Besbog Hut looking towards the mountains.


No starting fires except in specified areas, apparently. And brush up on your Cyrillic alphabet!


Unidentified Skipper at 2240 metres above sea level.


Some of the flowers at the top of the mountain track.




More wild flowers near the Besbog Hut.


One of the first butterflies walking down, a familiar Peacock.


Clouded Yellow - at the higher spots easier to photograph than normal.


Queen of Spain Fritillaries were flying all the way along the mountain paths - Violas and pansy flowers were abundant on the ground cover.


The path starts to open up on the walk down, plentiful with wild flowers.


The first of my unidentied Ringlets.


They weren't easy to get an underwing photo id.


I did think there were Yellow-Banded Skippers about. Not sure if this was one or not.

Lovely stuff so far Michael!

Looking forward to the next instalment.

Cheers

Lee

Sunday walk down from Besbog Hut (part 2)

Finally we would walk through a forest and beneath this the landscape gave way to grassy meadows with some faded Clouded Apollos, Heath and Glanville Fritillaries, Large Whites, (more) Painted Ladies, a faded Chestnut Heath and finally a Balkan and Sooty Copper. I noted the unusual butterflies more than the odd strays such as Scarce Swallowtails flying through.

By now it was nearer mid-afternoon and the temperatures nearer the bottom Ski-Lift were noticeably warm. Back at our hired car we drove down toward the lower area of Gotse Delchev hut, where there were more wild-flower meadows were we stopped briefly to see more Balkan and Purple-Shot Coppers and some Black-Veined whites. On our way back to the hotel for the night I realised I’d not even found the main area that the 2007 trip had eaten lunch at, where there was a small fish-farm right off the road back to Dobrinishte.


The walk starts to open up to more wild-flower meadow terrain.


Common Blues are on the ground seeking out the salts from the trickling streams....


....as does this unidentified Ringlet.


Luckily the stream gives me a chance to get an underwing shot of this individual.


Pearl-Bordered Fritillaries were in good numbers.


More beautiful alpine flowers.




A different Fritillary - a Balkan Fritillary, with a completely different shade of orange.


Walking through the forest path, these Beetles seem to be huddling together for a communal chat.


This is one of the unidentified Heaths that were following us all the way down to the Ski-lift.


A slightly tatty Clouded Apollo in the grassy wild meadows near the Chair-Lift base.


Two types of Fritillary share a spot: the lower one is a Glanville Fritillary, presumably.


Another small Frit - presumably a Heath Fritillary.


One of the many slightly tatty Skippers.


Painted Ladies were abundant all the way down the walk.


A Purple-Shot Copper in the grassy meadow.


In the lower meadows, the Balkan Coppers are more common (underwings photo).


Upperwings shot of a Female Balkan Copper.


Not sure if this is a Glanville Fritillary aberrant.



A pretty Mazarine Blue stops to nectar.

Hi Michael,

It sounds a fantastic trip - and great photos!

For the Erebia, your first looks like medusa (first pair of pictures, I mean) - in fact, I'd be pretty confident with that one. It looks exactly like the alpine medusa. The next one (next pair of pictures) doesn't look very much like our euryale, but I think it is that. The pupil-less eyespots, chequered fringe and that single white mark on the underside hindwing are all indicators of euryale.

Have you considered the possibility the clouded yellow is caucasica? I can't say for certain, but it just has a slightly exotic look about it to me.

The skippers I'll have a look at tomorrow, as they take a little more study and I've just got in from the pub! On first impressions, I think at least some of them are malvae, but first impressions can be wrong.

The heath looks like rhodopensis to me.

I strongly suspect the 'heath fritillary' is actually britomartis or aurelia. I favour the former, even though I've never seen it, because it doesn't look quite right for aurelia, which I am familiar with. An underside view would be great!

Guy

Guy and Lee,

thanks as always. Guy, your knowledge always bowls me over, though I'm afraid I didn't get any good underwing shots of the Heath / Nickerl's / Assmann's Fritillary, though I didn't think the britomartis (Assmann's) stretched that far down, geographically speaking.

I'm perfectly happy for the Clouded Yellow to be a Balkan (caucasica). I'm happy that the individuals were good enough to stop for a while.

Enjoy the pub!

I had a curate's egg of a trip, with good days, bad days and frustrating days. As soon as I have time I'll be posting a diary from the other days. Including a very frustrating last day!!

Michael

p.s. Here's an underside photo from another medium-sized Fritillary taken on the next day. Not sure if this helps the ID of the previous one, as it was in a different spot, further down the same mountain range.

Welcome Back Michael.

It seems like you had a most interesting holiday in a fascinating country. Your comprehensive report makes me feel as if I was actually there with you! Top notch images to support your write up too...who needs to go to such places when you can read reports like this

I'm awaiting the next instalment with eager anticipation...

Bill

Thanks Bill, you are too kind!

I certainly wish I was there now that our wet weather has come back this week - but we weren't immune to the bad weather there either, as we had almost a whole day lost to rain...more about that sometime soon!

Michael

Monday 27th June – back to Gotse Delchev

Although we awoke in Bansko to bright weather on Monday morning, the breeze had unfortunately come back again. We hoped it wouldn’t affect our chances of seeing the butterflies too much: I spoke to our hotel owner James who recommended a walk right off the chair-lift near Gotse Delchev which led to great wild-flower meadows, so we tried this route first thing. Unfortunately the well-meaning instruction must have been lost in translation as we found only a dead-end into multiple small villas after taking what we thought was the suggested route. So after losing about half-an-hour I decided to cut our loses on this route and head back to the wildflower meadow near the Gotse Delchev hut where I’d seen the Coppers on the previous afternoon.

Back in the wildflower meadow it was clear that the wind was going to stay threatening us all morning: it may have influenced the butterfly species to take to hiding in the meadow. There were still quite a few Balkan Coppers (the females were in good condition, but the males all tended to have bird-bite damage on their wings). I wandered across the meadow to see other species – it was noticeable how wet underfoot the meadow was, which might explain the plentiful Coppers. The first new find of the morning was a lovely large green cricket. After putting this individual down we would see plenty of Black-veined whites flying through, sometimes sheltering on the small firs in the field to stay out of the wind. There were also some small Fritillaries but as with the previous day an underside shot proved improbable. There was also what looked like a Tiger-moth caterpillar wandering across the road and quite a few burnet moths.

To escape the breeze and try and find some different species we drove about half a mile back down the road - finally working out where the fish-farm was that the 2007 trip had visited – we continued past this spot and I found a smaller road across the river that ran down from the mountain. The act of ‘following my nose’ had worked for the moment - we found a small parking space and a walking route to some meadows bordering the mountain river - these were overlooked by deciduous trees that would shelter these meadows from the breeze. Leaving the car there were some Blues and small Fritillaries beside the first route of the stream, again getting salts from the ground.

In the most accessible meadow beside the river we saw our first larger Fritillaries: first a Silver-Washed Fritillary and then a lovely fresh Marbled Fritillary, which tended to stay in the shadows under the cow-parsley. There were a host of Coppers – Balkan, Scarce and Sooty Coppers, all vying for the best place to nectar from. Various Blues would fly through the meadows, not always stopping for an ID! There were many Small Pearl-Bordered Fritillaries, Small and Large Skippers, Tufted Marbled Skippers, many Nymphalids (Peacocks, Red Admirals, Small Tortoiseshells, Commas), some more Black-Veined Whites, Large Whites and even an Orange-Tip. There was a surprising visitor in the shape of a lone Black Hairstreak. Sometimes a male Scarce Copper would fight off much bigger Fritillaries from its chosen spot – sometimes its opponent would be a beautiful Pearly Heath, which would take some following before stopping for a photo.


Wildflower meadows near Gotse Delchev Hut.


Unidentified smaller Fritillaries were sheltering from the wind.


A very pretty and large Green Cricket in the meadow.


Many Black-veined Whites were nectaring on the beautiful mountain flowers.


Some Black-veined whites took shelter by staying close to the small firs.


Balkan Coppers were still in good numbers as per the day before, especially the females.


Garden Tiger Moth caterpillar? Anyway, reading is certainly still good for you.


We would leave the wildflower meadow after the winds increased. Vipers Bugloss at centre of this picture.


The path to one of the meadows by the river just down the road.


One of the many Blues at one of the streams edges. Silver-Studded Blue?

Mazarine Blue also at the side of the small streams.


Not sure about this one. It could be the Mazarine Blue underside?


First sight of a Silver-Washed Fritillary in the River Meadow.


Small Pearl-Bordered Fritillary - Alpine version is darker, I believe?


Upperwings of the Small-Pearl Bordered Fritilary.


A very nice Marbled Fritillary, seeking dew on the lower plants?


The Upperwings of the Marbled Fritillary.


Underwings of a male Scarce Copper, finding a favourite place to perch and fight off other larger butterflies.


Upperwings of a male Balkan Copper.


A Tufted Marbled Skipper?


A very pretty Pearly Heath Butterfly. These were often fighting with the Scarce Copper males.


A lone Black Hairstreak - flight times up the Pirin Mountains must be behind Britain.


The Wildflower Meadow next to the river.

27th June (continued)

We took a short break from the river meadow to walk further along the track into the forest, though this track soon turned too overgrown with pines and the other meadows by the river weren’t as good for butterflies as they hadn’t been cleared either by walkers or local domestic farm animals. When we returned to the original river meadow I briefly saw a very large dark gliding butterfly - either a very big female Purple Emperor or possibly a Poplar Admiral. After this sighting we decided to stay in the river meadow for another hour or so, though there was no further sign of this butterfly. Instead I watched a very new High Brown Fritillary, and then wandered about absorbed by the comings-and-goings of the beautiful Coppers. Eventually we left, watching some lovely Queen of Spain Fritillaries at the meadows edge, and again watched several different species near the road leading to the car, including many Blues that were now on the path by the river.

We returned up the road briefly, and found the track we had tried to follow first thing that morning. However, we were thwarted along the path as the new commissioner of the park had set in motion plenty of tree-logging, so we couldn’t get past the logs or the Lorries. So we briefly watched a few Woodland Ringlets and medium-sized Fritillaries and Scarce Swallowtails and some Pale Clouded Yellows in some of the smaller meadows (one was near the Fish-Farm referred to by the 2007 visit). Unfortunately we would be leaving for Melnik the next day so my desire to see Apollo butterflies here seemed to have been halted!

In the early evening we took a brief stroll round Bansko taking a few photographs of the streets and bars around the old (and picturesque) town. The evening weather was good and the breeze from earlier in the day had seemed to die down.


A lovely High Brown Fritillary took the place in the meadow of the Marbled Fritillary from the morning!


Very easy to see the wing glands on the High Brown Fritilary.


One of the stunning male Scarce Coppers.


Scarce Copper - easier to make out the difference from the other Coppers in the same area by the yellowy-orange underside.


A pristine Purple-Shot Copper male.


Underside of the Purple-Shot Copper - a much more bluey-grey base colour than the Scarce Copper underside.


Another of the Skippers in the meadow.


Another Clouded Apollo on thistle - obviously these are past their best. Shame!


The easy-to-identify underwing of a new Queen of Spain Fritillary.


These two are sharing one of the many Scabious flowers - Heath fritillary on the left (?) Large Skipper on the right.


One of the Common Blues on the ground as we left the river meadow.


There were also some Silver-Studded Blues, but I didn't get a good picture of one...


Another unidentified Fritillary further up the mountain - possibly another Pearl Bordered?


Another possible Heath or Nickerls Fritillary.

Some views of Bansko from the walk round the town in the evening...


One of the many Bars in Bansko - notice the dog finding a nice spot to rest in the middle of the road...


You can't beat getting a good sign picture....even if you can't read it...


An impressive and nicely sculptured monument in the middle of the original (old) town of Bansko.


Another of the many small restaurant / bars. The food was incredibly cheap!


The road leading up to our Hotel Avalon in Bansko.

Lovely report so far Micheal!

Fabulous Purple Shot Copper and QoS Frit pictures too

Cheers

Lee

Tuesday 28th June – 3rd day - ‘unlucky’ drive to Melnik

As dawn broke on Tuesday, we were awoken as with the previous mornings by a local Cockerel crowing in the neighbours' garden. We could have both done with a bit more sleep! Today we were to drive to our second Hotel in Melnik, where we would stay for the rest of the week. This was further south and almost the other side of the Pirin Mountain range. We did toy with spending the morning in Bansko, but the weather here was cloudy and I wanted to visit the Tissata Reserve in the Kresna Gorge near Kresna, which was on the way and about an hours drive. Well, it was a great plan but we couldn’t find the reserve even though we found the town of Kresna. We briefly stopped of on a dirt track heading off the main village: it was much drier landscape (in fact, it had a load of domestic rubbish dumped along the track) but it did have some more butterflies in the shape of Sooty Coppers, some Scarce and European Swallowtails, some Great Bandied Graylings, and a very bright and unusual (well to me at least) Small Copper. In fact, when I first saw the little bright butterfly I didn’t even recognise it as a Small Copper.

Not finding the Kresna Gorge reserve was a shame, but then we found that we had problems with the car where a thick metal nail had gone straight into one of our tyres and left us with a flat tyre. To make matters worse an impending storm came up and rained heavily for about an hour. Luckily we found a good mechanic and got the tyre fixed, but gave up on finding the Kresna Gorge reserve. We felt relieved to get the car going again.

We drove straight onto the town of Melnik, where although the local landscape was much drier than around Bansko and the mountains there, Melnik town itself sits in a sheltered gorge with unusual clay sand cliffs around the gorge. The town is quite unusual – it looks a bit like a Disney version of a wild-west town, with a dry river bed running through it and surprisingly, quite a number of tourists. After finding our Hotel (‘Despot Slav’) we walked right to the back of the village, where there was an excellent dirt-path walk right though scrubland and a good range of deciduous trees.

A few feet into the walk I saw a lone Swallowtail (to fast to photograph) and then a number of Small Blues, some Nine-Spotted moths (Amata Phegea) – of which there were plenty throughout the scrub. I also disturbed a Large Tortoiseshell, which stubbornly refused to let me ‘get close’. There were more Great Banded Graylings, Commas and Spotted and Knapweed Fritillaries. The path opened out into very dry scrub (we ended up with loads of dry seeds clinging to our boots) and then right at the back of the walk was a lone Tortoise. It soon walked off into the long grass and we continued the walk until we found a bed of Bramble flowers and an unidentified white-flowering bush which was covered with White Letter-Hairstreaks and Marbled Fritillaries. The White-Letter Hairsteaks were no surprise considering that the trees surrounding the walk seemed to all be Elms.

We soon went back to the hotel as the weather continued to be quite cloudy after the earlier rain. Back at the hotel we tried out their restaurant for an evening meal (nothing special) and finished the day very tired!

Michael


Dawn in Bansko, our last view of this pleasant town.


One of the Male Sooty Coppers around the town of Kresna.


A very pretty (and to me, quite unusual) Small Copper seen on a dry walk in Kresna.


Mating Small Blues in Melnik.


A couple of mating Nine-Spotted Moths (Amata phegea).


Great Banded Graylings were common, often sitting on the dirt path.


The bizarre sight of a local 'wild' Tortoise.


One of the many White-Letter Hairstreaks at the far end of the Village walk in Melnik.


Spotted Fritillaries were particularly common in the driest scrubland.


A Knapweed Fritillary perches for the night on a very dry flowerhead.

Wednesday 29th June – staying in Melnik

I had two choices on our first full day at Melnik – go further out from Melnik and chance it, or take the previous route and get some good shots in better weather. I chose the latter (and safe route) as we still didn’t know if we would see different butterflies in the same spot.

For the second day in a row, one of the first butterflies I saw was a Large Tortoiseshell, and again I couldn’t get a picture. The LT flew off and didn’t come back. We stayed at the start of the walk for about half an hour, as the sun was still a bit obscured by cloud. When the sun came out I saw the Small Blues from the previous day, some Brown Argus and several large Fritillaries (Marbled and Silver-Washed) and then a number of small Coppers, including a nice female Sooty Copper and a Marbled Skipper and Dingy Skipper. There were again several White-Letter Hairstreaks – these are great to watch when nectaring: they have none of the quick, jumpy flight of other butterflies and like nothing but wandering over the flowerheads in good weather, very easy on the eye and easy to photograph. Apart from the constant turning round on themselves to face the sun.

Walking to the back of the path through the scrub there were some lovely Swallowtails mating amongst the grass in an open field, stopping briefly as the cloud came over again. I walked to the white-flowering bushes and there was our first Southern White Admiral amongst the many White-Letter Hairstreaks and Holly Blues, of which there were many. We then followed the dirt path further out of the village where there was a very dry spot with old stonework tiers and here there were more Swallowtails, Sooty Coppers, Cardinal Fritillaries and Balkan Marbled Whites.


The very end of Melnik town, with the walk turning into a single dirt track.


Brown Argus butterflies were among the smaller species at the start of the walk.


Presumably a Marbled Skipper enjoying the morning sunshine.


A very nice female Sooty Copper on Scabious flowers.


The start of the walk looking towards the unusual sandy cliffs around the village.


Looking towards the furthest wooded part of the path at the end of the Melnik village.


First White-Letter Hairstreak of the morning. I find these very relaxing to watch!!


A beautifully new Swallowtail Butterfly sits for a few minutes as the cloud comes over again.


A pristine Marbled Fritillary in-between nectaring from the Bramble flowers.


One of the many Beetles sharing the white flowers with the Hairstreaks and Holly Blues.


The single Southern White Admiral, surprisingly slow-moving in the morning sun.


A moment to savour that beautiful underwing pattern of the SW Admiral.

A few more pictures from our Wednesday walk through the scrub in Melnik...


Another of the White-Letter Hairstreaks on the white flowering-shrub that was popular with many species.


There were Silver-Washed Fritillaries and several Cardinal Fritillaries (identified by the underwing). I think this may be a Cardinal.


In the dry ruins, there were plenty of small and medium-sized Lizards.


Plenty of Great-Bandied Graylings - easy to identify on the wing with their 'whistful', flight pattern.


A Balkan Marbled White.


A more pristine Queen-of-Spain Fritillary resting on the dirt track on our return to the Hotel.


I'm identifying this as a Lesser-Spotted Fritillary, though it may be a Spotted Frit!


As per the above - a pristine individual - but with it's wings open on the dirt path.


There weren't that many Sloe Hairstreaks, just one or two along the main path.


Last view of my favourite Butterfly of the walk!

After our Wednesday walk through the scrub behind Melnik, it clouded over quite a bit. My wife Karen went back to the hotel to have a rest (she was suffering from a big blister on the top of her foot from where she'd worn the wrong shoes on Sunday and caught too much sun). I took a small walk above the village, though the track turned out to be a bit of a dead end. During the later afternoon / early evening we took a few hours to wander round the town just to take a few photos.There is also a nice village park the other side of the lower village with a stream beneath it - this may have been a good spot to look for butterflies but unfortunately we never really grabbed enough time to investigate it - maybe next time

Michael

p.s. I'll be in Kent for the next couple of days - so I'll continue with the last 2 days of my Bulgaria trip when I return.


A view from one of the side-streets of the 'uppermost' section of Melnik. Notice the sandy gorge opposite.


A view up the upper section of the Town. This reminds me of a wild west episode of Star Trek!


A bit lower down through Melnik looking towards some of the local restaurants, of which there were many.


This is the lower section showing again the dry river that runs through most of the village.


One of the many rows of Restaurants seen from across the dry river.


The view of the lower village as seen from near the main road - normally the first view driving into the village.


The other side of the start of the village has a small park with this monument.
The river runs right next to this though we never had time to investigate it properly - maybe next time!

What a great help this report will prove to anyone planning a similar trip, loads of detailed information and great shots of the places you visited...ever thought of a career in Butterfly Tours...your a natural Mike. I've enjoyed every bit of your holiday I really need to get out more...!

Bill

Wow !!!,

Thoroughly enjoyed reading that and looking at the photos,

Looks like you had a fantastic time.

Cheers,

Neil.

Agreed! Unfortunately, I'm getting home too tired and often butterflied-out these days to give your reports the time they deserve, as they really are very good. There are some fascinating insects here. There are a few IDs that might need reviewing - the marbled skipper is a mallow skipper, for example - and some that need a little study. It would be good to have a close-up of the alleged lesser spotted fritillary underside to see if the disco-cellular vein is present (see Matt's page, here: http://www.eurobutterflies.com/species_pages/trivia.htm for this). The upperside of the silver-studded blue you show looks very like Eros blue to me, though shades of blue can be deceptive. Did you see eros?

I'll come back to these pages when I get some real time to enjoy them!

Guy