Everything went smoothly and we arrived during the early evening of Thursday 5th July. Our booked room turned out to be with a double bed... thankfully there was the same aaaaargh reaction from both of us
( would have been worse if ONE of us LIKED the idea!!!). So a single upgraded night into a family room would be followed by the rest of the week at another joint nearby. We regrouped at a local establishment, ate and drank well and planned the first full day....Day 1 - 6th July 2012
We decided to hit the road long and hard, with our longest trip, into the Queyras, fantastic Haute- Alps scenery and a hot day were drank in on the 3 hour journey, with some pretty scary switchbacks along the way.
Roger spoke to Roger Gibbons and we met up at the site he had kindly pointed us towards... a lofty 2200m+ Alpine valley with stream running through the kaleidoscope of flowers and long grasses gently sloping either side into woodland.
We walked to a puddling spot rutted into the track... within seconds I had my first and long dreamt of encounter with the Silvery Argus, a smart male, happy to pose a while before disappearing off into the grassland.
Silvery Argus
He was accompanied by idas, glandon, mazarine and eros blues which were equally accomodating.
Idas Blue
Glandon Blue
Mazarine Blue
Eros Blue
I felt immediately like a kid in a candy shop, and didn't really know where to look... a profusion of species showed up along the way... probably the richest diversity I have ever witnessed. The highlight was the finding by Roger of what we eventually decided was a female Cynthia's Fritillary, puzzlingly some way from where the males were said to hang out.
Cynthia's Fritillary, female
We moved further up the valley to even higher altitude to where Roger G said we would find Cynthias more easily. We were pleased to find both this and Dewy Ringlets, and I met up with Alpine Blue again.
Cynthia's Fritillary, male
Dewy Ringlet, ups & uns
Alpine Blue, ups & uns
Roger H was blessed with a Small Apollo and friendly Peak White, both of which I missed as I wandered off... hopefully he will add pics in due course... they were pretty good!!! Roger also has a count of the number of species we think we saw.
We had to return relatively early to secure our room... which sadly turned out to be smaller than that needed to swing a cat... something RH does like to do now and again
. After eating at the "Hungry Hippo" 
we separated our single beds by the foot that the room allowed and spent the rest of the night trying to out-snore each other. 
Whether this is the sole mating mechanism or whether males also rode in search of females, as so many male fritillaries do, I don't know. Obviously it is far easier for us humans to find (and particularly photograph) the males at lek than it is when they are flying over often rather difficult terrain. I suspect that is why our encounters are so often at great altitude.
)
... bit of a scrape... thankfully the camera was ok 
.... eventually the track opened out into a meadow of tall grass and flowers. The butterflies were fast, too much for my camera, and I took few shots. There were not many Blues, we saw just Small and Large Blues, but Coppers were well represented. Medium sized Frits abounded and Apollos fluttered. Hayfever and Horseflies took over my day, forcing me back down the hill. The most spectacular insect of the day was indeed a species of horsefly about an inch long with a viscious bite - saw me off alright.!
