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Fascinating area to visit and at last a few new species for me, as well as some distinguished local variants of previously encountered species. We stayed in Luchon, just the French side of the border to the Val d'Aran in Spain. Every direction yielded suitable sites, and the walks, though long and hot were not unbearably arduous. I am sure I could have punished myself more, but I did not venture higher than about 1600m.

As a starting point, some erebiae....
one of which I am quite intrigued by... calling on my learned brethren for their views please... might as well start with it.... (edit... please see later post)
This was at 1600m, among several others rather similar. My guess is manto form constans, but I really would have liked it to be lefebvrei form astor but I suspect I was not high enough. Rather attractive anyway!!

At another site not far away, and at 1500m were a selection of manto, mostly constans but with the odd one (second pic here) more typical of the species...
Close to Luchon I encountered rondoui at 1500m.... these were the very devil to get close enough to photograph, hence some lack of clarity, but c'est la vie...
More to follow in time! Please tell me what you think of the first one!!

Hi Paul. I just wrote a long(ish), considered reply about the first butterfly, forgot to copy and save the text before posting, and lost it ...

I'll do it again tomorrow - I have Minnie's late walk to do then bed!

Great pictures! Constans and rondui bring back happy memories for me.

Guy

aaarrrgggh... now I'm on tenterhooks until tomorrow... can't wait to see what you think!!

I have a number of ripartii, fabressei, agenjoi, ainsae I want to swirl around your grey cells as well, but all in good time

Well.... skippers were not a great feature of my trip, but there were a few, and my ID attempts may not be fault free, but I saw...

at 1400m near Luchon, what I now think are all (different) amoricanus, but serratulae had crossed my mind, and I still don't think I've seen cirsii....
At a rather hot and gorgeous place in Aragon, I think I saw my first lavatherae, as it seemed well different to the flocciferus I had seen before...
and also the ever lovely diminutive sertorius...
and on the road from Vila to Montcorbau ( see discussion about sites in the Val d'Aran previously) I think this was onopordi...
I did watch out for cirsii but think I drew a blank

Above, there is a rather odd looking and so far unidentified erebia. I have found another image from the same place which may help someone better than me to identify...
maybe it's meolans ???

Here is a selection of Blue seen over the week, from 800m in Northern Spain, to 1800m in France.....

Firstly argus, in the higher Pyrenees in France where they were very frequently encountered...
then in the Val d'Aran, baton...
then coridon...
and lastly dorylas...
Finally down into Northern Spain, Aragon, with some new species for me, firstly boeticus....
then the Anomolouses, new to me....

ripartii...
ripartii agenjoi...
and finally fulgens...
regretably the Furry Blue gave me absolutely no opportunity for an open wing shot, so that will have to wait for another year or two

Lovely stuff, Kip. I'm still awaiting an audience with any of the anomalous Blues, so I look upon your encounters with some envy.

Hi Paul. Just out of interest, were you near my suggested site for those former Agrodiaetus species? I'm intrigued that like me you saw ripartii and r. agenjoi - presumably at the same place as fulgens. All brilliant butterflies.

Now for the Erebia ... The second picture casts it in a new light, showing some of the orange on the forewing and apparently a blind, point-like ocellus. It also shows significant scalloping around the margin and reveals clearly that this is a female. That rules out some species, whose females are brightly marked. What does it leave? Manto? I think not, though with such an incredibly variable species it is difficult to rule it out. But a female with absolutely no orange on the hindwing (so constans) and apparently extensive orange on the forewing would be anomalous. Meolans? Again, possible but anomalous. A female without any kind of zoning on the hindwing would be strange. I've seen something a little like it in f. valesaica but I only have photos of males (http://www.guypadfield.com/images2011/m ... ica111.jpg - valesaica on the right, aethiops on the left). From the first picture I had even wondered about lefebvrei, as the female of form astur in Tolman has the same kind of grey scaling. But the altitude and I think the habitat suggests not - and I think you'd have known if you'd seen lefebvrei. As a radical suggestion, have you considered epiphron? This is an incredibly variable species in form, size and markings. Some have essentially unmarked hindwing undersides and the hindwings are sometimes quite scalloped. This one was photographed in the Val:



Unfortunately, I haven't got an underside of that individual.

I'm not sure I've left anything out that it could be. The white streaks instead of ocelli suggest it might be aberrant, in which case it might be something different. So, after all that wait, not much help!!

Nice onopordi. I've never seen that in the Val.

Guy

I'm not entirely convinced your lavatherae isn't actually baeticus, Paul.

The hindwing margin just doesn't look right for lavatherae.

I think it may be worth a closer look at the markings and the transparent patches to see if they offer up any clues, but if I had seen it without any information, I would have leant toward baeticus. If you were on the French side of the Pyrenees, then I think that would rule out baeticus, though.

Roger

Ok.... there were several similar looking erebiae to the one(s) I posted at the site I saw them. It was quite high for the area, but only 1600m, on a south facing grass/ heather/ bilberry hillside where they sheltered rather than shot around. The size was that of a meolans which I did see at other sites. The epiphron I saw were small generally and I would be marginally doubtful of that solution, jizz wise. I am not sure I would know a lefebvrei if it hit me in the face !! Bigger?, blacker?, I have really no concept but I guess it would be "stand out" different, and agreed, unless it flies at lower altitude just there it is unlikely. Maybe I just cannot name it... but I might default to meolans. What about pronoe?, not one I know either.

The Agrodiaetus site was indeed yours Guy, and a joy to experience. I have never been in a habitat like that before and was surprised to find the species flitting endlessly under the scrubby light woodland canopy, more than in the open. It was hot though at 35 degrees! The field above the Ermita was amazing in numbers and species.... but no Graylings of any kind, either true or false!!

Roger, hi and thank you... I did wonder, but again had seen neither species so defaulted to lavatherae. I would be happy to re-name on your experienced advice. It was in Northern Spain some 90 minutes due south by car from the border with France. I think I also saw cramera there too, unless agestis could have been there.

Sorry David, missed your post. You really must pencil in a trip to see them... they are very elegant and very photogenic, in an understated way. It has taken me many years to see them for the first time and I was delighted they were there.

Still chewing on about the erebia, beginning to think epiphron IS a better bet than meolans, maybe it is manto after all, the latter was my assumption in the field, and it is of the right kind of erebia.... ok so still "erebia spp", maybe to file ( I like filing ) in both epiphron and manto folders with caveats.