www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

PART ONE
I have just returned from a fantastic week in the Burgundy region of France, an area that I have never previously visited. This was a solo trip, planned last year, with the main objective of seeing three of France's rarest fritillaries, namely Scarce, Bog, and Nickerl's Fritillary, with the added possibility of catching up with the Woodland Brown, a species that I had once seen many years ago near Annecy, but never managed to photograph. I was very fortunate to have some shared information on potential sites for my target species from a well known French butterfly expert, and contributor to this forum, for which I am very grateful (you know who you are!)

I flew into Lyon airport on 30th May, arriving just as the rain began to fall. Storms were raging across much of France at this time, wreaking havoc, and the forecast was very unpredictable. I picked up my hire car and headed north, hoping to beat the weather. Despite a small bouchon on the motorway, I arrived at my first site at around 12:30,pulled into the gravel layby, stepped out of the car, and immediately kicked up two fritillaries! Some creative cursing followed, but fortunately these two insects quickly settled down again after a brief flit and glide, confirming their identity as my main target species, the stunningly dramatic Scarce Fritillary!

A closer look around the layby revealed a total of 6 males of this rare species, all taking up salts from the ground. This was a fantastic start to my trip! The next day I took a visit to a wetland meadow, rich in Bistort, where Bog Fritillaries were flying in excellent numbers. This was a second life tick for me, and I spent I fantastic three hours in the company of about a hundred of these delightful butterflies. The males were common, and there were also several dozen females on the wing. The underside patterns are just sublimely unique and gorgeous:
Later in the afternoon I visited an incredibly rich scrubby limestone hillside where I hoped to find Nickerl's Fritillary. There were many fritillaries on the wing here, and the site was full of orchids and many other splendid flowers. I spotted a fritillary with a slightly different jizz, and followed it for quite a while before it settled and allowed me some upperside shots. It was nearly an hour later that I was finally permitted an essential underside shot, the final confirmation that this was indeed my first ever Nickerl's. Happy days indeed!

Two days later I found myself in the company of many Woodland Browns. These are absolutely fabulous insects, but incredibly challenging to photograph. They are so sensitive to noise and vibrations. The slightest click of a camera switch, crack of a twig, or just the sheer thought process of reaching for a camera seems to send sufficient vibration through the ether to make the most perfectly posed butterfly take to the wing. When they do settle, they often do so way up in their arboreal domain, well out of reach of the average camera holder. I had to adopt some new techniques to achieve some of these shots, but there is one way of being certain of photographing this gorgeous Satyrid. They are absolutely obsessed with cars!

Every time that I pulled up along a wooded roadside, I would find 5 or 6 Woodland Browns circling around my hire car. They were fascinated by the bodywork, the tires, the windows. Perhaps they also are slightly narcissistic?


Part two of this report will follow shortly, with a selection of many other species encountered in this fantastic region of France.

PART TWO

I had been very lucky with the weather, avoiding almost all of the predicted thunderstorms and downpours, and had seen and photographed my four main target species within the first half of my week here. I spent the second half of my visit meandering through woodlands, meadows and across limestone hillsides, simply enjoying the sheer abundance of butterflies, orchids, birds of prey and other wildlife.
Black-veined Whites and Pearly Heaths were by far the most abundant two butterfly species. I cannot recall seeing as many anywhere else before. If I had been keeping a tally, both species would have scored well into the thousands! A.crataegi
C.arcania

Duke of Burgundy appeared, usually singly, on almost every scrubby hillside, along most woodland rides and also frequently on roadside verges, and Chequered Skippers were not uncommon in woodland rides and some damp meadows.
Amongst the Blues, Small Blue,Adonis Blue and Common Blue were widespread, but the two that really caught my attention were Green-underside Blue and Reverdin's Blue. The Green-undersides were mostly very fresh, and there were some nice colour forms of the females on the wing. The same could be said of the Reverdin's also!
G.alexis
P.argyrognomon

It was noteworthy that almost all of the Plebejus that I got close enough to for identification turned out to be this species. Other than one small colony of Idas Blue in a roadside meadow, it seemed that Reverdin's pretty much had the monopoly in this part of France over its close relatives, and I didn't see a single Silver-studded Blue all week.

In terms of Skippers, I found Large Skipper, Essex Skipper, Dingy Skipper, the previously mentioned Chequered Skipper and just three Pyrgus, namely Olive Skipper, Grizzled Skipper and Oberthur's Grizzled Skipper, photographed below. I was surprised by the lack of Red Underwing Skipper.
P.armoricanus


Both White Admiral and Southern White Admiral were frequently met with, often flying together.
L.camilla
L.reducta

One surprise encounter was finding a large colony of Black Hairstreaks nectaring on wild privet on a scrubby limestone hillside. I found a second colony in a large woodland a little later on.
S.pruni


My over-riding memory from this trip will be of the fritillaries. Not just the three rarer species, the life ticks mentioned in part one, but also the incredible abundance and variety of fritillaries in so many locations within the region. These included a single Queen of Spain, a few Marbled and early Dark Green, the occasional Weaver's and Heath, and fair numbers of Meadow Fritillary at a few locations. Much more abundant were Small Pearl-bordered, Marsh, Glanville, Knapweed, Spotted and False Heath Fritillary. M.diamina
M.parthenoides
B.daphne
B.selene M.didyma
All in all a fantastic trip, with many great memories of a lovely region and a myriad of butterflies!

Lovely shots, Peter,
Scarce frit is really special, and yours look to be pretty pristine . I was lucky enough to see it in Bulgaria a couple of years back and hope to find it again in Poland soon. Many thanks for an evocative post.

Tony M.

Yet another superb account, Pete. That's a fabulous haul of rare species you got and I know only too well how unpredictable the weather was (certainly for the early part of your trip).

What altitude was the Bog Fritillary site? They only emerge around the second week of June in the Pyrenees (in a normal year), but then these sites are at 1,200 - 1,500m.

thanks for those excellent pics Pete... there is so much to see in France n'est-ce pas ?

Looks like you had a fantastic trip. Beautiful images of some brilliant butterflies, and fresh specimens, too. And those Scarce Fritillaries oooh. Another species on my wish list!

Thanks for your kind comments folks.

Charles, France is indeed a fantastic country for butterflies, and there are still many areas that I have yet to visit!

Essex, you are not wrong about Scarce Frits! They are simply stunning creatures! A shame that they have become so rare now in France...

Well done for making the effort to go there, I’m glad it worked out so well. I’ve seen most of the others, but those Scarce Fritillaries are to die for!

Woodland Brown (Lopinga achine)
Visiting a woodland clearing in the Cote-d'Or Woodland Browns were so numerous Woodland confetti would be a more appropriate name, this species is usually very difficult to approach but they were in a friendly mood even visiting our mobile home flying in though one window out another, sometimes as many as four or five at a time along with Argynnis paphia a magical experience.
Argynnis aglaja, Melitaea athalia ,and Limenitis camilla were also present in good numbers
Can someone please ID picture number eight .

Further along the track five Euphydryas maturna, they were also seen at several other locations, the first of my 2018 target species.
A few pics for your enjoyment.

PS video of the Lopinga achine,Euphydryas maturna and Aporia crataegi can be seen on the link below.

https://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com/p57 ... #hb22c7cd3
https://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com/p57 ... #hb2273611
https://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com/p57 ... #hb1f9f0d0

Picture #8 (if I'm looking at the right one) is a Heath Fritillary.

Fabulous shots of Woodland Browns - I can never get anywhere near them, let alone sitting nicely with open wings. Last year I saw over a hundred but not one would allow a close approach, even when the temperature dropped after a thunderstorm. They have this infuriating habit of flying into bushes and settling deep in them.

I stopped off at the same site (north of Dijon) on my way back in July when my car determined that the Alps were not a good idea. No Woodland Browns, of course, well past by that time, but I estimate around five hundred Silver-washed Fritillaries among vast numbers of mostly-UK species, including a hundred or more Scotch Argus, a very common species across central and eastern France at this time of year.

Roger

Great stuff James! The woodlands of the Cote d'Or must be one of the best places to see Woodland Brown. They were flying in their hundreds at a good few sites when I visited. It would be interesting to know why they are so abundant here, and yet so scarce in most of the rest of France - presumably a combination of plentiful habitat coupled with an ideal climate for them. Great pictures.