After my morning’s sortie we decided to take a cable car up the Hündle mountain, a short drive from Oberstaufen
. The whole set-up looked very modern, with the spacious gondolas seating up to 8 people. It was another hot day so I had to offload one of my cameras (I had three) to my eldest daughter who delighted in taking photos of us going up in our cable car 
. Whilst waiting to board I spotted a silver-washed fritillary taking nectar from Echinacea flowers.
- Scenery from up the Hundle
. I did get to see a Marbled White (my 10th species seen so far) but it was down a steep grassy gully. A more accessible gully got me Small Skipper and two Mazarine Blue (male and female) … and through a wooded section I spotted some more Silver-washed Fritillary and a very tatty male ‘Dark Green Fritillary’*.
- Marbled White.
- Mazarine Blue
- Small Skipper
- * see part 2b
). Fortunately, we came across a ‘life-saver’ farmhouse (Sennalpe Bärenschwand) where a young lady served drinks (Beer!! ) through the kitchen window, and where there was bench seating in the shade 
. Suitably refreshed we soldiered on but the terrain got tougher and steeper and seemingly never ending. Other walkers we met didn’t know how far Buchenegger Wasserfälle was and in the end we threw in the towel 
(after the holiday, I checked google maps and we were only 400 yards from it when we turned back 
).On the way back, I sloped off onto an unfenced grassy bank telling the other’s I’d meet them back at the Sennalpe Bärenschwand farmhouse and “mine’s a Beer”
.In that area I saw another fly-by Swallowtail, and also something new, Sooty Coppers Lycaena tityrus. These were mostly males but I also was able to get close to a courting pair
. The photos don’t do justice to these little jewel-like butterflies. Phil
Initially I had it down as “smessex”. I have a definite Essex in the next post so I’m relying on a couple of worn 'Small' in a later post to keep my species count up. Some either/or (or even both) Fritillaries too as I'm sure you know 
