Where are the Nymphalidae?

It was perturbing to note, while writing up my notes on the Butterflies of Slovenia, that the carefully encouraged buddleia in the pots in the front garden have been in and past full bloom without a single sign of a small tortoiseshell (normally the first to appear), red admiral or peacock.  Entries I'm seeing on social media suggest that others are having the same experience. Since I returned from Slovenia over two weeks ago, I have literally seen two butterflies in the back garden.

In order to improve the situation and record at least some data for the Big Butterfly Count I went with Malcolm to Branton Lakes near Powburn in North Northumberland.

After a quiet start checking out some puzzling tree foliage on the East Lake, we started seeing plenty of butterflies on a circuit of West Lake, though once again no Nymphalidae.  At some points there was quite good coverage of bird's foot trefoil and I hoped in vain for common blue but we did get a number of burnet moths.

The grand tally of sightings was: Ringlet - 20, Six-spot Burnet 12, Meadow Brown 10, Green-veined White 2, Small Skipper 2.

Ringlet	Six-spot Burnet
Meadow Brown	Small Skipper

Green-veined White

Now I'd be the first to admit that I'm not the world's greatest expert in identifying burnet moths but close investigation of the photos I took (which didn't include all twelve) do suggest a separation of the uppermost marking into two spots.

Azure Damselfly

It was also interesting that the ringlets were all of a muddy brown rather than chocolate brown colour. Plus the green-veined white seemed a shade or two greener than the ones in Slovenia.

Other encounters were with several damselflies and one unidentified dragonfly. 

Interestingly again the damselflies were clearly the azure damselfly, said by one website 'not to be found' in the uplands of Northern England. 

We also encountered the blue-tailed damselfly a couple of times, but no photo.

Slightly strange half-light conditions made it difficult to see the plumage of the ducks on the lake apart from a cormorant, but in the distant trees on the East Lake we did make out two or three very white birds that looked rather too big to be seagulls. With some difficulty I managed to get enough of a photo to indicate that they were juvenile little egrets.

Juvenile Little Egret

I had heard of a heronry before but it appears there may be such a thing as an egretry! Notice the yellow legs, which fooled me for a while.

On the bee front the most noticeable event was the appearance of heavily sun-bleached buff-tailed (presumably) bumblebee and a tiny early bumblebee with a missing abdominal stripe.  Seemingly this can happen sometimes.

Early Bumblebee

Bleached Bumblebee

Back home in the garden there has been no very noteworthy action but I did get a nice view of a thrush on a rare visit.

Mistle Thrush

Slovenia Day 7

Our last day in Slovenia was slightly curtailed by the need to get back to Llubljana but still proved productive.

Starting the trail back east we stopped off at a location where there were a series of upland meadows.

The first one was the one where we saw the most, managing to add chalkhill blue to our somewhat diminished list of blues, and Amanda's blue was also active.  Something of a nuisance was a scarce copper that kept flying around without settling much. It turned out there were several of them in the area and so were hard to miss.

Chalkhill Blue

Scarce Copper

The pearly heath was seen so many times we had more or less started to ignore them! A mountain green-veined white was also seen, looking even darker that the example seen yesterday.  Silver-washed fritillaries were present in good numbers and the lesser marbled fritillary was also observed again.

Pearly Heath

Mountain Green-veined White

Throughout the trip we also saw some small heath. One omission I thought we might see but never did was the bath white.

On the bug front, these four-banded longhorn beetles seemed determined to boost their own population:

Four-banded Longhorn Beetles.

We stopped at another place but saw no butterflies we hadn't already seen. by a river I did however find this bee, which we think to be a carpenter bee - possibly the violet carpenter bee.

Violet Carpenter Bee

Scarlet Tiger Moth

The yellow appearance of the thorax is actually a heavy dusting of pollen.

Then as we got back to the van, a scarlet tiger moth was literally on it, just above the wheel hub.

Also seen is the nine-spotted moth, which in the last couple of days became prolific.  At our last woodland stop, it was the only thing we saw but in massive numbers.

Nine-spot moths

Here they have formed a weird crucifix shape.

After that we headed for the airport through a heavy thunderstorm...

Slovenia Day 6

On an early morning walk I got an interesting shot of a green-veined white, looking rather darker than its British counterpart.

Green-veined White

We also got a brief sighting of a grey-headed woodpecker, a species I thought I had seen when I cycled round Lake Constance but hadn't totally convinced myself I'd got it right.

But mainly this was the day we took a long ride over 25 hairpin bends and past many cyclists to find a mountaintop site very close to the Italian border.

Unfortunately the top of the mountain was shrouded in misty cloud and we had to wait for brief outbursts of sunshine to get any butterfly action.

However it did produce a couple of specialities, notably in the form of an asian fritillary that settled down for a good while and a mountain small white.

Asian Fritillary

Mountain Small White

There were more ringlets turning up from time to time but so fleetingly I typically did not get a decent shot of them though I didn't think they were scotch argus.  Otherwise there was another mazarine blue.

Eventually we moved on and tried in vain to find a sunny spot further down the mountain. 

However someone had the idea of trying a small wetland near the hotel before our evening meal and this paid off nicely when amongst others we came across two more new species in the shape of Nickerl's fritillary and lesser marbled fritillary.

Nickerl's Fritillary

Lesser Marbled Fritillary

There were more good views of a purple shot copper and a bonus moth - a gold spangle apparently.

Gold Spangle

Apart from the moth, the asian fritillary and - somewhat to my surprise - the mountain small white were first-time sightings for me.

Slovenia Day 5

By the end of Day 4 we had relocated to our second hotel at Pokljuka, which is a mountainous area in the North West of Slovenia.

The pattern of the day was similar to Day 3, with meadows in the morning, though at higher altitude and a woodland area later on.

Some of the scenery was spectacular and we found some good areas resulting in sightings of dark green and marsh fritillary, marbled fritillary (again), finally a male mazarine blue, sooty and purple-edged copper, a large skipper, and this time a definite woodland ringlet.  One south facing meadow proved particularly prolific.

It was actually as we were moving on to the woodland area that we came upon a new blue - the alcon blue showing quite well next to the path.

Alcon Blue

In the woodlands, we also scored nicely, viewing silver-washed fritillary, marbled fritillary (again) and several commas as well as the white admiral, not to mention a couple of mating false heath fritillaries.

Silver-washed Fritillary

White Admiral

So another fruitful day, sufficiently rich in butterflies that I didn't pay much attention to other bugs or bees!

Slovenia Day 4

The sighting of the swimming snake at the end of day 3 was the result of a brief return to the riverside meadow at the hotel and produced little else.  It led to discussion of why an area that has apparently produced prodigiously in the past should fail to do so again when others we visited proved more fruitful Itt seems effectively to be inexplicable beyond that it has perhaps something to do with the wet weather earlier in the year.

I think we found herself in the area of Stara Fuzina without being entirely sure. Anyway we spent most of the time in an upland area that was also partly wooded after a brief forage in a rich meadow..

The unmistakeable large chequered skipper appeared again at an early stage - completely unmistakeable from its underwing pattern.

Large Chequered Skipper

Blue-spot hairstreaks and clouded yellow turned up again and we saw male and female versions of the mazarine blue.

Mazarine Blue (f)

Mazarine Blue (m)

Most of the mazarine blues we saw were female.

However the star appearance of the day was the sole (I think) appearance on the trip of the Queen of Spain Fritillary.

Queen of Spain Fritillary

It was a good deal smaller than the rather glamorous name perhaps suggests. It was also the day we got first sight of the Large wall Brown.

Large Wall Brown

We encountered some difficulty identifying ringlets - a definite issue in this part of the world as there are several similar possibilities including a couple of highly localised versions (such as Stygian Ringlet).  An additional problem I had was that the ones I encountered repeatedly took to the wing just as the camera was about to shoot!

Some were identified as scotch argus but I wasn't entirely comfortable with this as the scotch argus wasn't supposed to be on the wing for another three weeks.  Some were probably woodland ringlet but in the circumstances, I think the best thing is just to present the photos I did get for what they are worth.

? Ringlet	? Ringlet
? Ringlet	? Ringlet

One thing is certain - they are all ringlets of one kind or another!

Another element of controversy was added by this skipper.

Essex Skipper?

My view is that it is a male and has a sex brand running parallel to the wing edge, making it an essex skipper.  Others begged to differ.

Otherwise I saw another mystery bee, possibly another furrow bee, a moth I couldn't identify and various others that I did tentatively manage to label.

The obvious star here is the longhorn moth with its massive antennae!

Slovenia Day 3

On the third day we headed west to a meadow in the Klenik area and then a woodland.

Obviously sightings started to be repeated after a day or so and in particular we got to see so many skippers, meadow browns and marbled whites that we started not to take any notice of them.

However the meadow did produce some new sightings and some better photographs.

In the blues department, Reverdin's blue turned up again and I got a better photo of the eastern short-tailed blue as well as another glamorous entry in the shape of Amanda's blue and a sighting of eastern baton blue.

Amanda's Blue

Eastern Baton Blue

Eastern Short-tailed Blue

Blue Spot Hairstreak

This time you can actually see the short tails!

We started to see some hairstreaks, some thought to be ilex hairstreaks but the ones I saw were blue spot hairstreaks, again a first but one we were to see continuously over the next couple of days.  

The same was true of large chequered blue (see later entries shortly!)

Neither species can be seen in the UK, which sort of makes all the travelling worthwhile.

Fritillaries however proved to be a bit of a problem. My notes indicate that we got to see spotted and twin-spot fritillary but all the photos I got seem to be of marbled fritillary and I think one or two other members of the group had the same experience.

The false heath fritillary is incorrectly named as it is a genuine fritillary, but it often caused as problems as we often confused it with other things.

The other one that turned up was the comma, another that was to reappear several times over succeeding days.

Marbled Fritillary

False Heath Fritillary

Comma

I thought I'd spotted a black-veined white and was a bit surprised to find that it was identified as a clouded apollo.

Clouded Apollo?

I think there remains some doubt over this one...

In the woods for the afternoon session, graylings were a feature as we found both great banded grayling on the way  and woodland grayling, plus I happened on a straightforward, everyday grayling in the village where we got out of the van - so graylings galore...  Also conspicuous (partly for their amorous behaviour) were a could of alpine longhorn beetles, much to the delight of the group leader Terry who has been hoping to see one for years!

Great Banded Grayling	Woodland Grayling
Grayling	Alpine Longhorn Beetle

Through the day I noticed (and was able to identify) a a couple of moths, namely latticed heath and golden yellow wave.

Golden Yellow Wave

Latticed Heath

Bugwise we also had - apart from more damselflies - a big rose chafer and a red bug whose exact name I have forgotten.

Big Rose Chafer

Red Beetle

Less auspicious sights were a snake swimming across a river and our leader wading through a huge puddle to capture a yellow-bellied toad.