Dolomites Days and 5 and 6

Day 5 comprised two walks in the Sella Pass, the second of which finished on the scree at our highest elevation of around 2,300 metres.  Day 6 comprised two main stops at Predazzo and the Park Natural Paneveggio, which also ended up on scree.

The photos are in no particular order and reflect a little my guilt at having largely failed to do much justice to the many flowers.

After an early success with a mountain fritillary at Sella Pass, most butterflies were on the wing apart from alpine heath, which was definitely the most seen butterfly throughout the six days.  However the compensation was a rarity later on in the morning - Warren's grizzled skipper, which was found ovipositing on its main food plant.  

Ring ouzels and nutcrackers were spotted on the way up to the scree and I saw the "mysterious" fly.  It had a clear red band on its waist the likes of which I've never seen before but I couldn't find any shots of similar flies on the internet.

The scree itself was a disappointment as the sun disappeared soon after we arrived and only one butterfly was sighted in passing.  However a few from the group did manage a close encounter with a marmot.

Day 6  was notable for the repeated appearance of a couple of apollo butterflies at a layby en route.  Perhaps even more striking for me was the fleeting sighting of a purple emperor at the same location and the carnelian burnet was arguably the star rarity.

Large ringlet was seen a lot at Predazzo with some other wetland species and large grizzled skipper (in numbers) was a first sighting as we moved uphill.  I again found some bug interest in the form of the rose chafer.

There was a lone sighting of a pearly heath (last photo) showing its similarity to the alpine version.

Once more today, the scree was not yielding any major sightings but we probably saw most of the target sightings elsewhere on the trip except for dewy ringlet.  And the marmot was far more obliging this time, turning up near the refugio during our last refreshment stop.

It seemed like a fitting end to a great holiday.

Dolomites Days 1 and 2

Venues covered were Tamion where we were staying, the Costalunga Pass, San Pellegrino Pass and the Passa Valles.  My photographs throughout the trip concentrated mainly on butterflies:

Without cross-checking to previous sightings in Sri Lanka and Bulgaria, I reckoned that almond-eyed ringlet, alpine heath, geranium argus, large ringlet, olive skipper, silver-spotted skipper, sooty ringlet and tatania's fritillary were all first sightings for me.

One we didn't get a photograph of was a large blue that appeared towards the top of the San Pellegrino Pass.  Our group leader Luca commented that he'd never seen one there before.

Alpine Heath and Mazarine Blue were to prove the most common of the smaller butterflies throughout the trip, though even they were considerably outnumbered by the chimney sweeper moth.

The marsh fritillary was the glaciegenita variant found in the Alps and much smaller that the ones I saw in Bulgaria.

The olive skipper is the most common of the greyish skippers, which are often hard to distinguish. The number of spots on the lower hind wing can give a strong clue.

One butterfly we couldn't track down was the scarce copper in spite of the abundance of its food plant.

The bees were slightly differently coloured than expected.  The red-tailed bumblebee had faded to orange-tailed whereas the carder bee was as ginger as a tawny mining bee.

Incidentally, the nutcracker shot was the best I have so far managed.