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.

Bulgaria Day 2

It was suggested that a forage around the hotel area before breakfast might be fruitful and several of the group ventured forth for a look. Hotel Orfei lies in a deep gorge so it was too early for butterflies but someone heard a black redstart calling and I managed to pick out the silhouette on the rock face, though I would never have managed to identify it. A black woodpecker flew over the valley briefly, plus a couple of other sightings.

Probably the main wildlife feature of Bulgaria is the large amount of unspoilt meadow land.  Things really started to take off at our first destination, following a path through just such country.  I wasted a fair bit of time trying to get a clouded yellow to settle but in the end I settled for a video as it fluttered around incessantly:

The species count quickly began to mount. We saw some of the rarer blues, including chapman's, alcon and

Apollo

amanda's. I enjoyed my first glimpse of a balkan copper as well as my first sightings of green hairstreak, grizzled and tufted marble skippers plus heath and marsh fritillaries.

We saw woodland and bright-eyed ringlets, both of which were new to me and got nice views of the red-backed shrike, often to reappear on succeeding days.

A particular star was the apollo.  After a few sightings of them, one was finally netted and persuaded to settle on a rock.

Looking back, I am a bit disappointed with some of my photographic efforts during the session, but here are a few further impressions I managed to capture, rolled into a video Nb there is a correction.  Simeon our group leader has identified that the one captioned as grizzled skipper is in fact a tufted marbled skipper.  I f you pause the video and look closely, you can see the two white hair tufts.:

Later in the day, we visited a roadside lake where we saw a number of dragonflies, including azure damselfly, white-legged damselfly and blue emperor.  Here we also saw a black-tailed skipper, of which I unfortunately have no memory, southern small white and some crag martins - amongst others it has to be stressed.