Danube Disaster

My other ploy to extend the summer was a cycle ride along the Danube from Passau to Vienna, of which the first half was a partial success and the second half a major failure.

It started with a couple of days in Munich, during which it was good to see that some areas of the English Garden (e.g. the Werneckwiese) have been preserved as flower meadows.  After a warm day on arrival it had however clouded over and hopes of late butterfly sightings were restricted to numerous small whites, and a fleeting sighting of a possible brown argus.

There were any number of common darters and following the stream southwards, I also encountered a few beautiful demoiselle damselflies and, momentarily re-awakening my fishing instinct, a number of chub, some of which were of a nice size.

Common Darter

Beautiful Demoiselle

Chub

Amusingly, elsewhere in the Garden, a game of coarse cricket was underway.

I also visited the Isarinselfest where there were some mammals behaving in an inappropriate manner.

Mammals behaving badly

Having made it to Passau the next day and sorted out a couple of 'technical difficulties', I set off to the first overnight stay at Schlögen.  The scenery was pleasant but conditions remained overcast I wasn't optimistic about seeing much at all apart some fawns that were in a pen next to the track.

The one flower in bloom that was at all frequent was european goldenrod, which eventually proved productive on closer inspection.  I think the main bee that I was seeing was a furrow bee, though I wouldn't like to speculate as to which kind.

Furrow Bee?

In view of the overcast conditions I was quite pleased to find a common blue nearby, even if slightly tatty.

It rained briefly, but then even then more goldenrod proved a home to a stoical small white waiting for better weather.

Small White

Further along the track, I saw something on another patch that mystified me, having never seen the like before.  Research suggests that it may be form of potter wasp.

Potter Wasp?

As far as I can find out, potter wasps only occur in the south of Britain.

The Danube at the Schlögener Schlinge looked extremely calm as I set out the next day in reasonable weather.  Progress was however halted by a Forestry official who asked me to stop.  The reason for this was soon clear as a medium sized pine tree was felled, partially blocking the road. 

Here she is clearing up the debris:

Försterin

European goldenrod was again productive.  I think this one may be one of the colletes bees, although aware there are other things it could be.

Colletes Bee?

This turned out to be the only sunny day of the whole tour and, after crossing the river at Aschach, I quickly encountered a lovely butterfly meadow with much still in flower.  Here, as well as the small whites that were everywhere (and I don't think I saw any other white species during the whole trip), there were common blues and a number of clouded yellow males, although they never settled.

Most significantly for me was getting some sort of photo of a small blue, having missed out on one in Slovenia in June.

Flower Meadow

Small Blue

There was then a long stretch on the left bank which was bordered by a narrow area of grassland down a bank from the raised cycle track.  Bird's foot trefoil started to crop up and for some while I enjoyed numerous sightings of the same species (though only one more small blue) and a good few appearances by peacock and red admiral, elsewhere infrequent.

Common Blue

It was interesting that all the common blues I saw were males.

European goldenrod managed to throw up another surprise before we hit the outskirts of Linz in the form of (presumably) another obscure wasp and, while taking a break, I thought I had a mini-miner on my knee.  Perhaps more likely it was a flying ant.

Wasp

Ant

So far, so good but by the time I left Linz the next day, it was already raining and it only stopped briefly around the area of Enns, where there was some nice woodland that might have promising.  After that it just got worse and any prospect of nature watching was abandoned as I cycled on determinedly to Tiefenbach.  

The next day (Tiefenbach to Melk) it rained consistently and the temperatures, which had been in the thirties the week before dropped to 9C in some locations.  While I had plenty of waterproofs, it became impossible to dry things overnight.  I had reckoned with the rain but not the low temperatures and frequent coffee stops were essential just to keep my hands warm.

By this time I had decided, by way of a diversion really to see if I could identify at least one bird or butterfly of any kind.  Before Melk I managed one bird - a goosander.

The fifth day was one of increasingly rain and flood barriers had started to appear.  Others gave up the ride altogether and headed for the train stations. I however continued and was amazed to see that there will still swallows flying low over the swollen Danube, which was lapping at some points no more than a foot below the cycle track.  At one point a sculpture I thought I saw above a directional sign transformed into a sparrowhawk and flew off when I was five yards away. 

I eventually reached the destination of Traismauer in a storm, disorientated and struggling to find a poorly signposted guesthouse.  I was so cold I couldn't sign the hotel registration forms before having a shower.  In the evening, my phone received an emergency alert from the Austrian fire brigade warning that the River Krems, which I had fortunately passed, was about to burst its banks. 

What should have been a pleasant ride through attractive scenery had turned into an extreme weather event and survival exercise.  On the last day the cycle route was closed on both sides of the Danube for the final stage to Vienna and it became apparent that no trains were running. It was largely down to the incredibly helpful lady hosting the appropriately named Gasthof zum Schwan,who contacted all the tour organisers, that we managed to hitch a lift via detours to Vienna with the bike rental van.

I think this will be the last long distance cycling tour I do.  As well as this incident, increasing signs of climate change (e.g. also the forest fire that threatened my arrival in Carcasonne in 2019 and the major anticyclone on my trip to Bulgaria) show you cannot rely on predictable weather any more.

Bulgaria - Day 5

As it was our last morning in Tehsel, I decided to take an early morning walk down to the village where it was reported that eleonora's falcon was being sighted daily in pursuit of hirundines.  Typically it only appeared briefly and I didn't see it and also only heard the serin that was calling nearby.  Later in the day we were also to hear a cirl bunting calling.

Hirundines were around in plenty, as there were througout the trip.  Crag martin, pallid swift, barn swallow and red-rumped swallow were all seen often and the house martins were certainly not confined to residential areas.  In the mountains, alpine swifts were also to be seen.

 Transferring to a new location took us through the lowlands in splendid weather and resulted in a bonanza of sightings though I did miss the ilex hairstreak, which was quick to fly off and my great banded grayling was

seriously out of focus.  I was happier with the photographs I managed to get, though not with my recording skills which meant there were again some things I couldn't identify and others where identification may be inaccurate.

Of course there is a lot of variability between genders and amount of wear.  I got one shot of the map butterfly that looks nothing like as it should and this black-veined white is a good example - so worn that it has become semi-transparent.                   
The grizzled skipper is  a good example of an identification problem in another way.  In the Balkans there are something like twenty different varieties as opposed to our one, so at times you have to give up unless there is an expert to hand. 

It was a day of headlines and star acts.  There were numerous beautiful scarce coppers in the morning, and even when we settled down for a picnic lunch, there was a giant beetle almost the size of my brown rat scurrying around. Unfortunately I forgot the name but it only occurs within the Southern Balkans in Europe.

We caught up with both eastern festoon and in the afternoon swallowtail, the latter being first recorded on video before it finally came into land:

In one meadow, the elusive large blue was spotted.  It disappeared, hard to track because of its dark pattern, but I hung around and felt quite proud when it reappeared and I managed to follow it for thirty or forty yards before it landed. Just afterwards, we came across a male cardinal fritillary, the biggest fritillary in the Balkans.

This was quite exciting but I think that the best photograph I took at the riverside location was this shot of the beautiful demoiselle as the detail has come out so well:

The whole group was excited when, further upstream, we found a group of whites and blues 'puddling' i.e. absorbing salt from the muddy banks.  As you can see there was a whole mass of them, including some of the rarer species like escher's blue and chapman's blue, all in a great profusion:

Apparently only male butterflies do this.

Then further along, we found a couple of bushes that were swarming with silver-washed fritillaries, including the grey female form (valezina).

It was quite a day indeed: