Spain Day 1

As mentioned briefly last time, I spent last week in holiday in Northern Spain. It was a birdwatching trip, Wallcreepers and Cranes in Northern Spain with Naturetrek.  The overall verdict would have to be that, while the cranes were available in massive numbers, the wallcreepers proved distinctly elusive and I only got one distant view.  Inevitably though, I saw a lot of birds that were new to me.  I was also attracted by the fact that previous trip reports indicated that there could be a few butterflies...

Day 1 - 11th February

Painted Lady

It became quickly clear after landing at Zaragoza that Spring weather was in the air and we we quickly saw the first griffon vultures, red kites and others from the vans.  After stopping at Daroca, we took our first walk up to the Torre de San Valero, and evidence of butterflies was soon apparent as we saw small white, large white and bath white flying around early on.  As we got near the tower a good number of painted ladies and red admirals.  My suspicion has been for a while that painted ladies can overwinter in the UK and you'd think these must have done so in Spain.

An even better surprise was the appearance of a scarce copper butterfly within the tower wall. I also found a beefly and a bee the apps have identified as Gwynne's Mining Bee, which seems credible enough to me and one I've never seen before.

Gwynne's Mining Bee

This is by no means to say there were no birds around and the ones I saw (others saw more) were crossbill, crag martin, short-toed treecreeper and some singing woodlarks singing above the power lines.

However, the biscuit was duly taken by another butterfly when we saw a queen of spain fritillary sunning itself on a boulder.  This again surprised me but it appears it can be on the wing throughout the winter months.

Queen of Spain Fritillary

We then set off for our first hotel at Allucant on the Laguna di Gallocanta, which is a massive, shallow salt lake and the key winter destination for cranes.  At 1,500 metres above sea level, winter temperatures still applied but during daytime were still well above those being experienced in the UK.

Having not managed to get any decent bird photos, I was well pleased when we came across some corn buntings in the fields near the hotel and in fact they were all over the trees on the way to the laguna.

Corn Buntings in field

Corn Bunting in tree

I reckoned I could see several blackbirds in the trees but in fact they turned out to be spotless starlings (never heard of!) and indeed you can just about make out the iridescence in the snap I got of this one:

Spotless Starling

And what of the cranes?  Well, we could just about make out a few obscured in haze at considerable distance towards the South end of the lake, which was to be our next destination 

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!