Bordeaux Day 4

Undeterred by the continuing 36C forecast I set off up the Roger Lapébie cycle track to Créon.  Fortunately there was a fair bit of shade on the way.

It turned our to be another day when butterflies were skittish and, with one very notable exception, camera shots were hard to get.

Pausing for a late breakfast at the Lidl at Latresne, there were a number of butterflies flitting around the hedgerow but the only one I got a decent view of was a meadow brown.

Stopping again at a nice meadow for a mid-morning snack of cherries, a butterfly that was clearly a skipper - probably dingy or mallow - perched on grass stalk but typically flew off not to return just as I was about to pull the trigger.  I lost count of the number of times this happened during the whole trip.

Numerous others passed through the meadow without stopping and I could only wonder in most cases "What might have that have been?"  It struck me that a lot of the ones I was seeing this week may have

Wood White

been early brood males that had no interest in anything than finding a female.

Marbled whites started to turn up as I entered a more wooded area and never during the whole trip did I see one settle more than momentarily.  There must have been going on 50, some quite small.

In this area I reckoned there might be a good chance to see a wood white and indeed several started to appear only to play the same wandering game as the marbled whites and occasionally challenging each other.  Eventually one did provide the opportunity for at least a snap for identification purposes.

Then for a period, interesting things happened. Approaching Sadirac, I stopped to check out a butterfly that I thought might be a grayling.  It disappeared but immediately afterwards, what I could clearly see was a hungarian glider also made a couple of runs along the path.  Hungarian gliders are not often recorded in France but having seen them before, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that's what it was.

A bit nearer Créon, I stopped again to check how far I still had to go, stopping at a line of cow parsley, and remembered joking with a friend that you never see butterflies on cow parsley.  Well, this time there was something of a garden behind it and there were a few things fluttering round, common blues, skippers and probably others.

It was at this point that, in complete contrast to earlier events, a small butterfly actually landed on my camera.  It didn't take much to tempt it onto my hand where it remained for some little time.

Map Butterfly

I didn't have much idea what it could be at the time.  I have seen the Map Butterfly before in Bulgaria but this is a second brood example which remarkably looks a lot different to the first.  Notably its colouration strongly resembles that of my cycling jacket, faded by the sun from the original navy blue and white to rusty brown and white.  So it maybe that's what caused its approach.

I had meant to take another look at this spot on my way up after a slow lunch in Créon and somehow managed to miss it.  But on reaching the woods again, I noticed a big fritillary, a silver-washed, darting through the trees and hoped it would return.

It did briefly - to make a couple of assaults on the reflector light on the front wheel of the rental bike!

Realising that the reflected light must have deceived it into a mating or jousting attempt, I settled down for what I hoped would be a great video opportunity. Of course it never came back.

This is what it was interested in:

Fritillary Bait?

I did remember to stop at the frustrating meadow again and saw what I took to be a large member of the copper family.  This one actually did settle but proved to be yet another clouded yellow.

Clouded Yellow

So that was obviously another trick of the light too!

Freewheeling back down the track, I discovered some bird's foot trefoil and other flowers that seemed to be attracting some interest.  I suspected small blue might be one of the contenders, but they disappeared instantly.

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 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!

Dolomites Days 3 and 4

Day 3 was again spent at altitude on longish walk to a refugio in the Rosengarten area.  By contrast Day 4 was at lower level in the Eggental valley.  The sightings are in alphabetical order but I can tell you where each were seen if you request it in a comment.

A first sighting for me was the provencal short-tailed blue plus pretty much all the moths and more exotic bugs but it was the chequered blue and the rosey footman that were thought by the guides to be obvious rarities.  The one that got away was meleager's blue, seen only by our Italian guide, Luca.

People in the group were most excited about the scarce swallowtail and the white admiral plus the standard swallowtail that eluded my camera but I had seen all these before at other locations, notably Bulgaria.  The same is true of the valezina variation of the silver-washed fritillary.  The more normal version was also around the Eggental, nectaring on buddleia.  White admirals were all over the place there, flattering through the riverside trees, but it took a visit to the field of a (rather annoyed-looking) farmer to find one that settled nicely on a flower.

I found it tricky to spot identify the mountain green-veined whites which didn't look very green at all.

Although common here in the UK, we saw only a couple of commas and one small copper during the whole holiday.  If you look carefully at the small copper, you will see it has a number of blue spots on the upper hind-wing.  Apparently, this means it was a third brood specimen.

It was ironic that we saw both purple and white-letter hairstreak, both species I was thinking of tracking down in my return home, as Luca revealed that neither species had been seen on any of his previous tours to the area.  Incidentally, the purple hairstreak, best seen here in oak trees towards dusk was happily eating honeydew on sallows at midday.

Indeed we discussed several examples of wildlife behaving differently from country to country. 

Staycation Time

 As if to prove the wisdom of my last post, a speckled wood came sunbathing on the garden furniture on Sunday but departed again without showing any interest in the buddleia.

Speckled Wood

The same could not be said of the small tortoiseshells, who increased in number as a not especially warm day went on. At one point I counted nine in total on the three buddleia bushes in the back.

Small Tortoiseshells

Apart from (mainly large) whites, only one red admiral showed up.

The day after I set off for planned staycation in Lincolnshire,  Apart from a much-needed change of scenery, I was hoping to find some butterfly and bird species not available on my home patch.

The plan got off to a good start when I rode along the track into Southrey Woods in a heatwave and quickly noticed some brimstone butterflies nectaring on blue flowers that looked like snall cornflowers.  At first I thought they were the pale version of the drimstone but his may have been down to the brightness of the sunlight.  There were about 20 seen in the total time I was there.

Brimstone

There also a good piece of fortune when a single silver-wsshed fritillary started to fly around at speed near where I was having lunch.  Unfortunately it never settled and an attempt to video it in flight didn't come off.  Although I had seen brimstones near my grandparents' house as a kid, that was definitely my first UK silver-washed fritillary sighting,  Also observed were a good number of green-veined whites, small tortoiseshells and red admirals - and this time a couple were feeding near to a peacock - a few small white and a single comma.

There was also a very large fly that looked like a hornet with a yellow hood but I think from facebook posts of similar sightings in Dumfries and Galloway, it is some form of horsefly.

All around the drains there are common darters and I managed to get a photo of one that settled at Southrey.

Common Darter

Things went less well later and on the following day when I was looking for two sites that are known to have the brown hairstreak as I couldn't find either of them!  Apart from a lack of signposting, in one case it was down to a major navigational error on my part.

After seeking creature comforts in Bardney, I decided to ride back very slowly along the Witham with my eyes open and was frankly dissappointed by how little I saw,  A couple of whites, a few swallows and very little else.  It was a bit like the Canal du Midi two years ago.

One minor positive was that I managed to catch an example of the larger dragonflies that crazily landed in a hawthorn bush. It's a southern hawker.

Southern Hawker

I'm pleased with this from a photographic point of view, shot from six metres away in dense foliage.

Canal du Midi Part 1

A good deal of time has elapsed since the last post, the reason being that I have spent a long time trying to verify the butterfly sightings on my latest trip abroad, a cycle tour along the canal du midi from Carcassonne to Beziers. I've actually been back just over a week.

Overall, the most surprising thing about the trip was the extent to which butterflies dominated the nature sightings. Apart from the hirondelles, there were remarkably few birds around and other cyclists said the same.  There were scarcely any ducks until nearing the Mediterranean and the only land animals I saw were a couple of goats playing on a woodpile in a timber yard.  I wondered whether the hot, dry weather was at least partly responsible.

The first day was a circle to the Lac de la Cavayere.  All the streams leading into the lake had totally dried out and I gradually worked out that the best place to look was the point where the streams flowed (or didn't flow) into the lake as there was here at least enough moisture to sustain some flowers.

This is where identification problems begun and it's possible I have made the odd error. I was quickly able to identify wood grayling*, clouded yellow, silver-washed fritillary, wood white, white admiral, bath white, spotted fritillary and brown argus. However I encountered some very bright blues that were larger than common blues (also present) and didn't open their wings on settling.  My thinking is that they may have been adonis blues although they lacked the white markings on the underside of the bottom wing.  One I photographed I suspected was more likely to be a chalkhill blue.

Apart from a heron, I did get a quick sighting of a firecrest at the far side of the lake.

Bath White	Black Tailed Skimmer	Adonis Blue?
Chalkhill Blue?	Brown Argus	Clouded yellow**
Meadow Brown***	Wood Grayling*	Silver-washed Fritillary
White Admiral

Spotted fritillary

Wood White

Notes:

* Apparently it is however impossible to distinguish wood grayling from rock grayling without detailed examination

**  The pale form opens up the possibility of Berger's Clouded Yellow or Paled Clouded Yellow, both of which are present at this time of year.

*** Not quite the same as our own version - probably the hispula form

The second day was a trip to Homps along the Canal du Midi and started in light rain - hopefully a bit of relief for the forest fire that could be seen burning in the hills behind Carcassonne.  On the way out of the town there was a chap setting up to fish for carp with some large boilies and heavy tackle, unsurprisingly suggesting that there are large carp in the canal.  But I never at any stage saw them feeding or topping.

Apart from a few finches in a tree on the other side and butterflies already noted yesterday, the only sign of wildlife today was the large number of snails that were clinging to plant stalks along the bankside.