Slovenia - Day 1

Another year, another summer so obviously time for another butterfly holiday, this time to Slovenia with Greenwings  which is where I was last week.

By way of a prelude, I think all the group I was with were impressed with the cleanliness and friendliness of Slovenia.  Although a small country, it contains large tracts of natural countryside attractive to those of many forms of wildlife.  The locations we visited were in the West and North West of Slovenia.

Day 1

The first few days were spent near the town of Rakov.  We got in a reasonable session  at a meadow near our hotel but the rains came down while looking round a second area by the River Reka, so we ended up settling for a birdwatching session near a farm.

It wasn't all about butterflies anyway.  By the river there were numerous damselflies, of which the banded demoiselle tends to catch the attention.

Banded Demoiselle

White-legged Damselfly

On the pm birdwatch, a good number of species turned up, including whinchat, white crane, fieldfare, spotted flycatcher, tree sparrow, and black redstart.  Awaiting eye test, I didn't manage to photograph all that was seen.

Spotted Flycatcher

Black Redstart

Fieldfare

Tree Sparrows

We scored well on butterflies in the first field, but not so well by the river, which at the time we attributed to deteriorating weather conditions.  As often the case on my nature trips abroad, there are so many I made them into a short video, including a couple of moths:

I hope I haven't misidentified anything.  My notes suggest we also saw marbled and twin spot fritillaries.

A couple of specimens I struggled with were one bee I couldn't get anywhere with - possibly some sort of mining bee but could be a lot of things - and this cricket that could perhaps be a dark bush cricket.

Mining Bee?

Dark Bush Crcket?

Trip to Tübingen

This wasn't a dedicated nature holiday, the main aims being cultural and relaxation in various forms.  Some of the sightings I did make were annoyingly fleeting, making identification tricky.

One day though, I visited the University Botanical Gardens with its impressive array of gardens and trees.  On the way from the nearest bus stop there were a couple of butterflies and an elusive black redstart.

Once there, I had my first sighting of a common blue in an area of rewilding and a spectacular stripey bug on an exotic plant.

Common Blue

Minstrel Bug

Apparently it's an Italian Striped Bug or Minstrel Bug.  Also fleetingly sighted for the first time this year were common darter and marbled white.  On some steps a nomad bee was so active that I couldn't get a picture of it.  This was a pity as all the bees I saw afterwards were honey bees or obvious forms of bumblebee.

On the way to a bike hire place, I had a couple of forays along the River Ammer, where there were a few trout rising and this slightly puzzling duck with a blue sheen on its head feathers.

There is a thing called the Blue-headed Mallard in America and the beak certainly looks mallardy but on balance I think this is probably some sort of hybrid.

Mallard Hybrid?

Another teaser occurred during my one bike ride on a decrepit city bike.  At the edge of a farm field I happened on a couple of large pipits of a long thin body shape and a palish chest marking.  Of course, they moved on soon after I stopped.  It was hard to make them out properly against the light but I reckoned that tawny pipit was likely.

A couple of days later, I caught sight of a butterfly flying along the hedgerow that had all the signs of being a brown hairstreak, my first ever, but of course it did not land.  Later on I was amused to find a pair of Egyptian Geese casually surveilling the punts and  sunbathers by the Neckar.  

Egyptian Goose

I ended up in a Biergarten by the river, feeding fragments of bread to a decent sized carp - almost as satisfying as catching one.

The last day of my holiday was a dedicated nature outing.  I took a bus to Bebenhausen, which offers a number of walks on the southern tip of the Naturpark Schönbuch.  

The first thing I saw, before even leaving the village was a small white butterfly - except something about it struck me as unusual.  I think in fact it was a Southern Small White.  If so it was pretty much right on the Northern edge of its established range but I'm pretty confident about this one.  The giveaway is that the black edging extends slightly down the outer edge of the upper forewing.

Southern Small White

Although the forecast was for very hot weather, it took a while for the clouds to disperse.  When they did, another white appeared by the side of the Fohlenweideweg - a fair number of wood whites, always nice to see as they do not occur in the North of Britain.

Wood White

Their weak, erratic flight means that wood white sites are very precious as the butterflies are unlikely to relocate over any distance.

Ironically the real fun butterflies started when I took a wrong turn and went down a wee overgrown lane.  I was surprised to find that the dominant butterfly here was the pearly heath.

Pearly Heath

I'd seen the pearly heath several times when I was in Bulgaria but did not know it extends across mainland Europe.  

Several expected items turned up including another common blue, and, looking smart, meadow brown and ringlet.

Meadow Brown

Common Blue

Ringlet

I also spent some time confirming that the small skipper I saw was a small skipper, as Essex or Lulworth Skipper were also feasible.  Anyway, it is.

Small Skipper

More troublesome was a very small and worn female blue that kept fluttering around the path track without settling more than briefly.  My feeling is that it may be a Silver Studded Blue but without better images, it's hard to be sure, 

Silver Studded Blue?

Then there was the one that completely defeated me, as I couldn't find anything that resembled this rather smart-looking black moth.  Or maybe it's not even a moth at all?

Unidentified Flying Object

It almost looks like the translucent wing tips are reflecting the treetops above.

Last of all. the most joyful appearance went completely undocumented when a massive purple emperor came down and flattered briefly in front of my midriff.  I waited around for half an hour for it to return but there was no further sign.

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.