Thanks Wurzel and David. Sadly, cold weather and lots of rain have more or less stopped play these last two weeks (of half term!). Yesterday, in the first real spell of good sunshine, I revisited the site in the valley where I saw the five wood whites and saw a total of just three butterflies - that...

I moved back to Switzerland in September 2022, after four years in Suffolk. My new home was in Leysin, where I've never lived (or even really visited) before, so I spent winter 2022-3 scouting for local blackthorn and evidence of brown hairstreaks. I soon found sites with eggs and visited in spring ...

Hi Nick. I've used a Canon SX70 HS ever since my SX60 got dunked earlier this year (these cameras are not waterproof). I normally crop, process and resize pictures before posting to the web, but just so you can judge for yourself, I've uploaded a cropped (to bring it below the file-size limit) but o...

Re flying in a field of lucerne: this would be a strong indicator if (a) there were lots of potential hyale there and (b) if the field wasn't embedded in alfacariensis country. Otherwise, there's nothing to stop alfacariensis nectaring there. In my experience, if there is a good potential breeding s...

Hi Dave. This is helice. The complete enclosure of the pale submarginal spots in the dark border is definitive. The jizz is also all helice.

Guy

They do fly quite fast and determinedly, Wurzel! But they also enjoy nectaring, and if you're quick on the draw you can get them! We've just had a lovely weekend and I was able to get out along the Rhône Valley. It seems there is a third brood of wood white on the wing now. I photographed this one o...

A vagrant copy turned up in Switzerland today! It's fantastic, Pete - really well produced as well as well researched. I had been wondering whether to display it with my Frohawk or my d'Abrera, but in the end decided to keep it by the loo, at least until I've read it cover to cover ...

Guy

The problem with AI apps for ID is that they’re only as good as the data set (image set) they learn from. Some friends of mine have been preparing an ID app for Swiss butterflies. They have procured literally hundreds of thousands of images from keen amateurs like me but are nevertheless going throu...

To all appearances, Berger's. I've seen Berger's with the wingshape of pale clouded, but I've never seen pale clouded with the wingshape of Berger's - and this definitely has the wingshape of Berger's. Habitat is a better clue - and even more, seeing what females are laying on. Berger's is a sedenta...

HI Wurzel and David. I've posted this before, but it's worth posting again: Minnie's first ever view of a bactrian, back in 2017 ... https://www.guypadfield.com/images2017/minniebactrian20jun2017a.jpg They're big animals! :D The year is indeed winding down here, though some species will hang on into...

Thanks David - yes, even in the mountains we don't get euphrosyne as late as September! But dia is double brooded and this will be the tail end of the summer brood. It was a beautiful day today so Minnie and I went along the Rhône Valley to look for rosy grizzled skippers. We actually saw just the o...

Interesting! Your first and third pictures look like either Hipparchia volgensis delattini or Hipparchia senthes (formerly Hipparchia aristaeus senthes ). According to the maps in Pamperis, both fly in Kephalonia, though he gives more data points for delattini . Comparing with pictures in various bo...

Almost certainly a rock grayling, Hipparchia hermione (formerly, and likely to be again, alcyone).

It's difficult to be 100% with hermione and fagi, but this looks very good for the former.

Guy

This is either tree grayling ( Hipparchia statilinus ) or Freyer's grayling ( Hipparchia fatua ). From my experience of tree grayling in Switzerland and France, I suggest yours is Freyer's, but tree graylings are very variable and western European experience may not count in Greece! The well-defined...

I too noticed the anomaly Mike refers to: 108mm on the small sensor being equivalent to 1169mm on a 35mm sensor. My own Canon Powershot, also a small-sensor camera, has a maximum focal length of 247mm yet that is only equivalent to 1365mm - not so much bigger than yours. So I agree: either you have ...

I think Jack was referring specifically to swallowtails, David. In Switzerland, at least, these had a pretty rough spring brood (first, very dry, then endless rain in April and May). So we didn't have many to share around. I don't know what the situation was like further north in France and the Low ...

Thanks Wurzel. Yes, I was very pleased to catch that female pied flycatcher like that! Hi David. As you'll know from my postings over the years, we have a very protracted season here in Switzerland, with fritillaries lasting well into the autumn (and Queens of Spain flying all year in the Rhône Vall...

That's fantastic, Neil. As an observation, I was in Málaga from 1st to 8th April this year and was amazed not to see any long-tailed blues at all until 5th April, at one very localised hilltopping site. If my notes are correct, those were the only ones I saw during the holiday - most unusually. It w...

Looking through my pictures, I find a very few, both males and females, have some pale scales there. Here is a male - not so well marked as yours:



Guy

Beautiful weather has set in but I've had to stay local this last couple of days, with the new term beginning ... Yesterday, we did a woodland/meadow walk and were very happy to find Damon blue on the local sainfoin. I've found it further up the mountain, at 1900m, but this was the first time I've s...