Some excellent tips there Phil! Great stuff.

These are just superb as usual Richard! Keep up the excellent work!

Well done Pete and thanks for a great read!

It might have been hard going, but it’s all good experience and just adds to your overall knowledge of European butterflies and their habitats - it’s not all lush valleys and hundreds of species! Time well spent I reckon…..

Lovely winter reports as always Guy. The small torts look so at home. If they must be driven into the mountains then so be it - I will happily travel to see them! And if I can’t then your photos will keep me going…..

Well done Rich - absolutely well deserved! There are times when you seem to be single-handedly keeping the forums going!

Hi there -
These look like classic butterfly house species to me….
Clockwise from top left: Morpho peleides, Siproeta stelenes, Parthenos sylvia and Idea leuconoe.

Cheers -
Ben

Hi Chris - Here are a few examples of feeding damage from my own surveys that might help you make up your mind. Your final photo looks particularly good for final instar damage IMO but as you say, there are lots of other things that feed on elm so we can’t be 100%. The holes in the leaves are often ...

Fantastic stuff Pete - so glad it was such a success! What a view from the hotel! Great photos of everything.

Excellent - thanks Guy. I must confess I was imagining it to be a very worn (and empty) female. Given that it’s male I am completely persuaded by your reasoning around the sex-brand. I think it was the overall shape of the forewing orange band that I couldn’t match to Piedmont, but I guess variabili...

Hi Guy - Enjoying your diary as ever. At this time of year I always start spending time going through photos and queries from trips so am always on the look out for ID tips. I would have called your Piedmont ringlet from a couple of posts ago a Scotch argus so if you could tell me what you’re using ...

Hi Roger - For what it’s worth (not much) I’d go athalia here. I wasn’t sure with the topside only but the underside features you mention that make you uneasy about your suggested ID move me strongly in the athalia direction. But clearly you are aware of all this so your judgement, having seen far m...

Very much enjoying this Roger - your butterfly knowledge in this part of the Alps must be up there with the very best! Looking forward to reading more…..

Oh no Trevor - not Herstmonceux - not yet! I look forward to these annual reports from your trips but it always means the season is once again drawing to a close……. On this occasion I’ll put it down as an early recce and convince myself that with some good weather later in the summer we’re really on...

Great PE updates Trevor - so glad you caught up with your target!

Wow what a beauty Paul! Always glad when you get rewarded for all those long trips.

Time to return to the WLH All my captive WLH have now emerged. They’re a few days ahead of the wild population but I did see my first wild one on the last day of May. I thought I might as well photograph them and record some data as they emerged. Clearly lighting conditions varied and I’m not fussy ...

That’s a lovely photo on the dropwort Trevor

Great stuff Dave! I think this is very useful as memories are indeed very short - often only extending as far back as the previous week if the conversations I have with people are anything to go by! This does seem especially true when this amnesia gives us Brits an opportunity to grumble - we do lov...

Thanks both. I certainly don’t need high numbers for breeding - females can quite easily manage 500 eggs or more. It is important to rear good numbers though, in order to experiment with different conditions. Most of them live out their lives in a couple of large flight cages that take over the gard...

Black-veined white in southern Britain. IMG_9568.jpeg With BVW popping up at sites around the UK, and headlines appearing that suggest climate change together with habitat restoration/improvements are rendering much of southern Britain suitable for the re-establishment of this species, I’ve been mo...