Dappled White larva I presume, on Biscutella.

Zayed - those are strange-looking PBFs - is that a local form down there?

Tuesday 22.04.2025 Langdon Hills Country Park Yesterday was a great day for me personally, and a tremendous day for the conservation of butterflies in Essex. :D :D :D Our critically endangered Grizzled Skipper, which remains on the verge of extinction from the last known site in Essex, made it to 2...

Ref your Antequera post: also finding that butterflies smaller than orange-tips are very thin on the ground. No skippers here at the western end of the Serrania de Mijas (though this is not really unusual), and next to no blues (which certainly is unusual). Really good numbers of pierids though and ...

A decent day for butterflies today. Plenty of large and small whites, the large whites being exceptionally large. Perhaps the high rainfall? Really good numbers of clouded yellows. Speckled woods and lots of freshly emerged Spanish gatekeepers looking velvety and Erebia-like. Strange to see gatekeep...

No eggs on the cuckoo-flower in eastern Somerset, though it's further advanced than yours, and I've been attended by Orange-tips whilst gardening from the start of the month.

Large Tort reported near Chard in Somerset, per Somerset BC Facebook page.

Still some Brown Hairstreak eggs around in Somerset.

The Brimstones were out in numbers today around Larkhill, Wiltshire.

Delighted to see a Small Tortoiseshell in the garden just now, after the awful year they had last year. Red Admiral here a couple of days ago, and a male Brimstone flying through on the brivet.

Brown Hairstreak egg, Ruishton, Somerset today.

First butterfly of the year here yesterday - a Peacock which looked like it had had a hard winter.

Well, it's on the British list...

Weaver's Fritillary, Spanish Pyrenees, April 2024.

Perhaps the best way of mapping WLH is searching for the early stages, especially the larvae, which have the useful advantage that they do not disappear on grey or wet spring days, and can usefully be surveyed when there are no adult butterflies to be seen. For matters WLH-related check out https://...

For many centuries, the Rhône valley was much less peaceful than it is now, and when you have a very steep hill rising above the crossing of two trade routes, it makes a natural setting for settlement. This is how the old wool town of Châteauneuf-de-Mazenc came into being. In the much more peaceful ...

Firecrest in the garden this morning - the first time I have ever seen one in this country.

No butterflies yet and not really expecting any.

A couple of years after the forest fire, greenery has returned to the hills (compare with a few posts above).

The hatched area is where there are the least recorded sightings for all species. This is the area of least population density in Essex and the land use is primarily agricultural - the "Breadbasket of Essex" with large fields of wheat and barley to potato crops and broad beans. This does ...

The other group of fritillary larvae I found were on foxglove - I'm thinking M. celadussa or whatever the local form of heath fritillary is. Again, attractive-looking larvae and plenty of them.

In April, I came across plenty of interesting caterpillars in the Albarracin area of Spain. I'm pretty sure most of them are fritillaries of one sort or another, but can they be definitley identified to species? First up are these larvae found on what I'm fairly certain is Verbascum. I think they ar...