Padfield

[Padfield]

Thanks David. The species in that group I haven't seen yet myself is graeca, which I think you have seen. Should you ever come to Switzerland in July I can help you with aquilonaris ...

I got up at 05h45 this morning and checked the weather forecasts for various places. The winner was Domodossola (in Italy), where I head in summer for Hungarian gliders and large chequered skippers. It's actually getting late for the gliders - a factor that influenced me. But I wished I'd decided and got up earlier! It is an 11km uphill cycle ride from Domodossola to my traditional site, of which 6km is 9% slope and seriously hot work in late morning with 10kg of dog, beer, water and camera in the backpack! I wondered, as I often do, how many more years of this I have left. I'm 59 now. Could I do this at 69? 79? Minnie was all right: she just sat in the backpack and watched the scenery go by.

As I approached the top of the climb I spotted two Hungarian gliders cruising along by the side of the road. I didn't stop, though, as they didn't look as if they were going to settle anywhere. It was a good sign - they're still on the wing. When I reached the site and let Minnie out of the backpack, there was another good sign - a gravid, female large chequered skipper in the grass. You can tell gravid females because they can't bounce so high. Fresh males look like kids on pogo sticks. Gravid females look more like hippos on pogo sticks. She was down in the grass and I didn't chase her, but got this record shot:



I was to see three more of this species in total - all female so far as I could see. Here is another of them, who also spent her time down in the vegetation:



And the evidence she is a gravid female:



As for the gliders: I never saw a single one stop! It was hot - far too hot for Minnie - and the half dozen I saw were simply gliding, gliding, gliding. I wasn't disappointed - it is a wonderful thing to watch and I have photos I've taken in the past. I did go for a proof shot, though, pointing the camera at a butterfly in flight and hoping for the best. This is a heavy crop of one of the pictures:



Identifiably a Hungarian glider!

I took Minnie down to the river, where we usually see lots of gliders, but only saw one there. It was much more overgrown than previously. Minnie was glad of the water to cool down in, though:





A nice bonus, back on the track above the river, was this fresh, male purple emperor:





Other species at this site included great sooty satyr, silver-washed fritillary, dark green fritillary, heath fritillary, spotted fritillary and a few Lycaenids. This is a purple-shot copper:



We next headed back down the hill - much easier and more fun than cycling up it! - to a site I had found with Kip some years ago, where Hungarian gliders flew. This too was more overgrown than then, though the foodplant was abundant and I'm sure the butterfly is still there. I didn't see it.

Heading down further still, I visited a site near Domodossola where I have seen many good species in the past. By this time it was very hot and Minnie was wilting:



There were lots of fritillaries at this site, including at least silver-washed, spotted, marbled and Queen of Spain. But none stopped, not even for a second, and I didn't have my net. There were definitely other species flying - medium-sized, orange fritillaries, like Niobe or high brown, as well as slightly smaller ones, but everything was zooming at such high speed in the heat I couldn't confirm anything else. I did photograph a reasonably amenable chequered blue here ...



... and an equally amenable small copper:



We then headed down to Domodossola itself, as the weather started to turn. I took Minnie to a river spot so she could drink and cool off a bit as the clouds gathered:





Then back to the station and home to Switzerland. My Swiss travelcard, which gives me unlimited travel in Switzerland, goes as far as Domodossola, so, today's little excursion - successful excursion - cost nothing at all.

Guy

[Padfield]

With heavy rain last night and this morning, I was glad of an excuse not to go on a long trip today. In the afternoon, I cycled Minnie to local woods to see if the white-letter hairstreaks were flying yet. I had already guessed what would be the likely master elm, and I was right: at least a dozen hairstreaks were sparring and settling in the region defined by by the red circle in this picture:



None ever came lower than this, despite the large numbers of potential nectar plants by the path. It would have been very easy to walk by without spotting any hairstreaks at all - you really had to crane your neck upwards.

Here is one of them - sadly photographed into the sun (and of course, on full zoom):



While I was looking up, I noticed that at least two great banded graylings were also up there. Unlike the hairstreaks, these only ever settled on the bare branches:



Also flying in the woodland ride were Arran browns, meadow browns and ringlets, large walls, Provençal short-tailed blues, silver-washed fritillaries, heath fritillaries, wood whites and brimstones. I've looked in vain for any evidence of admirals or emperors in the Leysin woods. We may be just too high.

Guy

[Wurzel]

" If you reload the page the pictures should reappear."No probs today - must have been a busy time of day
That Chequered Blue - such a stunning looking butterfly The Large Chequered Skipper on the other hand I always feel a little sorry for - it looks like a 5 year old has been asked to crayon in the markings

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

...I wondered, as I often do, how many more years of this I have left. I'm 59 now. Could I do this at 69? 79? Minnie was all right: she just sat in the backpack and watched the scenery go by...

I'm equally guilty of this, Guy. I'm 55 now but couldn't compete with my 45 year old self, so I wonder what things will be like 10 years into the future.

It's all rather pointless. I am just grateful I can still drive 100km, yomp up steep(ish) hills, neck a bottle of red in the evening and then do the same the following day....ad infinitum.

Feel sorry for Minnie. Her lifespan is way in advance of ours but she's still up for it and I'm sure she has at least one more summer of hardcore butterflying in her!

That aquilonaris offer is too tempting. I may be in touch!

[Padfield]

Hi Wurzel. Out of context, I agree - the markings do look more Roy Lichtenstein than J.M.W. Turner. But in the field, your heart skips for joy to see them!

Don't worry about Minnie, David - I do all the hard work for her! When we get to sites, I set her up in the shade with water, even though she does often start padding after me if I go more than 20m away. She loves the backpack so much that even when she can't go places on her own, she'll still be out in the field, climbing mountains by proxy!

I did another serious uphill bike climb on Sunday, this time to Thor's fritillary habitat near Kandersteg. I found this colony in 2013 and have visited many times since then, always between 5th and 10th July, and always seeing plenty of thore. Thus, I took it for granted I would see it on Sunday - but in fact I had no confirmed sightings at any of my hotspots. I can only think that despite the lateness of this year, it is already over. The weather must affect different species differently (and the weather last year is relevant too). I probably did see a couple of males at some distance, but I don't record probables'. Apart from that surprise, it was a great day, with lots of good species.


(the setting)


(Glandon blue)


Damon blue


(false heath fritillary : male on right, in flight, wooing a female)

Although there were no (confirmed) Thor's fritillaries, Titania's and pearl-bordered were common:


(Titania's)



Some of the pearl-bordered were melanic to various degrees - common at altitude - further reducing the reliability of my distant Thor's fritillary sightings:


(slightly melanic pearl-bordered)

One of the main problems at the site was the sheer number of people around. Not butterfly-watchers but hikers, day-trippers, picnickers, barbecuers, mountain bikers and - a quite new thing - electric bikers. A lot of people now actually drive up the mountain with their electric bikes loaded on their vehicles and then carry on up the tracks on the bikes themselves. They all looked very happy and I don't begrudge them their fun, but it does make photographing butterflies more difficult! Note to self: don't go up there on a Sunday again!

Here's Minnie waiting in the shade back at Kandersteg station:



Yesterday I played catch-up too, going high again (well, about 1800m) to see if I wasn't too late for Asian fritillary. I caught the bus much of the way and this was standing room only for many - though Minnie and I did get a seat. There were loads of elderly hikers heading up the Val d'Anniviers, as well as a group of excited schoolchildren from Lausanne. Fortunately, though, the tracks I was headed to were not suitable for e-bikes or even the elderly so Minnie and I were soon alone. This meant many more opportunities to photograph what we saw.

We were probably too late for Asian fritillary, as this world-weary female illustrates:



But I did see at least one fresh male and got this single photo before a runner came stomping down the hill and scared it off (one of very few people I saw all day):



It was a shame because I had a glimpse of his uppersides and they were fantastic - silky black (melanic) with a few red markings.

Lots of other species around, including my first cranberry blues of the year:




(with a little blue - the cranberry blue on the right; it was cloudy at this time)

Tit frits were common ...



... as were heath and false heath. This heath fritillary took a shine to Minnie:





Finally, I saw chequered skippers. I don't normally have to look for this species but it has been notable by its absence this year:



Here is a wooing couple, deep down in the shade:



This alpine grayling only ever settled with bits of grass or straw in front of it:



So I tried the old AI on it. Cleverly, it added a hindleg where there should be one, but the leg is a little short and skinny and the head shows no sign of a proboscis!



Other first for the year included scarce copper, Amanda's blue and almond-eyed ringlet:







I took many more photos of lots of species, but this page blocks up if I link to too many!

We walked down to the site, then cycled back to the valley - 25km of free-wheeling (apart from about 1km uphill in the middle)! Minnie absolutely loves these downhill spins - I can see her head out of the corner of my right eye, nose pointing up into the breeze, ever watching, ever alert! I've been watching a bit of the Tour de France recently, and note the incredible speeds the cyclists go, sometimes touching 60 km/h on the flat. I kept an eye on my speed coming down yesterday and noticed that 50 km/h was the maximum I dared let myself go at and usually kept it well below that (reducing to about 10 km/h to go round bends!).

I stopped on the way down to take a shot (with my iPhone) of a church or shrine I always notice when I do this trip:



You wouldn't want to overdo the communion wine there ...

Guy

[David M]

...You wouldn't want to overdo the communion wine there ...

Indeed not! Fall down that hill and you ain't coming back!

Great to see you immersed in the summer species round your way, Guy. I bet you've missed such (almost) daily indulgence.

Cranberry Blue, Large Chequered and Chequered Skipper, Asian Fritillary & Alpine Grayling, to name but a few, are big ticket items.

[Wurzel]

"This heath fritillary took a shine to Minnie" as have we all Guy
Really interesting to see the Alpine Grayling, with its white mottling it does indeed look like its wearing the alpine camo kit

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

Thanks for the comments, David and Wurzel.

Minnie had a couple of wobbly teeth removed under general anaesthetic yesterday and had a détartrage at the same time (and a couple of skin lumps excised!). So she felt a bit sorry for herself for a while:



But today she was raring to go again:



I had got up late, to give her time to get over things, so we didn't go far - and I brought her home early too. But we had time to look for mountain alcon blues and their eggs. I feared I might have been too late for them - I normally go from about 20th June - but a few were still flying, and the eggs were easy to find.

This is a female:



She was pausing there between bouts of egg-laying:







The plant is cross gentian, Gentiana cruciata. Females lay the eggs right at the growing shoot, and then as the leaves expand the eggs get spread out:





Here is another female, this time nectaring:



The males hardly ever seemed to stop. Here is just a glimpse of the male upperside before he upped and zoomed off:



Other blues around today included eros blue, little blue, mazarine blue, silver-studded blue, chalkhill blue, turquoise blue and damon blue. It sounds like a lot of species (though the list is missing Osiris, which flies there, and large, which also flies there) but actual numbers were well down on what I expected. I also saw no carline skippers - something I always see at the site.

Here are a mountain clouded yellow and my first Niobe fritillary of the year:





The forewings of that Niobe fritillary look very slightly concave but I saw the underside and there is no doubt about the ID.

I checked out the white-letter hairstreaks again a few days ago. They were still up there, in the canopy - at least a dozen of them and probably more - but still never came down!

This one is next to a leaf that he might well have grown up on:



Others looked down from the very tip-top of the canopy:



I checked another tree, about a kilometre away, where I had found caterpillars in the spring, and quickly spotted an adult there too:



It seems to be peak white-letter season over here at the moment.

Guy

[Padfield]

Storms were forecast today again so I didn't go out. But in the end, there was just some heavy rain after lunch, and then the sun came back. I decided to take Minnie up the local mountain on the télécabine and walk down again - and was very glad I did. Although it was late, warm and windy, and the butterflies were very restless, I was delighted to get record shots of both marbled ringlet and Piedmont ringlet. Both were year ticks, but better than this, both are species I am thrilled to discover locally. I hardly ever see Piedmont ringlet in Switzerland, though it is common in the Pyrenees, and I had thought my nearest Marbled ringlets were near Martigny.


(very poor shot of Piedmont ringlet, Erebia meolans


(the same individual)


(marbled ringlet)

While I was watching out for more Erebia, I heard the distant sound of rockfall and turned to see a chamois making its way gingerly down the mountain below a landslide:







When it reached the point shown by the arrow in the next picture (it's there, in that picture, though too small to make out) it became aware of me - or more particularly, Minnie - and froze. For the next ten minutes it didn't go any further, so I decided Minnie and I should leave so it could do whatever it was doing.



We came down a route we haven't taken before, leading to a bench looking out over a wonderful view of Leysin and the valleys, where we sat, drank beer and thought. Well, I drank beer. Minnie drank water.





It was so beautiful we stayed there about an hour before heading home. It turned out there was a short stretch of via ferrata on this route, but Minnie managed it OK!

Guy

[Wurzel]

I'm surprised at those Alcon Blue eggs being so obvious Guy - they really stick out like a sore thumb
Glad to hear about your success with the Erebia it's great when you find things you wren't expecting

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

That's a wonderful view, Guy. Days when you didn't expect to go out can often be serendipitously rewarding!

I feel sorry for Minnie with her anaesthetic induced operations, but so good to see her back out and about again almost immediately!

The sighting of Marbled Ringlet proves that the season is starting to catch up. I wouldn't expect to see that in France much before the end of the first week of July.

[Padfield]

Hi Wurzel. I agree - making discoveries is what it's all about. I've done a lot of twitching recently - going to places where I knew things flew, just so I could see them again. So it's lovely to find new stuff on my doorstep.

Hi David. Things that should have flown in the spring were greatly delayed, but things that were caterpillars in the spring seem to be emerging on cue. It's a strange year ...

More discoveries today and yesterday. Most surprisingly, I spotted a griffon vulture in Leysin while I was walking Minnie near my house yesterday. I only got one chance for a shot of it, and at the time I was simply baffled. I had first thought it must be an eagle, because the only vulture I knew we had in Switzerland was Lammergeier. But the single photo did seem to show a griffon:



I was walking on a road and it disappeared behind a house.

Then today, I saw another griffon right at the top of the mountain. This time there was no mistaking it (correct me if I'm wrong):



It was a long way away, and that shot was taken on maximum zoom. It passed directly over this couple, who I think had just come up that via ferrata:



Either that or they're deciding whether to go down the via ferrata. Either way, they didn't appear to have seen the vulture.

Apparently, griffons have been reintroduced in France and have been seen in Switzerland over the last 10 years. They're not known to breed here but I don't see why they couldn't. We have lots of lynx, which would provide meals for them.

Back to butterflies: I had gone up the mountain to get another crack at the Erebia. Although I didn't see another marbled ringlet, I did get within shooting distance of another Piedmont ringlet (E. meolans):





It turns out to be a great spot for Erebia. Here is a female bright-eyed ringlet (E. oeme) ...



... and here my first manto ringlet (E. manto) of the year (a male):





I also saw my first common brassy ringlets (E. arvernensis) of the year ...



... and my first Scotch argus (E. aethiops)of the year:



All in all, a good haul for a quick nip up the mountain (I also saw large ringlet, E. euryale, and Arran brown, E. ligea, during the walk). We came down in some haste as storms were forecast, though these never arrived.

Here are a couple of large grizzled skippers (Pyrgus alveus)





Yesterday, just before I saw the griffon, I spotted this carline skipper (Pyrgus carlinae) on a patch of grass in Leysin itself:

[Wurzel]

Yep that's a Griffon Vulture Guy I was hoping to see one in 2020 when we had a holiday booked to the Cevannes - but something happened back then Cracking Erebia - I can see why the Bright-eyed is so called

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

Thanks for the confirmation, Wurzel. Yes, plans got put on ice a bit in 2020 ... I have to say, though, that I had a great holiday in Spain that year, if you don't count having to wear a mask in temperatures of 45+°C ...

Yesterday I headed up into the Bernese Oberland in the hope I wasn't too late for scarce and dusky large blues. It turned out I wasn't, though they were past their prime and not very numerous. Here is a pair of scarce large blues, male below and female above:



It was quite warm and they didn't spontaneously open their wings, but whenever another large blue flew past the male did flash off a few half-hearted warnings:



This female was laying on young heads of greater burnet:





Try as I might, though, I couldn't locate a single egg. I think she must have pressed them in deep, as I photographed several of the heads she had laid on all round.

Here is another female, in even worse nick:





Dusky large blues were less numerous but in better nick on average:







This is the foodplant in context:



Here is a group of other blues at minerals:



You should be able to pick out chalkhill, little, damon, eros and mazarine blues there. I've never seen the large blue species come to mud like this.

For the first time at this site - I usually go earlier in the year - I saw at least four purple emperors. Here are two of them:





Mountain beauty spots like these are filled with tourists at this time of year but I was the only one who seemed to notice the rarities on display. The others were all eating, mountain-biking, hiking and generally enjoying the wonderful scenery:


(I cut out the mountains, so it's not too instantly identifiable!)

How do you walk past a scarce large blue and not miss a heartbeat?

Guy

[David M]

You have such a wonderful array of butterfly species to spend time with, Guy. Scarce Large Blue definitely makes my heart miss a beat. I still haven't ever seen it as it's such a habitat specialist. It's definitely in my top ten 'hit list' (possibly in the top five - False Comma is #1).

[Padfield]

Hi David. Scarce and dusky large blue are very local, because, as you say, they are habitat specialists, but there are good populations in Switzerland. Dusky in particular, I've seen in all sorts of unexpected places, as it seems to be less dependent on water. That said, I've seen scarce large blue in a back garden nowhere near water ...

I headed up the local mountain this afternoon for more butterfly delights, though I spent at least 45 minutes just watching chamois on a distant hillside. My attention was drawn by a couple zooming down a steep slope and chasing each other around, but when I looked more closely I saw six altogether, apparently just enjoying the afternoon. They are incredible creatures. Like ibex, they are completely at home on vertical cliff faces and show no fear!



The same one in context (you can see another in this shot):



I took a very poor video, which does at least give an idea of the creature:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nhXvtHWlbY

I had taken the télécabine up the mountain, and as we reached the top had great views of a griffon, though I couldn't photograph it because the windows were scratched and dirty and I was preparing Minnie to get out. Once we did get out, we quickly saw at least nine more griffons pass over. I say 'at least' - I counted exactly 9 while they were disappearing, and I probably missed some earlier. I was too late for good pictures but got this proof shot of one:



I was pleased to see a lot of common brassy ringlets (Erebia arvernensis) right at the top of the mountain. There is considerable variation in this species, thinking in particular of the size and confluence of the apical spots:









Other butterflies of interest included this female of the upland form, subalpinus, of sooty copper ...



... two very contrasting forms of male northern brown argus, the one with the orange spots being about 300m higher up the mountain than the darker one ...





... lots of large grizzled skippers ...



... as well as this Pyrgus which I must record as large grizzled, as I didn't see the underside, but which was smaller and reminded me of olive skipper:



At one point there were a lot of heath fritillaries, including this slightly aberrant individual (not as aberrant as the one Buggy recently posted!):





Here are a typical male and a typical female from the same spot:





This is just a small selection of what we found flying this afternoon. The mountains are in their prime at the moment, so I plan to go up higher in Valais tomorrow.

Guy

[Wurzel]

I loved seeing the Dusky Large Blues from your previous post (at least I think it was the previous one?) Guy - they took me back to my first foreign foray to the Czech Republic Interesting to see the Brassy Ringlet shots as I hadn't realised that they white and furry underneath

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

I remember that trip, Wurzel (from your posts, that is)!

Yesterday I headed up high, intending to visit a site I know well where a friend reported seeing silvery arguses the other day. By coincidence, I bumped into the same friend on the train and it turned out he was going to the same place. Except, it turned out, I had misunderstood him, and he actually meant a site at about 2000m, while I was going up to over 2500m. I thought we could do both, beginning with the high trek, so we could do the climb before it got too hot. My friend had never seen Cynthia's fritillary, among other things that fly up there, and I was keen to show him this. He is a decade older than I am and even in the cool of the morning he found the climb quite tough, so I was really hoping we would see cynthia and he could get a photo. We did, and he did - but under rather singular circumstances!

I was aiming at a small pond I nicknamed 'le Lac de la Mort' some years ago, as butterflies seem to go there to commit suicide. I think what actually happens is that it reflects a vast sky, and when it is calm, some butterflies hit the water thinking they are flying in the open. That's pure speculation, but for some reason, they drown in it. So when I arrived, I immediately scanned the water's surface for butterflies and spotted a male cynthia out in the middle:



Hoping it was still alive, I waded in (the mud fell off deeply and I was in over my waist!) and retrieved the butterfly as carefully as I could:



In my hands, it quickly closed its wings, which it couldn't then open again because they were so wet. I gently prised them apart with a grass blade and placed the sodden butterfly on an arnica flower to dry out:



My friend then sat by it and took photos. He said it could soon open and close its wings and was moving around on the flower. Later, I went back and it was nowhere to be found, so I hope it had flown off. We saw two more male cynthia chasing each other but they didn't stop long enough for photos. I think it was a pretty special first sighting of cynthia for my friend! While I was wet, I rescued a few more butterflies from the water, including shepherd's fritillary, Grisons fritillary and Essex skipper. Here is the (rather discombobulated) Essex skipper:



Another first for my friend was alpine argus, one of which, to his delight, took him for a prime source of vitamins and minerals:







There were lots of blues by the mudside ...



... as well as many Grisons fritillaries:



Minnie enjoyed exploring the areas around the pond:



As usual in the mountains at this time of year, there was too much about to show everything, but here are a few photos:


( Swiss brassy ringlet - in French, le moiré cuivré, for obvious reasons!)


(a moorland clouded yellow on cranberry, the foodplant)


(a mating pair of Grisons fritillaries)


(a Grisons fritillary caterpillar)


(Niobe fritillary)


(female carline skipper)


(dog)


(man and dog)

Guy

[Wurzel]

Great to see the Cynthia rescue Guy That Brassy Ringlet it stunning I looked up Grisson's on a few places and all say how variable it is but is the 'O B' along the costa a common feature as it's visible on both of the ones in your post?

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

Hi Wurzel. The problem is, quite a lot of Melitaea species have something approximating to OB ᗺO on their wings. As so often, this is a case of once you know it, you can't mistake it - but describing exactly why is not so easy! If you climb into the high mountains in Valais (and, presumably, in the Grisons, though I rarely go that far from home), Grisons fritillary is everywhere. Males are small and bright and in general most like meadow fritillaries, though the mark in s.1 on the forewing is vertical rather than oblique, and often makes a club shape with the marks inside it. Females, on the other hand, are quite different. One form is dark, with regular and complete, grid-like markings:


(on my friend's hand, yesterday)

The other form is even darker, the markings obscured by grey and black suffusion:



Most of the time, though, context is everything. If you saw a Grisons fritillary in a meadow in the valley, all sorts of weird ideas might go through your mind! But it wouldn't happen. You see it when you are up in the glacial reaches of the high mountains, and there it just seems obviously what it is. The books can't really capture this.

Guy