I mean, I’m not suggesting that navigating my way through childhood was a walk in the park, and the teenage years certainly weren’t without turbulence, but in general life seemed less complicated back in the day. I’ll give you an example: European Black-tips. Yes. If you would indulge me in a little time travel here, let me take you back to 1976. I was ten years old, and leafing through the pages of the European Butterfly Bible of the era, my 3rd edition copy of Higgins and Riley’s seminal work “A Field Guide to the Butterflies of Britain and Europe”, I found listed just one species of Black-tip, i.e. the Greenish Black-tip, known then by the binomial of Elphinstonia charlonia. The book did make mention of a subspecies that flew further east in such places as Yugoslavia, this being ssp. penia, the butterfly we now refer to as a distinct species, the Eastern Greenish Black-tip. And as for our third current species, the Spanish Greenish Black-tip (Euchloe bazae), there was no mention of it whatsoever! It is very hard today to believe that bazae was not actually discovered until as recently as 1982, given how much study it has been subjected to in Spain since then. In any case, back in 1976 I didn’t think for one minute that I would ever get to see such a butterfly in real life; their existence to me was almost fictional, confined to the pages of a textbook full of other seemingly-unattainable dreams.
So, to summarise: whereas decades ago there was just one European species of Black-tip, today we have three, courtesy as usual of those vigorous and enthusiastic Duracell-powered taxonomists, and it is largely due to them that I found myself spending last week on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. I had already seen the Spanish Greenish Black-tip on two occasions in the Hoya de Baza back in 2016 and 2018, and more recently I have encountered the Eastern Greenish Black-tip in several parts of Greece, but I was lacking a life tick for the “basic” model, the Greenish Black-tip itself. Short of making a trip to North Africa, the only realistic option to score my black-tip hat-trick was to visit one of the eastern Canary Islands, so Vicki and I duly arrived at Fuerteventura airport on the afternoon of Saturday 1st March. We were looking forward to some warm spring-like weather after a long winter in the UK. The famed winter sun destinations of the Canaries were not entirely new to me – I had spent a couple of holidays on Tenerife, and also on La Palma – but I knew the more easterly islands were drier and less vegetated; I simply hadn’t realised to what extent…
We had a car hire at our disposal for the whole week and travelled extensively from north to south, and east to west, making good use of the excellent road network out there. Just about everywhere we went was dry, rocky, barren, arid, bare, desolate, sparse; choose your own adjective, but "verdant" and "lush" are certainly not applicable, unlike my favourite part of the Canaries, the north-east of the island of La Palma. This was a very different landscape, and almost entirely bereft of butterflies, as we were to find out from the off.
One of the pleasures of European Butterflying has been making the acquaintances of other fellow enthusiasts: over the years I have engaged with a good number of contacts via email, telephone, also sometimes in person, and have to say that the European Butterflying community consists of some very pleasant, agreeable, knowledgeable and generous members, many of whom have shared much useful information with me, particularly early on in my travels. As I have gained more experience and knowledge myself, information and site details have flowed in both directions and to this day I very much value the camaraderie and mutual assistance of like-minded Lepidopterists, many of whom are regular visitors to this forum. I had arrived on Fuerteventura armed with a couple of useful bits of site information kindly donated by one of the above persons, and on our first full day we drove straight out to the main site where we hoped to find the Greenish Black-tip, along with another “must-see” species that it would be inconceivable to miss out on during our trip, the endemic Fuerteventura Green-striped White. I knew we were in exactly the right place because I had detailed GPS references and maps, so after walking around this area for four hours in warm, bright weather, and having seen not one single butterfly of any species, let alone our targets, I was getting a little alarmed...
I took the difficult decision to move on down the road a couple of miles towards an area that I had been looking at on google earth, and whilst driving along I spotted a tiny patch of green in amongst the general desiccation. Brakes on, park up, and walk. We had arrived at a sewage works (my wife always tells me I take her to the nicest places!) Cloud had built up by now, and yet again there was nothing on the wing, until I accidentally kicked up a butterfly. I didn’t immediately see it, but Vicki was walking close behind me and shouted out “Pete! Small yellow butterfly - behind you!” Cue frantic action. It landed quickly and there in front of me was the beast that I had begun to fear I wouldn’t be seeing this holiday, a lovely Greenish Black-tip just sat on the ground, going nowhere fast. Fantastic! The hat-trick was in the net. I took a few photographs and then it took to the wing; I followed, it landed again, and I took a few more pics. By now I was halfway up a steep rocky slope, while Vicki was lower down near the verdant patch which was about 20 metres in length and about 3 metres wide. From a distance I spotted a smallish butterfly flying towards her. It seemed to have a slight blue tint to it but wasn’t flying like a blue. I shouted at her, "What's that next to you?!" and rapidly descended the slope. By the time I got down it had landed. A Fuerteventura Green-striped White! Superb! Both of my two main target species sorted within two minutes of each other. Two lifers! After a dismal start the day was turning into a cracker!
The weather was on the turn though. Darkening skies were the prelude to a torrential downpour and we were forced back to the car and headed towards our hotel. The weather during most of our stay out here would turn out to be more “Storm Petrel” than “Canary”, but despite daily rain, we did manage to dodge the bullet that hit Gran Canaria just over a hundred miles to the west of us, where dramatic flash-flooding was at that very point in time sending cars cascading down into the sea. It is easy to see why this happens. The terrain out there is just not built to absorb water, and as the heavens opened, we witnessed small rivulets merging into larger bodies of travelling water and waterfalls appearing out of nowhere, tumbling down ridges and into gulleys. Quite alarming. Back at the coast near our hotel the local drains were not having a good day, and the roads were inches deep in rainwater.
Daily rain and thunderstorms aside, the mornings were usually warm and sunny, which gave us the opportunity during the remainder of our stay to try and track down two other potential lifers for me, namely the African Migrant and the Desert Babul Blue. Once again, I was armed with known sites for both species. I knew the Babul Blue would be difficult, but I was expecting the African Migrant to be straightforward. But no. Neither species appeared, and after spending much of our remaining week staring at Acacia trees and hanging around Cassia plants, we had to embrace failure. There was compensation in the form of a few Monarchs and Plain Tigers, an occasional Lang’s Short tailed Blue, a single African Grass Blue, a few Small Whites and Painted Ladies.
But all told, that was it folks, a total of 50 individual butterflies of just 8 species over the whole week, as follows:
African Grass Blue - 1
Fuerteventura Green-striped White - 4
Greenish Black-tip - 2
Lang’s Short-tailed Blue - 7
Monarch - 10
Painted Lady - 6
Plain Tiger - 12
Small White - 8
Slim pickings indeed! But I can’t complain - two lifers in the bag is a good enough result for me: it was great seeing them, albeit in small numbers, and I have to say the Green-striped Whites did appear a bit different to the ones I have seen before in Spain; noticeably smaller and certainly they seem to have a blue tinge when on the wing that I haven’t previously noted in their Spanish cousins. I’ll just have to try again for the African Migrant and Desert Babul Blue another time, or maybe on another island. An excuse to visit Gran Canaria perhaps?
Next stop, Greece in April. Watch this space…
