Thanks Jack.
David, I think Swiss weather is no less predictable than British weather! Today was a case in point. When I checked
http://www.meteosuisse.ch before setting off in the morning they said it would be hot and sunny all day, with only high, thin cloud. In reality, the day was dominated by cumulus, including cumulonimbus and rain at two points (so far)! Looking at satellite images from my iPhone I could see that the central and northern Alps were covered in fluffy white while all the surrounding areas of Europe were clear...
Anyway, it was an interesting day. Provençal fritillary and Zephyr blue are not on the wing yet, it would appear. But several new species for the year were flying, including (at various sites) knapweed fritillary, marbled skipper, woodland ringlet and probably pale clouded yellow.
At one site I met a couple of men with nets. The nets were bright yellow and green, so I guessed they weren't there for butterflies, but I asked them what they were doing anyway (very politely, of course - this was a public place, not a reserve). They were very happy to tell me they were butterfly watchers and openly showed me the contents of their nets: a dozen or more marbled fritillary caterpillars in each, together with some bramble leaves. I asked if they were doing research with some university, to which they replied no, they were simply going to rear them for themselves. I didn't pursue it any further, because marbled fritillaries are very common and they probably weren't doing anything illegal (I'll check). Nor did I ask if they had business relations with anyone near Finemere wood, mostly because their French wasn't very good and I don't know how to make jokes in German.
ANYWAY, after their passage I checked the bramble to see if they'd left any, and rapidly found this fine marbled fritillary caterpillar:
Here's a puzzle. Normally, when you see leaves or twigs going walkabout, there's a heroic ant lugging them along with its teeth. I often watch ants with admiration. But today I saw a small cluster of leaves and twigs looping across the path and when I looked it turned out the whole thing was a caterpillar:
I assumed the leaves had got stuck to it, but when I examined it it really did seem they were growths out of its body. A parasite? A fungus? Or some remarkable camouflage? When I touched it, to see if the leaves would dislodge, it immediately rolled up into a ball:
I've never seen anything like it. Does anyone know if this is an unfortunate, diseased creature or a wonder of camouflage (or possibly, both, if some parasite uses this as camouflage)? Or might the leaves and twigs really have been stuck to it?
I let it continue looping its way to the edge of the path.
Here are a few piccies from the rest of the day:
This is my first marbled skipper (
Carcharodus lavatherae) of the year. She is a real beauty and was pursued for a full ten minutes by a mallow skipper after I first saw her (he might have been chasing her for long before that). Every time she landed, he would immediately land a little lower down the flower and creep up to take her from behind, at which provocation she always flew off. It looked as though she would never settle long enough for a picture. But eventually he got the message and she was then easy to photograph, being in need of a rest!
This piccie shows a Glanville fritillary beside a dusty road.
I've been spending some time recently trying to photograph blues with their natural colours, by adjusting the exposure. In the field, the shade of blue is often a crucial key to the identity and many photographs get it quite wrong. Today I practised on Adonis blues. Here is what comes closest (on my computer monitor anyway) to the true colour of Adonis blue:
Here's a record shot of my second
Erebia species of the year, the woodland ringlet (
Erebia medusa):
In a couple of months I'll be seeing a dozen species of ringlet every time I go out...
I saw a couple of Dukes tussling in the late afternoon sun on my way home and assumed it was territorial. One landed conspicuously on dogwood and when I watched him more closely it turned out he was actually taking nutrients rather than just showing off his colours:
Nearby, a chequered skipper was holding the fort conspicuously on a head of salad burnet:
When I left the site, at about 6.00pm, one of the Dukes was doing the same thing in a little patch of sainfoin:
Guy
EDIT - if anyone is having difficulties loading my photos, I think it is overload on my server. Shortly after making a new post to UK Butterflies, I always find it impossible to access my own website. I'll take it up with the hosts - it should be possible for half a dozen people to access a handful of my photos at once without the thing slowing to a dribble.
). My earliest previous sighting of this species was 28th April, in 2007, but that was at only 1300m. Again, a hunch told me that this year there was a good chance it would be flying already.
