Reverdin

[Reverdin]

Day 6 – From a car park at 1100m, in a different side valley, we took a long and intermittently steep walk on a baking hot day to 1600m. Conifer predominant mixed forest gave out to Alpine flower meadow grassland at 1400m.
The first part therefore showed off mainly Fritillaries.. Titania’s and Lesser Marbled in particular, along with the now ubiquitous Arran Brown.

titania

ino with company

ino

ligea

As we left the tree-line, Chalkhill Blues accompanied us up the path, with teasing erebia, worked out to be Common Brassy Ringlet. Some Large Blues were present and photos were impossibly difficult to obtain.

cassioides

cassioides

cassioides

and another Pyrgus challenged us..

alveus

As we wandered back down, we were attracted to an unusual looking beast which when it eventually stopped proved to be a very unusual beast.. never seen one like this before...

hyperantus ab. pallens

hyperantus ab. pallens

[Reverdin]

Day 7 - Another short morning walk down the river valley through waste ground and woodland yielded a few more species, although the hope of a fresh Short-tailed Blue never materialized..

malvae

malvae

alcetas

alcetas

paphia

( edit) napi ssp. meridionalis

At the end of the day we travelled through high mountain passes to our second destination at Evian, to position ourselves for visits to the Swiss Valais, bringing few but welcome opportunities at 1600m in the evening sun.

hippothoe

hippothoe

[Lee Hurrell]

Hi Reverdin,

Lovely photos.

I'm usually wrong in these things, but isn't your rapae actually napi?

Cheers

Lee

[Reverdin]

Hi Lee... you could well be right.... I've been caught out like that before with lightly marked napi... but it was a big b****r!! - I'll look at it more closely.... thanks

[Reverdin]

Day 8

Another day to savour.. Quite a long trip to a high Swiss mountain pass to search out some special species at 2000m to 2250m.

It was very sunny to start with, but the cloud built up until it deposited plenty of rain as we beat a retreat in the mid afternoon. Bodily but not spiritually dampened, we had seen most of that we had been looking for.

male Cranberry Blue

female Cranberry Blue

Cranberry Blue underside

male Cranberry Blue

Glandon Blue

Glandon Blue underside

Ther were many Idas Blues.. this one was particularly well endowed with silver studs.

Idas Blue.

Then there was this beautiful pair of Purple Edged Coppers..

Purple Edged Coppers

Once we got beyond my favourite Lycaenids, there were others...

debilis Marsh Fritillary

debilis underside

female Mountain Fritillary

Male Mountain Fritillary underside

male Grisons Fritillary

Grisons underside

Silver Spotted Skipper

Swiss Brassy Ringlet

Darwin's Heath

Ringlet (edit) epiphron

not sure which erebia (edit) epiphron

As we descended back to the car, Blues were beginning to settle down and I had the opportunity to photograph this beauty...

Damon Blue

Finally, as we drove back towards home, a last stop produced this rather nice Escher's ( or Chapman's... but I think Escher's)

Escheri

Escheri underside

[Padfield]

Fantastic photos, as always, Rev!

I think both your last Erebia are epiphron.

Guy

[Reverdin]

Thanks Guy, epiphron they are! As ever, much appreciate you keeping me right, I tend to come up with some maverick ID's on occasions

[Reverdin]

Day 9

A trip to a further high venue, at a different mountain pass. This time quite a long uphill trek was necessary, after setting off at 2200m, again in wonderful alpine weather. An early start meant we could make the most of butterflies rousing and nectaring before their most active daily routine. We turned round eventually at 2500m, and re-traced our steps, as the weather became more breezy and the clouds built up. All in all, an exceptional day.

I really had wanted to return to this place as it was the first time I saw Alpine Blue, and was disappointed then with my photos, which turned out poor. This time I was able to linger along the paths, and I hope did the species more justice. This time, my recollection of an electric blue upperside was tempered with them appearing from some angles as Common Blue like. Only from other angles did that electric colour flash out.

Alpine Blue 1

Alpine Blue 1 - different angle

Alpine Blue 1 underside

Alpine Blue 2

Alpine Blue 3

There was much more to come..

[Reverdin]

Day 9 continued.

There were other Blues around to savour.. immediately out of the car, Eros was making it's pale and beautiful presence felt..

eros
eros

eros

This female tityrus (edit) hippothoe must have been very fresh..

hippothoe female

Idas was ever present, and probably as plentiful as minimus was..

idas

Glandon was being a little more shy, but one chap eventually found his moist patch more interesting..

glandon

Finally, and the suprising piece de resistance for the day was this fantastic emergent female arion...

arion underside

arion upperside

and that takes care of the Lycaenids... a wonderful place for them.

[Padfield]

Hi Reverdin!

More fantastic stuff!

That tityrus must be hippothoe. A feature of the old genus Heodes, which tityrus really belongs to (I hate lumping), is that the pd line of spots on the forewing is staggered, in groups of two. In the old Palaeochrysophanus (hippothoe), that line of spots is smooth and continuous.

For me, that's decisive, BUT I could be wrong, as you know.

Guy

[Reverdin]

Thanks again Guy, I'm losing my touch.. just hadn't seen the males around, but your arguement is sound as usual.. changing it now... it was a beauty!!!

[Reverdin]

Day 9 continued...

We saw one Small Apollo, which seemed dozy whilst I over-exposed all my photos, the as I nonchalantly adjusted things and prepared to do it right, the Apollo flitted lazily off over the cliff, never to return... so here is my attempt to rescue a blown immage... the only time I have ever seen this one, about 3/4 size of normal Apollo, and red spots on forewing just about distinguishable

Small Apollo

Erebia were generally too active to get close to, but I would be grateful for Guy's opinion on this one, photo taken on the path overlooking brilliant blue glacial water..

erebia 1 ??

erebia 2 ??

erebia 2 ??

erebia 2 ??

tindarus upperside

tyndarus underside

This underside may not quite be the hue I remember.. maybe need to have another look at it.

[Padfield]

Erebia 1 & 2 both look like mnestra to me.

Guy

[Reverdin]

Skippers were likewise fast and furious, but up at 2500m, this large one I think may be cacaliae, another first..

?Dusky Grizzled

and Silver Spotted Skippers were among the most common..

Silver Spotted Skipper

At a similar height, I finally found an obedient Peak White, and only probably LOTSW1 know what that means to me...

Peak White

Peak White underside

After this many joyous sightings, there were only the day's Fritillaries to come..

[Reverdin]

Guy... you have no idea how much I was hoping you would say that.. I doubted it 'cos we were at the other site with the Cynthia's.

[Padfield]

It seems you had a fantastic trip!

I'm also pretty confident that's cacaliae!

Guy

[Reverdin]

Certainly did, only your company ( impossible I know) could have made it better... as others on this site can now appreciate. Well, here are the Fritillaries from our penultimate day...

debilis

Grisons

Grisons underside

Shepherd's (edit)

Shepherd's (edit)

Shepherd's (edit)

and after some searching, and more worn than when last seen...

Cynthia's Fritillary

[Padfield]

Another year!

I've edited this. I think they're all shepherd's frit now. Reasoning to come latet - I'm multitasking at the moment.

Guy

[Reverdin]

I'll go with that!... thanks, as ever.

[Reverdin]

This was to be our last day. It was a risk to decide to go chasing Phengaris species, as I had maps covering the start and end of the journey, but not the middle bit!.. A friend, chanced in on the way, kindly supplied the missing link, actually more straightforward than I remembered. Sadly he couldn’t join us, but we journeyed onwards undaunted, with weather rather dubiously promising.

We need not have worried. The weather stayed kind and we reached our destination in good time, a lake surrounded by towering peaks.

P. nausithous

P. nausithous

Rare? upperside view of female nausithous

P. nausithous

P. telejus

P. telejus female

P. telejus female

Ironically, one of the most pressing reasons for making this journey was for the male upperside of telejus... I didn't take this, but my son did!..

P. telejus male