www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

My parents are here for a week now, so there will be fewer butterfly reports.

They only arrived yesterday, but managed to get to the top of my local mountain today and have a picnic lunch on the roof of the world. Not bad for octagenarians!


(Climbing le Grand Chamossaire)


(View towards the Bernese Oberland)


(View over the Lac de Bretaye)

Guy

Wow - those are some views, Guy

Hope you have a lovely week.

Cheers

Lee

Thanks Lee - we are having a lovely week.

I'm letting butterflies take a bit of a back seat, but it's impossible not to see them, of course! Today we walked past clusters of blues and skippers, including this tight little group:



Clockwise from top left, that's damon, eumedon, eros, carlinae.

Here's a closer shot of an Eros blue and Damon blue (cutting off another damon and a eumedon):



The great yellow gentians are in full flower now:



Some more views:


(A rose walk, where pearl-bordered fritillaries and tufted marbled skippers were flying)


(The miroir d'Argentine - a smooth Jurassic sea bed that now juts into the sky!)


(A false heath fritillary cleaning up the beer tables...)

Guy

I love the last photo Guy. It's funny how it's the slightly bizarre shots that grab the attention!

Perhaps you could sell the image to Stella Artois...

Michael

Glad you like it, Michael! It was doing a good job.

My parents left this morning and were replaced with a UK Butterflies group. The weather has turned bad but they were treated to occasional sun and some excellent butterflies. Being the host, I held back and didn't take many photos, but I did get a few.

Here are Lisa (Gwenhwyfar) and Pete, finding rare Maculinea species despite the gloom:



Both of our main targets for the day were flying. Here is a scarce large blue...



...and here is a dusky large blue:



My first manto ringlets of the year were flying:


(Male)


(Female)

Some other species were playing ball nicely. This lesser marbled fritillary landed upside down for classic diagnostic photos of the underside:



Here are two Niobe fritillaries. The first is very typical. The second is dark, like a female, and seems to have four sex brands, even though the species is supposed to have only two. But I saw the underside and there is no doubt about the ID of either:





Finally, the poor weather allowed lots of close-ups, including this diagnostic shot of the antennae of a small skipper:



In the morning we took in cranberry fritillaries - the others all have good photos of that - and there were plenty of other butterflies on the wing, including Arran brown, large ringlet, lesser mountain ringlet, Alpine heath, Titania's fritillary, lesser marbled fritillary, chequered skipper and more.

Tomorrow I will take them to a high site for exotic Alpine fritillaries and blues.

Guy

...I can visualise that walk....
Have fun!
N

...how are the LOTSW Tribute act doing after today?
Hope you did your usual chamois impression as you lead them up to 2500+ metres....
And had good weather and found lots of fabulous butterflies....
...to make up for the pain
If Pete found Cynthia, I can imagine the smile on his face
N

Looks like you're having a grand time.

That view towards the Bernese Oberland is something else! I showed it to my wife and now she's decided that next year we're taking the family travelling!
Have a goodun

Wurzel

Thanks, Nick and Susie (and Wurzel - our posts crossed!).

Yes, Pete was as happy as a coot in a bath when he saw his cynthia. It was just one individual (Lisa had another) and a little worn, but he got good pictures and was skipping around like a lamb in spring. Here's Gruditch showing you that facial expression by proxy.



I have loads of piccies of cynthia so I let him take his fill, but I did take one snap of the butterfly in question, so you can share his joy:



Pete was skipping off in the wrong direction, unfortunately, when this fine peak white posed for Gary and Lisa:





This is a mountain fritillary (napaea):



And here's a beautifully fresh mnestra ringlet:



More to follow!

Guy

EDIT : I'll post a picture of the whole group tomorrow - it tends to get very spread out after we're a few hundred metres from the van!

Sun and wind today. Here's the group (minus Gary, who was higher up the mountain) photographing cranberry blues:



From left to right: Pete, Lynn, Paul (W), Dave, Helen, Tim, Lisa, Chris.

Butterflies seen today included plenty of female mountain fritillaries. This individual is typical but some have an even deeper iridescent sheen and all of them have at least some hints of purple, blue or green.



Darwin's heath:



Northern brown argus:



and



Small mountain ringlet:



Mnestra ringlet:



Marbled ringlet:



That individual has an anomalously smooth, unvariegated underside, and was also very small for the species. I spent a lot of time wondering about her but in the end concluded she had to be marbled ringlet. Here is an upperside:



This is a mazarine blue egg Pete found (without even seeing the butterfly lay it!):



We watched a pair of mountain clouded yellows mating and noticed that the female clasped her antennae together, while the male held his apart. I don't know if this is a regular thing...


(female)


(male)

It's not true for these marsh fritillaries:



The others took many more pictures, of great species, and I hope they will be posted in a thread on their return.

The sky looked ominous as we came down the mountain, and bad weather is forecast for tomorrow:



Guy

Guy,
congratulations on your well deserved 'UK Butterflies contribution' award. I don't know if this has been commented on elsewhere. I'm sure everyone feels the same as I do.
Michael

Thanks, Michael! It was very kind of Pete to let the coveted prize slip overseas, but I have to say Switzerland has felt like a little corner of England this week!

Guy

We watched a pair of mountain clouded yellows mating and noticed that the female clasped her antennae together, while the male held his apart. I don't know if this is a regular thing...

Her mother must have told her to keep 'em together, just didn't tell her which bit.

The antennae actually look fused together in the picture - could be a congenital defect deriving from forming imperfectly in the pupa, perhaps.

Dave

They do look fused, Dave, but in fact are not - it's an illusion caused by the antennae going out of focus as they come forward. I looked closely at them in the field (because they appeared fused when I reviewed the pictures in the camera) and they were definitely two antennae pressed together.

Which leaves Susie's theory as the most probable, I guess...

Guy

Peering closely through my best specs, I can now see the one one the right as you look at them overlaps the one on the left.

I too defer to Susie...

Dave

The last two days have seen heavy rain, electric storms and thick cloud, but it cleared up today for the UK Butterflies contingent's last day in CH. We began in the valley, where the warmth would quickly have dispelled the gloom and moisture, and finished in my local woods before beer and food in Villars.

This is a female great sooty satyr (that is a spotted fritillary in the background):



I took a series of shots of her, but some were spoiled by the presence of a predatory marmot in the background (aka Pete Eeles):



The first dryads were mingling with the great sooty satyrs:



At a second site, the target was female Meleager's blue, which some of the party particularly wanted to photograph. The site produced several...


(This is form steeveni, which lacks blue on the upperside)



... as well as plenty of males. It is interesting to compare the wing shape of the two sexes:



I had hoped to show the group woodland browns in my woods, but in the end I was the only one to see a definite one there - Pete had a probable in flight. The species is normally strong throughout July but it began early this year and was probably hit by the recent storms. We also arrived rather late, as many species were going to bed.

White-letter hairstreaks were still up, feeding on thistle and hemp agrimony:



This red admiral was another reminder of England:



It was a great pleasure to meet so many UK Butterflies members, and to share a little of Switzerland with them. They have many more, and better photographs, which I hope they will post on their return!

Guy

Thanks again for showing us around, Guy, and for sharing with us your special part of the world. Certainly memories to treasure.

Cheers,

- Pete (aka Marmot)

While Pete & co. we heading for the airport I called in at my woods this morning, on my way to the shops, to see if woodland browns really were almost over. Sadly, it seems they are. I saw three in total, on a warm morning when the woods were alive with butterflies, and all were in much the same state as this one:



A month ago they were all smart and new and full of hope:


(17th June 2011)

When I arrived in the woods the first thing to greet me was a male purple emperor. Shortly afterwards, a vast female purple emperor circled me a few times, looking far more rounded and generally huger than the male. Here she is when she stopped very briefly at some distance from me - quite a different beast from a male:



I didn't have long, but even in just half an hour I found at least 10 white-letter hairstreaks nectaring. Here are two of them:





Finally, I took some video of a female silver-washed fritillary nectaring and being harassed by a male. It's currently uploading to YouTube.

Guy