www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Thanks Wurzel and David. Purple hairstreaks were still in evidence in Woodbridge and surrounding woods on 29th and 30th July - mostly females, from the ones that I saw well enough to sex.

On 31st I Premier Inned it at Stansted Airport, to be on the 09h20 RyanAir flight to Málaga this morning. This was my third attempt at a trip away this year, so despite the situation in Northern Spain I bit the bullet and did it. The plane was not more than a quarter full - probably less, and mostly Spanish returning, rather than Brits going away. Because I’d completed all the covid entry requirements online, I was the first through passport control and had the eerie experience of walking into an entirely empty baggage hall - not another soul there - just lots of stationary carousels. Unsurprisingly, baggage came quickly and the mostly empty train to Málaga Centro Alameda was punctual to the second.

On the UK trains, a number of people were intent on becoming superspreaders. At one point I had to move carriages, as a boorish, maskless girl on the other side, but facing me, was laughing, shouting, exhaling loudly and violently, eating and drinking, wiping her face and lounging all over the table! I’m not exaggerating. Short of actually licking the upholstery she couldn’t have gone further. As a carer, I’m quite keen to avoid such people, so I didn’t engage in dialogue and put myself at greater risk but just moved. In contrast, everyone on the Spanish train was masked, distanced and polite. In town, almost everyone was wearing a mask - as is now the law for all public places in Spain. The most obvious exceptions were groups of young Brits, drifting around apparently oblivious to everyone else’s courtesy. The €30 a night hostal is very clean - and all the cleaners are masked and gloved. In short, I think Spain - Málaga at least - is making a real effort to respond responsibly to the present situation.

That said, photographing butterflies while wearing a mask, sunglasses and a hat is very, very difficult! I tried, though, while in town. It was far too hot by the late afternoon for much to fly, but there were a lot of Lang’s short-tailed blues about and I got a few shots of a female and one of the eggs she laid:





I then had a quick look along the river bed and climbed up into the hills. All the butterflies were roosting deep in shade, in temperatures that reached 38 degrees by 18h00. This monarch was under a bridge, just near enough for me to get a zoom shot (rather poor, because of the shade):



Others were roosting among the reeds, towards the other side of the river.

Other species seen lurking or disappearing into the undergrowth were Bath white, clouded yellow and Polyommatus celina - the tiny, summer form. I had real trouble getting pictures of that as although I wasn’t in town I’d forgotten to take my mask off - you just get used to them - and they were all deep in focus-trashing grass!

I’ll go into the hills earlier tomorrow!

Guy

The heat intensified yesterday - 33 degrees in the morning, as I climbed into the hills, and 41 degrees for most of the afternoon. That’s hot enough to be dangerous if you run out of liquids, so I was very cautious, calculating on turning back the moment I’d drunk half my supplies. By chance, I not only came across a fig tree full of ripe fruit at my lunch stop, but also a tiny, stagnant but very clear pool, from which I purified a litre and a half of water to guarantee safe descent.





I added a few butterflies to my list today, despite the heat, including lots of two-tailed pashas hilltopping ...



... and equally good numbers (but not photos) of striped graylings:



Here’s a pair of long-tailed blues that got hitched at the hillopping site:



Southern brown argus were very common - and huge:



Bath whites were the commonest white:



Other browns were southern gatekeeper, wall and a single female meadow brown.


(rare glimpse of an upperside of a female southern gatekeeper - nothing was opening its wings in the heat)

I thought I had a lifer in southern marbled skipper when I found two Carcharodus skippers that really did look reticulate beneath to the naked eye. But the camera reveals nothing like what I would expect. Any comments would be welcome, but I think these must be tripolinus (despite the provisional filenames):





That was yesterday. Today was forecast to be very hot too, so I decided to take it easier. In town, I found lots of Lang’s short-tailed blues and a few African grass blues:







Taking the train down the coast a bit, I found plenty of Cleopatras, a single dusky heath and a couple of sage skippers. Photography was incredibly difficult by this stage, as almost everything was hanging in the shade, yet I was usually in the sun, so I literally couldn’t see anything on the LCD screen. Here is a sage skipper - very tatty!



And this is a cheeky Cleopatra:



I also saw a cardinal, briefly nectaring in a bush - but under the conditions I just couldn’t capture a focused picture:



I’ll be going back to the same site early tomorrow, while it is still cool, to see if I can add some more species. I thought I had oriental meadow brown today but it turned out just to be a meadow brown!

Lots of swallowtails and Iberian scarce swallowtails yesterday and today:





This image, however, probably best captures Spain 2020 - and the very strange year this is:



Guy

Much cooler today - and cloudy until mid-afternoon. This was at about 650m:



Despite the weather, Satyrids put in a show, including plenty of striped graylings:



It also meant a few butterflies were actually showing their uppersides, like this rather extreme small copper:



There were some fresh sage skippers on the wing:



And as the day warmed up (but stayed cloudy), other Lycaenids began flying. This is Austaut’s blue, Plyommatus celina:





Still none of my real targets for this holiday yet, though. So I headed for home, intending to have another look for desert orange tips in central Málaga, when I noticed a track I’d never walked down. It turned out to be rather nice, though with the cloud I saw very little. As I walked back up it, the sun suddenly came out, and with it hordes of Lycaenids - geranium bronzes (nowhere near Pelargoniums), African grass blues, Austaut’s blues and southern brown arguses.


(geranium bronze)


(African grass blue)

Then suddenly my first real target appeared - Mediterranean skipper. This isn’t quite a life tick for me, as I saw a single one in Portugal in 1990, when I was travelling without a camera. But it’s a photo-lifer, and as good as a lifer, as I saw quite a lot today and was really able to enjoy them. What an amazing little butterfly - shaped like a min fighter jet and as fast as one! The males perched on stones on the path and shot out at anything passing, terrifying the living daylights out of it before landing again, usually not far from where they launched from. I saw just one female, very briefly. She landed with her wings open, I snatched a proof shot as fast as I could, then she was off again and didn’t come back.


(male)


(male)


(male)


(male)


(male taking off - none of the males opened their wings except to fly)


(female)

The Mediterranean skipper (and Ziz knys, celina, marshalli, cramera &c. ) track:



Eventually I had to leave them, but I could have stayed for hours (if I hadn’t run out of beer).

Guy

Cracking reports Guy - extra jealous as my family holiday has been cancelled this year Is the Astaut's Blue the new name for Southern Common Blue or is it a different subspecies/species?

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

You're making me jealous Guy! Can't wait to hear more!

Great stuff, Guy. Glad you got away and yes, some of the behaviour in Britain is beyond irresponsible. I have been to Spain myself this last week and everyone is being ultra cautious and respecting the rules over there.

Thanks Wurzel. I’m so sorry for your family, having to cancel your holiday. I was first booked to go to Spain in March this year - then suddenly all the planes dropped out of the sky. Then I was going to go to Switzerland for christi season in July, and that fell through. Third time lucky, and I wasn’t certain this one would happen either when the government advice changed. But I did it ... I completely understand that it’s a different thing with a family and a job. My job at the moment is being a carer, and I can do that in quarantine!

Thanks Paul! There’s more to come!

I didn’t realise you were in Spain too, David. Whereabouts? What are your targets for the trip? If you’re down south, you’ll have realised by now that it’s hard work finding butterflies in this heat. A lot of them spend most of the day trying to find shade. In the north, where the virus is, it’s much easier.

Today was a mixed bag, with some good species - more Med skippers and all those sexy Lycaenids, lots of striped graylings and dusky heaths - long periods of walking and seeing absolutely nothing - an enjoyable interlude watching swallowtails, Iberian scarce swallowtails and long-tailed blues hilltopping at a touristy spot - and finally one of my big hopes for the trip, a single, fresh, male desert orange tip. I had just concluded I was looking in the wrong place, and was walking back down the road when a tiny, tiny white butterfly came motoring up the hill. It looked so different from anything I’d seen I knew it was either a desert orange tip or a moth - the orange wasn’t visible in flight. But in my heart I was 100% it was desert orange tip. To the astonishment of onlookers, I turned round and sprinted back up the hill after the tiny creature, still wearing mask, sunglasses and hat. I couldn’t believe it flew past people and they just ignored it! Then it nipped over a wall and settled on a leaf, inaccessibly, some distance away. Thanks to the magic of the zoom lens, I was able to get my first ever photos of desert orange tip, of which this, I think, is the best:



It flew again and disappeared in a wood. I’ll be back! But If I don’t see any more, I’ll still be happy.

Guy

That's such a great photograph of the Desert Orange Tip! Your description of sprinting up the hill in the heat after it made me laugh out loud. I did something similar for a Tessellated Skipper in Greece last summer. The things we do for butterflies!

What a gorgeous butterfly that Desert Orange Tip is!. Never heard of one before.
Wonderful image of it too. That's the joy of butterflying abroad, you just don't
know what surprise awaits around the corner.

Great stuff, keep well,
Trevor.

Guy, enjoying your Spanish diary. As a huge fan of Orange Tips I was delighted to see your photo of the desert Orange Tip, what a cracker. Your narrative reminds me of my younger days, chasing Orange Tips up and down country hedgerows. Normally they are a species that don’t reward that sort of behaviour. Glad it was different for you this time.

Really enjoying the report, Guy, bringing back some good memories. Nice Desert Orange-tip!

Cheers,

- Pete

Guy
Really enjoying reading the report and almost feeling the genuine excitement you felt finding the Desert Orange Tip (a fantastic image). In birding terms your chase up the hill might be described as 'Twitcher's Trot'.
Would I be right in thinking that the sites you've visited so far, which hold some scarce species, are all within walking distance of your hostal, or easily accessed using public transport?
I'm looking forward to the next installment.

Barrie

Padfield wrote: ↑Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:08 pm
I didn’t realise you were in Spain too, David. Whereabouts? What are your targets for the trip? If you’re down south, you’ll have realised by now that it’s hard work finding butterflies in this heat. A lot of them spend most of the day trying to find shade. In the north, where the virus is, it’s much easier.

Been in the Montes Universales again, Guy, north west of Valencia. Main targets are zapateri, prieuri, roboris, actaea, russiae, morronensis, bleusi, caelestissima, albicans, cirsii, nivescens, baeticus and fabressei, though there are several other desirables to see as well.

Regarding your carcharodus in your earlier post, it doesn't look sufficiently reticulated to be baeticus, and on those few occasions I have got to see the undersides, I find baeticus to have a slightly 'salmon pink' hue.

Here's one from last week which I managed to get in my vial:

Thank you all for your comments. I was very lucky to get that shot of desert orange tip - if it had just carried on motoring up the road without stopping I don’t think I would even have permitted myself the tick, as I really couldn't see the orange (maybe a function of sunglasses). As Kev says, British orange tips are famous for leading one a merry dance and it could all have turned out very differently. I went back this morning and found the foodplant and what I think is excellent habitat but no more orange tips. This might have been one of the first of its generation - it was very fresh.

In answer to Barry’s question, a qualified yes. I only walk and use public transport, but not everyone is prepared to walk as far as I am. In fact, I’m not even sure I am at the moment: I’m wearing boots that are a size too small and already by the end of Sunday every pace was agony - blisters and skin tears - and my feet are now a red mess! For that reason, I thought I’d give them a break today, so just did a gentle climb after looking for the orange tips and then put them up. According to my iPhone, I’ve done 19km, but importantly, it was mostly fairly flat - it is the downhill that is most painful.

I agree David - the skippers I saw on Sunday were tripolinus, not baeticus. I didn’t get even a glimpse at the uppersides then, but today, at the bottom of the same hill, I found a few more, and they were showing their ups:



When I could see the uns, they were also notable for the bright veins, so I’m sure the same species as on Sunday:



I hope you reap a good harvest of your targets, David!

Yesterday, as I mentioned, I went back to Med skipper central, amongst other things. Still no uppersides on display, but plenty more undersides, including some with faint, white postdiscal spots visible on the hindwing and even costal spots on the forewing:





Tolman makes a point of the long, cilia-like hairs on the hindwing of nostrodamus (Mediterranean skipper), but it’s interesting that none of my pictures show this. He also notes the forewing underside costal spots as indicative of pumilio (pygmy skipper). At the moment, I’m still confident mine are nostrodamus, but I will have to check out these points when I get home. I don’t know if there are any experts on Gegenes who can comment. If those cilia-like hairs are supposed to be diagnostic, how come none of my pictures show them?

A few other pictures from yesterday:


(face to face with a Mediterranean skipper)


(The ubiquitous striped grayling)


(dusky heath - I’ve seen a lot of these, but had no good, unencumbered views)


(another unhelpful dusky heath)


(a hilltopping swallowtail)


(above Benalmádena)


(higher up, above Benalmádena)

Tomorrow I have to judge the foot situation before deciding where to go. If I don’t think I’m up to a hard climb (down) I’ll try a new area at sea level - or if it’s really bad, just sit in the shade and drink beer until a few more desert orange tips come along!

Guy

"...just sit in the shade and drink beer until a few more desert orange tips come along!" sounds like my kind of butterflying Guy

More cracking shots especially the Dusky Heath - that little ribbon of silver - cracking!

Have a goodun and stay hydrated!

Wurzel

Padfield wrote: ↑Thu Aug 06, 2020 5:35 pm...Tolman makes a point of the long, cilia-like hairs on the hindwing of nostrodamus (Mediterranean skipper), but it’s interesting that none of my pictures show this. He also notes the forewing underside costal spots as indicative of pumilio (pygmy skipper). At the moment, I’m still confident mine are nostrodamus, but I will have to check out these points when I get home. I don’t know if there are any experts on Gegenes who can comment. If those cilia-like hairs are supposed to be diagnostic, how come none of my pictures show them?

Tolman also states that pumilio's distribution covers southern Spain. However, in Paul Browning's Butterflies of the Iberian Peninsula, he states "...although there are records for pumilio from a small number of Mediterranean coastal sites, none have been confirmed".

Furthermore, in the Atlas de las mariposas diurnas de la Peninsula Ibérica e Islas Baleares, it is stated "..although several sites on the Mediterranean coastline have been reported, only its presence in the island of Majorca is fully confirmed.."

During my trip we visited a dune site near Valencia and found what looked to be pumilio if one goes by the illustrations in Tolman, though after reading the above I had to default to nostradamus. I will post it in my trip report in the next couple of days and others can see for themselves.

Thanks Wurzel. In the end, I went for a 40km walk instead of that beer option, but If I had another day here I would definitely do the latter, given what I found today.

Thanks David. That’s interesting. As I said, I never really doubted nostrodamus, it just doesn’t match the illustrations in Tolman, as you say. I think I downloaded that atlas some time ago - I forgot all about it!

As today was my last day, I decided to ignore foot pain and go up into the hills, to my favourite places - wearing trainers but carrying the boots for any difficult places where trainers would be dangerous. It turned out to be a lovely day, barely reaching 30°C, and I was able to enjoy familiar butterflies.





This is one of my hilltopping spots, with a two-tailed pasha taking advantage of my backpack:





I always hope to find avis here in the spring but have never yet found the strawberry trees. The presence of two-tailed pashas means the foodplant must be here, and as I’ve seen them down the hill on the Málaga side, it means they must be somewhere down here ...



But I’ve walked all the tracks visible in that picture (most of them today, on the ways up and down) and just can’t find those strawberry trees!

I caught lucky with this clouded yellow shot:



Striped graylings, southern gatekeepers, Bath whites and clouded yellows were the commonest butterflies on the walk, with small coppers and Lang’s short-tailed blues putting in an appearance occasionally.







In a grassy part of the walk I found the Iberian form/subspecies/species (depending on which book you read) of small heath, lyllus:



Other hilltoppers were swallowtail and Iberian scarce swallowtail:





I haven’t got my dragonfly books with me, but have been seeing quite a few darters and their ilk. These were today:





And this was from 4th August:



On my way back, I spotted this chamaeleon by the side of the road. I suspect it was a female who had been laying eggs - one of the few reasons they come down from the trees. She disappeared into an olive tree:



When I got down from the hills I immediately went to the desert orange tip habitat. My timing was wrong, evidently. Although I didn’t find any adults, despite quite a long search, I did find an egg:



How do I know it’s a desert orange tip? Because it’s a Pierid egg, it’s on caper, the sole foodplant of desert orange tip, and it’s 100m from where I saw the male yesterday! This is the plant:



And here is a caper!



Think of desert orange tips next time you sprinkle capers on a pizza ...

Guy

There is some great wildlife in this part of Europe, Guy, but I sometimes think people overlook it in favour of greener pastures further north.

I'm very envious of your Two Tailed Pasha, as well as your Clouded Yellow image with the wings open.

Lots to see in this area at virtually all times of year. The price to pay, I suppose, is borderline dangerous heat and exhausting walking conditions. If you use a bit of common sense though, you can overcome these obstacles and I'm delighted you finally managed to get a European trip under your belt in this most difficult of years.

I agree David - lots of endemics in Spain, as well as select species it is harder to find in France (ballus, ignasiti, for example). In the south, it's much easier in spring (from the heat point of view) but clear skies are much less reliable then. My last trip to Málaga was in spring 2019 and I had one and a half days of proper sun in the week ...

I've now been able to ID some of the dragonflies. The ones I posted above were epaulet skimmer, Orthetrum chrysostigma, and orange-winged dropwing, Trithemis kirbyi. The latter is interesting as the books show it as a purely African dragonfly but it has been reported in southern Spain recently according to various web sites I consulted. I think the yellower one is also orange-winged dropwing - perhaps teneral - but I'm not sure:


(epaulet skimmer)


(orange-winged dropwing)


(teneral individual?)


(the same individual)

This next one is Sympetrum, but I'm not sure which species. It could just be striolatum, though it's very different from ours:





The sides of the thorax don't show the characteristic pearl-yellow patches I associate with striolatum, as in this one from Suffolk:



As always, any thoughts would be welcome.

Guy

I must say I was very impressed with the range of dragonflies we saw at the paddy fields near Valencia. Looks like you've seen a few stunners too, especially that orange-winged dropwing.