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Hi Wurzel. I think UK small tortoiseshells are just as tough! Despite the air temperature here, the radiant heat on the south-facing vineyards is something special.

Today again, small tortoiseshells and Queens were flying in the valley - as they have probably been all week, as it has been sunny every day. There was a chilly wind still today, and it actually felt cold, but it didn't deter them.

Here are three different Queens:







As usual, the real hotspot was this crumbling bank:





The main nectar source at the moment is speedwell, which grows in straggling clumps in the stepped vineyards:



The snow has almost entirely gone from the valley floor:





Firebugs were out last week but in much greater numbers today - almost always running around in pairs:



Guy

Cracking shots Guy - the background makes it look as if there wouldn't be butterflies about but I suppose the white/grey banks must reflect a lot of heat back up

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Those Queens are glorious, Guy...and nice to see the context where they are reliably found.

Minnie must love being back in her traditional haunts. All that hillside exercise in the fresh, clean air, with bonus Small Tortoiseshells too!

Thanks Wurzel and David. Yes, the banks reflect a lot of heat, and close to the ground I expect the air warms up quite a bit too.

For the record, here are my first Queen of Spain sightings for each year going back to 2007 (before then, I didn't start looking until March):

2023: 5th Feb
2019-22 - UK
2018: 6th Jan
2017: 21st Jan
2016: 24th Jan
2015: 20th Feb
2014: 8th Jan
2013: 18th Feb
2012: 21st Feb
2011: 12th Feb
2010: 13th March
2009: 28th Feb
2008: 27th Jan
2007: 3rd Feb

I remember particularly that 3rd Feb 2007. My notes record 20+ individuals, in all states of repair, and I concluded that they must have been on the wing already in January. The winter flight of the Queen is not a very recent thing.

Yesterday I visited the vineyards around Aigle, where a few small tortoiseshells were flying, but today I stayed high and saw many more. In and around Leysin, they could be seen zooming over every sunny bank, occasionally stopping to bask but always quickly flying up again to chase a passing rival. Our walk this afternoon took us from about 1260m up to 1400m and the tortoiseshells were present throughout. We stopped for half an hour or so at a particularly favourable spot to see if anything else would appear, but nothing did.









In the sun, the snow has gone ...



... but in the shade, and where it has been hard pressed, it is still there:



Coltsfoot is pushing through where it can:



There must be lots more snow to come, but the tortoiseshells always do this in February so I presume the strategy works. It probably won't hurt the eggs to wait a few weeks under the white stuff ...

Guy

I headed further east along the Rhône Valley today, to a site where early large tortoiseshells regularly appear. I couldn't leave home until the afternoon, but the days are fast lengthening and I thought I'd have enough time.

Small tortoiseshells were the commonest butterfly on the wing, showing up as soon as I arrived. It was already warm and most were closing their wings soon upon settling:



Later on, as the day cooled down, they spread open to soak up the sun:



Queens were also flying here:



My intended large tortoiseshell site was at the furthest part of the walk, where sallow grows along a little stream. The sallow was not yet out but it will not be long now:



It was my birthday today. My present was this beautiful large tortoiseshell posing perfectly on the ground next to the stream:





Delighted with that, Minnie and I set off back home:



Then, some 4km or so from the first large tortoiseshell, we came across another:



I couldn't have got round to photograph it flat on without disturbing it, so I settled for that picture.

A very satisfactory birthday!

Guy

Beautiful photos Guy. Such lovely light, even without the butterflies!

Happy Birthday Guy - that is a cracking present, it's my Birthday tomorrow - I (seriously) doubt I'll get the same present as you

Have a goodun

Wurzel

That's my kind of Birthday present, unfortunately, I was born at the beginning of January so it's a very unlikely event!

I was going to say that I hoped you had a good birthday, Guy, but I can see that this question has answered itself already.

For over a decade now I've marvelled at your images of butterflies with snow and ice either nearby or higher up the mountains.

You live in an amazing place.

Happy Birthday Guy, I see your's is in a "Aquarius" like mine, had mine a week ago

Fantastic shots of the Butterflies and the scenery , love Minnie on the seat best Goldie

Thanks Paul, Wurzel, Buggy, David and Goldie! I wonder if a disproportionate number of butterfly-lovers were conceived in the rising sap of spring and born in the depths of winter ...

In the Rhône Valley today, the first brimstones were on the wing. There was almost nothing to nectar on so they were just roding along the hillsides and I was able to get just a few point-and-shoot snaps to prove they were there:





That one was in an overgrown vineyard. Most were flying over slopes like this:



In total, between about 11h00 and 14h00, I saw four different brimstones, as well as four large tortoiseshells, half a dozen or more Queens of Spain and dozens of small tortoiseshells:






(now if a brimstone had found that dandelion, I might have been able to get some pictures ...)







Many of the tortoiseshells had those nicks in the hindwings - perhaps due to attacks by birds, or perhaps the work of the many lizards that now lurk around every corner:



Up in my mountain home, there is still enough snow to ski, but a long period of sunny weather without any new precipitation is rapidly reducing it:



So far, there have only been small tortoiseshells up here, but I wouldn't be surprised if another hibernator followed soon.

Guy

A belated Happy Birthday, Guy!

I always look forward to your posts about QoS and LT each year! They tell me that spring is coming!

Cheers,

- Pete

And best wishes from me too, and I must add that the butterflying you describe between 11 & 2 sounds heavenly! A few hours like that towards the end of winter would be, for me, as good as anything the rest of the year could offer.

Those Brimstone images very much reflect what we see over here, Guy - constantly on the move with a mission!

What we don't see are regular Large Tortoiseshells and Queens of Spain. I can barely imagine how wonderful it must be to have those whilst on a bracing, hillside walk in mid February.

Thanks Pete, Ben and David. It is wonderful, I agree, to see all these butterflies in February, but I must add that I really did enjoy the butterflies in Suffolk over the last four years. I know that come the summer, I'll miss standing in a grassy swathe in Rendlesham Forest watching white admirals flitting and gliding over the honeysuckle ...

Yesterday the cold returned, with a little light snow (and heavy winds) thrown in. So Minnie and I headed off to the Papiliorama for another session with tropical butterflies. I've never seen it so crowded - even more crowded than when we went in October on a half-term weekend - but I still enjoyed it. As always, I took hundreds of photos, so will post just a few here, of things I particularly liked.

I think I was the only one who noticed the female Heliconius charithonius surveying this passion vine with a view to laying:



Sure enough, she laid:





When she had gone, I checked the other tendrils and found they were covered in eggs - either hers or another's:







All were laid on tendrils - none on leaves.

There were a few caterpillars around, of several species. This is of Papilio thoas:



And here are two adults of the same species:



These are Caligo eurylochus (well - they're Caligo, and I think eurylochus):



Note one big brown form cat, with two green forms next to it. Here is a single of the green form:



A few other species out of the very many I photographed:

This was new to me: Heliconius atthis:



Also new to me was Morpho achilles:



This is the aptly named starry night cracker, Hamadryas laodamia:



For once, Archeoprepona amphimachus showed me its upperside ...



... as did this Cethosia biblis:



This is the lovely underside of Consul fabius:



And this is a common crow, Euploea core:



That species always takes me back to India. Here are two near each other in the Papiliorama yesterday - a familiar sight in parks in India:



Here are a male and female of the highly dimorphic Catonephele numilia:





This female Hebomoia glaucippe was showing a male the finger (more strictly, her bottom), so I expect she's already mated and will be making more great orange tips herself soon:



I could just keep going, but will force myself to stop. Here's a final Lyle's flying fox taking forty winks in the canopy:



Guy

Some excellent images of the early stages as well as the butterflies, Guy. An uplifting dose of exotica when things are cold and snowy.

I've never seen Consul fabius before. It reminds me a little of c-album with it's wing shape and the way it's posed.

That flying fox looks enormous. I bet people take cover when they actually fly in there!

Hi David. Consul fabius is a great butterfly. The cryptic underside is layered in violet silver but the upperside has the 'tiger' coloration of so many often unrelated tropical butterflies:



Today was cold still but sunny, so I set off for the Rhône Valley for wild butterflies instead of exotica. I thought maybe the first peacocks and commas might be flying, or even an eastern Bath white.

As I began my walk, at about 10h45, the temperature was barely 3°. Even so, small tortoiseshells and Queens were out and about, often pressed hard into the ground, spread out for warmth:





Next, a clouded yellow appeared. This will be a true 2023 butterfly, unlike the ones I saw at the beginning of January, which were really tail-enders from 2022:



Later on, the small tortoiseshells and Queens behaved differently, settling off the ground and engaging in other activities. This male small tortoiseshell was intent on the female tucked under the rock (but he failed to win her):



Here's a Queen resting well off the ground:



As the day hotted up, I began to see the odd large tortoiseshell, but only in flight today, so no photos. There were no peacocks or commas and the sallow was still only just beginning to flower, so I suspected I would see no new species today:



Wrong! As I set off back to the train, a wall settled briefly in front of me:



A few kilometres further on, I saw a second, indicating that this wasn't just one freak emergence:



This is the earliest I've ever seen walls in Switzerland. They fly earlier than this in Spain and even north Italy but don't normally emerge in Switzerland until April.

The next surprise, given that all the hibernators aren't out yet, was small white. I saw two females, both towards the very end of my walk:



That brings my year list to 8 species, all in Switzerland.

At the far point of the walk, I stopped to give Minnie water and a treat, and while we were resting a beautiful red kite flew right past:





And here's the statutory photo of Minnie doing her own bit for the cause:



I might pop over to Italy tomorrow morning, as the weather should still be good and I haven't been yet this year.

Guy

We did pop over to Italy this morning, arriving at Domodossola a little before 10h00 and at my nettle tree site an hour later (the bottom gears on my bike weren't working, so I had to walk up the steep hilly bits ...). When we arrived, little was on the wing. In the first half hour I saw just half a dozen small tortoiseshells and a single large tortoiseshell. But the day hotted up and it wasn't long before the nettle tree butterflies came to join the fun:







It was actually very warm, and I propped my backpack up so Minnie could shelter behind it:



She did very well negotiating the steep, crumbling hillside:



Nettle tree was the main target today but as expected I got a few other year-ticks too: North Italy is always a little ahead of the Rhône Valley. The first commas were flying ...



... and more surprisingly, a male orange tip passed while I was photographing nettle tree butterflies. He paused briefly at mud then carried on:



Walls were also on the wing in small numbers:



The final butterfly species flying at the hill sites was brimstone, though none stopped for a portrait. There were lots of orange underwing moths distracting the eye. Here is a very distant shot of two at sallow:



We then went down to the wasteland by the river near Domodossola, where early small coppers and grizzled skippers fly. There were no skippers but I did find three small coppers:





Minnie enjoyed prowling around and was rewarded with a drink at the now incredibly diminished river (rain is badly needed!):





A Queen of Spain and a red admiral flew past near the river, bringing the day total to 10 species (small tortoiseshell, large tortoiseshell, red admiral, Queen of Spain, nettle tree butterfly, comma, wall, brimstone, orange tip, small copper). My year list stands on 12 species.

Guy

Wow, that river really is low! It has been dry in the UK too since mid January. (Seven weeks with less than half a day of rain here in Sheffield). Has it been similar in northern Italy and Switzerland?

Also, what impact are such dry conditions now likely to have on the spring and early summer butterflies of the Alps?

Remarkable selection of species Guy. With the weather here ( mostly cold grey gloom ),
we can only dream of finding the odd ex hibernator.
Good to see Minnie looking fit and well.

Trevor.