padfield wrote:You really know how to wind up the Brits, don't you!!
We drove that species to extinction by a combination of collecting and
draining the fens. That said, I'm glad it's still common out east. I took part in a conservation project on the Drava way back in 1994 and found it flying there, in
boggy ground near the river - but the fear was that with the commercialisation of land following the fall of communism, and the inevitable development that would follow, such unspoilt habitats would be under threat.
Large copper is scarce in Switzerland and entirely absent from my region. I last saw it in France in 2008. Here's a male, to complement your female,
deep in a marshy meadow, supping on its favourite yellow daisy flowers.
Interesting. The key element is they're somehow tolerating various mesophile and ruderal biotopes and tied to various types of dock(s), not only the water dock. Once I've read the docks have sort of "weed species" and "to be liquidated" status in the west. Nobody really cares about dock dispersion here
For decades, this inevitably leads to the fastest area dispersion among the Central European butterflies - even to rather weird areas, like undermined places and agglomerations (where they're especially noticeable). It's almost suspiciously optimistic scenario for a "Natura 2OOO species".
The truth is, the species is not so fragile as it might seem to. On the contrary, they're very strong under suitable circumstances!
MikeOxon wrote:You have really earned the epithet of "The Annoying Czech" with that Large Copper photo!!!
Several years ago, I planned a trip to Wood Walton Fen to see the (re-introduced) British colony - it had even been featured in a TV programme but, alas, none emerged that year (or ever since)!
At least, 'ours' were a different sub-species - we never had
rutilus.
Mike
EDIT: ours were
dispar, with
batavus being a a re-introduction which persisted for several years (with a lot of help!)
Actually, LC extinction dilemma was one of the first things I've read about UK butterflies; it somehow absorbed me. How demanding (in my eyes) such viable, ordinary species can be away in the Europe.
I didn't do much "butterflying" between 2002 and 2010. But from my childhood, I knew how inevitable are the summer posts with photos of LC, so I picked that annoying nick, following "The Annoying Orange" series on YouTube
Great snaps, PhiliB.
Not to be completely annonying, I have to admit that LC's fellow, Violet Copper, is in a real trouble here. With the sole (micro)population, re-introduced and rather "alpine" than "central european", and allegedly six (!) individuals seen in 2011. Nobody wants to tell me where the hell are they, so I'll have to go through the whole faunistic square. No surprise that the original Austrian habitat was reputedly destroyed.
The last "Czech Violet Copper" was persihed in 1952. The water reservoir was more important than the biotope..
