Antequera Butterflies June 2022

Two days before the end of our holiday, on 11th June, I decided to drive up to Antequera to walk along an amazing little track I found in 2019 when we were last in Spain. This track runs along the north side of El Torcal de Antiquera, which is an amazing area of limestone rock. In April 2019 I had seen an amazing variety of spring butterflies and when I returned in September that year there were still a lot of butterflies there, despite the local goat herd having grazed all of the flowers down.

I had great hopes for this year, but noticed as I drove up that the wind was getting stronger and stronger. When I arrived it was incredibly windy, but as I was there it would have been silly not to have gone for a walk. The gusts of wind whipped up sand from the track and bent the vegetation. Despite this, there were still a few hardy butterflies hanging on! They were mostly species I had seen elsewhere on our holiday, such as Bath Whites, Clouded Yellows and Sage Skippers.

There were one or two Spanish Gatekeepers and Southern Gatekeepers sheltering amongst the vegetation.

I was really pleased to see an Iberian Marbled White.

There were also Small Whites, Large Whites, Painted Ladies, Meadow Browns and Mallow Skippers. I didn’t want to pursue any of them for pictures, as when they took off they were immediately taken by the wind and I was concerned they would be blown into some scrub and sustain damage.

I was amazed to see a Swallowtail doing some acrobatics, trying to feed on a flower that was blowing violently in the wind.

The last butterfly I saw was a Red-underwing Skipper. Normally I see a lot of these, but this was the only one I saw this holiday.

Despite the wind I saw 15 species. I couldn’t manage a decent picture of any of them, as they were being battered by the wind and so was I! I can only imagine how many more butterflies there would have been had it not been windy.