Malaga Butterflies June 2024

We have just returned from a lovely holiday to the Malaga region of Spain. We were based in Alora, which is about 45 miles north west of Malaga. This was our sixth visit to the area. For our first four visits we were there in the first two weeks in July, two years ago we were there for the first two weeks in June and this year it was the last two weeks in June. It was interesting to compare what butterflies I saw this time with previous visits.

I normally only see Wall Browns high on the hills, but this year they were also along the track close to the villa.

Of course the weather can make a tremendous difference. This year the locals were concerned that there had been virtually no rain for about a year. Lemons and Oranges that should have been harvested last October/November were still hanging on the trees, because they were not good enough to harvest and the landscape looked very dry with hedges and trees dying because of the lack of water. There had been really heavy downpours in other areas of Spain causing flooding, but this area was particularly dry.

Interestingly, the dry weather didn’t appear to have had an impact on butterfly numbers. There were far more Small Whites flying everywhere than I have previously seen. I was really impressed with the flower beds in the centre of Malaga, which were all planted with either native plants, or plants that attracted bees and butterflies, particularly Small Whites.

Small Whites were by far the most common butterflies on this visit.

Unfortunately my usual walk from the villa we rent has been blocked by a new fence. It was a well-used path up the hill and living in Scotland where we have quite liberal access rights it seemed odd that a landowner could block a path like this.

However, I walked along the local tracks and found some new spots where there were plenty of butterflies.

The top of this unassuming hill proved to be a real hot spot for Swallowtails, Long-tailed Blues and Wall Browns. 

I also visited a few great places for butterflies that I have found on previous visits, including the Sierra Nevada mountains, a track near Antequera and a lovely village called Casarabonela, which always seems much greener and more lush than anywhere else around here. In total I managed to identify 51 species of butterflies this holiday and missed several other fly-by species which didn’t stop to let me see what they were.

It seems amazing that so far the dry weather doesn’t appear to have impacted on butterfly numbers. I am not sure if this will continue to be the case, if they don’t have rain soon, as surely the food plants for many species will be drying up.

The one species that I noticed wasn’t present was the African Grass Blue. They like damp grassy areas and I often see them down by the river. However, this year the grass there was dried up. They also like irrigated grass in parks and towns, but water restrictions mean that such areas are not being watered.

We visited the reservoirs at Guadalhorce, which supply much of the water for Malaga. They are currently at 20% of their capacity and are dramatically lower than they were two years ago when we last visited. This was another place where I have seen African Grass Blues in the past, but despite searching I didn’t find any. This year, though, there were a lot of Southern Blues in the same locations.

A nice surprise was to see Monarch butterflies drifting in and out of the lovely big park in the centre of Benalmadena. I wish I had had more time to go into the park to see what other butterflies there were there.

Having erienced a very wet few months in Scotland I don’t often wish it would rain, but I really hope that southern Spain gets some rain this coming winter to replenish the area. Here are a few of the butterflies I saw in the area.

Bath White.

Several Clouded Yellows were attracted to a clump of thistle-like flowers down by the river.

I used to find Dusky Heaths up the path that has been blocked off. Luckily this year there were some along the edge of the track by the villa.

There were two or three Geranium Bronzes flying around the villa garden and laying eggs on the Geraniums. In Alora each planter
down the main street had three or four Geranium Bronzes on the Aptenia cordifolia - a succulent plant with red flowers.

Long-tailed Blues could be found anywhere where Thyme was growing.

 A small patch of Thyme at the side of the track had Small Whites, Long-tailed Blues and this Lulworth Skipper on it. This was
the only one I saw this holiday.

Meadow Browns tended to hide away from the sun, preferring shade under the scrub.

Mediterranean Skippers were very plentiful. In the past I have only seen one or two in the area.

I only saw one Painted Lady close to the villa.

Sage Skippers were all along the tracks. They tended to fly up when disturbed and whiz around, returning to close to where they
had taken off.

I think I only saw this one Small Copper near the villa.

I love these beautiful Southern Brown Argus.

The Southern Gatekeeper is another butterfly that prefers to stay in the shade. Some years they can be really numerous.
This year there weren't so many.

I was delighted to see a Striped Grayling on the track near the villa. They can be quite common, but I have never seen them there before.

There were a couple of Swallowtails hill-topping on the small hill pictured earlier on in the post.

Orange Tip Chrysalises

I used to always think that it was best to leave nature to look after itself, but after watching a number of caterpillars being washed away in heavy rain or eaten by birds and chrysalises being nibbled by mice, or just disappearing, I now think that maybe butterflies could do with a helping hand.

Over the winter I spotted a number of Orange Tip chrysalises on Honesty and Garlic Mustard stems. So I carefully cut the stems and put them in a mesh cage outside, but under cover.

They have been sitting there for about seven months until recently I noticed they started changing colour. Six of the chrysalises were straw coloured when I found them and two of them were green. However, half way through April I saw that they had all turned into more of a brown colour.

Then at the end of April I saw the tell-tale colour of the wings starting to show.

Two males emerged on 2nd May and flew off to join their friends.

On 3rd May a female emerged. It wasn't a particularly nice day and when I opened the cage to photograph her, she crawled onto my hand. After a while she flew off and landed in the grass. It started raining after that and in the evening I went out and she was still there. So, I popped her back into the safety of the cage.

The next day it rained all day and another female emerged. I left them in the cage and they sat on their stems not moving. After two more days of horrible weather I decided to dig up a Dandelion and put it in the cage for them to feed on. As soon as I coaxed them onto the flowers they started drinking water droplets off the petals. They remained on the flower and were still there the next morning.

Then the sun finally appeared at lunchtime and I was able to lift the pot out of the cage. They made a short flight onto the lawn and shortly afterwards flew off. I was so relieved that they had managed to survive four days of dull, rainy weather.

About 45 minutes later I was around the other side of the house and I found a paired couple of Orange Tips. I was able to identify one of them as the female who had spent the previous four days sheltering from the rain!

Over the next ten days the remaining four chrysalises all eclosed and they were all females. In fact it has been an interesting year for Orange Tips. I have never seen so many females. Normally, I would say 1 in 10 Orange Tips I see are female, but this year over a third of them have been female.

Scottish Borders Garden Butterflies 2023 Part 2

Continuing from my previous post.

Small Skippers  are continuing to increase in numbers since I first saw them here two years ago. Last year I saw them in my new woodland for the first time as well as the meadow. I try to leave plenty of grass uncut over winter, so that I don't destroy their eggs.

Large Skippers  also did well last year. I had seen one here in 2020 and another in 2022. Last year I saw seven. Both these species have spread northwards into Scotland in recent years so it is exciting to see them here.

There has been a lot of concern about the reducing number of Small Tortoiseshells being seen around the country. 2023 seemed to just be about average for them here , but the previous year was a really good year for them, so nothing obvious to report. However, I didn't find any caterpillars last year, which was unusual. The caterpillars are usually very obvious, as they congregate in a mass on nettles.

2023 was the best year yet for Peacocks since I moved here. They were particularly numerous towards the end of the season on our Buddleia plants, but they suddenly disappeared towards the end of August. However, when I went for a walk up the valley less than a kilometre away a week later  I spotted more than 60 of them feeding on an area of Devil's-bit Scabious.

It was also an exceptionally good year for Red Admirals. I counted 474 individuals in total, more than double any previous years here. They were also recorded in good numbers across  South East Scotland and beyond.

Commas have been increasing year on year here over the last six years. Last year was exceptionally good and I recorded 122 sightings, more than double the previous year. I also found a number of very late caterpillars on nettles.

I only saw five Dark Green Fritillary here last year, which is probably about average, but seems a low number as they are so common in the hills above the house.

I saw one Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary in my meadow last year. Strangely, each year I have seen one here. I presume these have strayed down from further up the valley where there are Marsh Violets.

The exciting news for me was that I saw two  new species for the garden. I really enjoyed watching Speckled Woods arrive in East Lothian in 2010 and spread across the county over the next few years. They appeared to spread north along the coast of the Scottish Borders to get to East Lothian, but hadn't come further inland. However, I have been keeping an eye on records and noticed that they were slowly heading in this direction. On 30th May I was walking in my meadow when my phone rang. It was my daughter to tell me that she had just passed her driving test. While I was talking to her a little dark butterfly flew past me and landed in a Lime tree. I walked over to take a closer look and I was delighted to see it was a Speckled Wood. I am not sure if I was more excited about my daughter's achievement or the butterfly!! Later in the year I saw several more, with up to three on one occasion. They were all males, so I hope that there were also some females and I will regularly see them here in the future.

The other new species for me was a Wall Brown. Well, I had seen one here back in 2010 with my father, but that seemed to be an isolated record. On 15th August I was watching a Speckled Wood sparing with another butterfly in my neighbour's sheep field. Eventually, the second butterfly landed on a wall, so I sneaked up on it from the other side and noticed that it was a Wall Brown. It was only about 15 feet from the meadow and the next day I was delighted to find it feeding on a Knapweed in the meadow.

There were also a few species that I didn't see here in 2023. I didn't see any Painted Ladies anywhere last  year. Here, their numbers are very variable and I have never seen them in great numbers, even when they have been really numerous nearer the coast.

I was sad not to see a Northern Brown Argus last year. I saw one here in 2020 and again in 2022 I saw an adult here for a few days and later found several eggs on the Rockrose I had planted. Sadly, it seems that the eggs were not successful. I don't know why this would be.

The previous three years I have seen one or two Small Heaths here, but I didn't see any last year. The habitat isn't really ideal for them, though.

And since 2019 I have seen one or two Scotch Argus here, which has always intrigued me. We don't have any Purple Moor Grass, their normal caterpillar food plant, but I did see one laying eggs on a completely different grass. Sadly I didn't see any in 2023, but possibly I just wasn't in the right place at the right time.

Generally butterfly numbers have been increasing here over the last five years, so hopefully some of the work I have been doing trying to improve habitats is paying off.

Scottish Borders Garden Butterflies 2023

We moved to this house in the Scottish Borders at the start of 2020 and since then I have been mostly working from home. During my lunch hours I tend to take the dogs for a walk around more or less the same route and I keep a note of the butterflies I see. I then keep a record of the highest number of each species I see each week. So, I now have four years' worth of butterfly records to compare.

Each year the weather has been quite different and that has had an impact on butterfly numbers. The weather was not great in 2023 with a lot of easterly winds. Spring started quite late but dry, but  from July onwards it was cloudy and wet.

Also, I have been spending a lot of time trying to improve habitats and plant different plants to attract butterflies. I would like to think that the effort is seeing rewards.

The main areas where I see butterflies is in the meadow I have been developing, on some Buddleia plants and, this year, in an area where I had some Spruce trees cut down, where I have replanted with native trees. The area is now quite grassy, with various other plants such a Fox Gloves and wild Raspberries.

The four species of white butterflies were interesting. Orange Tips generally had a good year. The first sighting was a week later than normal, but they were about in good numbers.

I saw more Small Whites than I have in previous years, but they were never seen in high numbers. I had found a number of chrysalises last year, which I kept in a cage over winter. 29 of them emerged over a period of a month in April and May. However, I never saw them in big numbers and, strangely, I didn't find any caterpillars on the Nasturtiums this year.

Conversely, Green-veined Whites didn't have such a good year for some reason.  I always associate Green-veined Whites with damper areas, so possibly last year's dry summer didn't agree with them.

Large Whites had a fairly average year. I had been expecting to see a lot of them, because there were a lot of caterpillars last year and there were several chrysalises on the house.  Again, this year, I didn't find any caterpillars on the Nasturtiums, which is unusual.

Last year was a really good year for Ringlets and this year wasn't quite as good. Overall, their numbers have gone up here over the last six years. I would like to think this is in part the result of some of the habitat work I have done.

2023 was a really great year for Meadow Browns here. I recorded 103 individuals, way up from the previous high of 21. As with the Ringlets, I would like to think that the Meadow Browns are enjoying the way I am managing the meadow. The high numbers of these two species may be a result of the weather the previous year, when eggs would have been laid and the caterpillars emerged. 2022 was a very dry summer. It will be interesting to see how they do this coming year after last year's wet summer.

I only saw 2 Small Coppers  here last year.  They had done really well the previous year, so I don't know why there were so few in 2023. There are plenty of food plants for them here, so I can only assume that it was the weather that didn't suit them.

I will continue this on the next post ...

East Lothian Butterflies 2023 Part 2

Continuing on from my previous post..

The first Small Heath was seen on the 17th May. They weren't seen in high numbers in 2023, possibly because not as many people were recording along the coast where they are most commonly seen. Apparently, there are two generations a year, but it is difficult to separate the generations because they overlap and vary according to each site along the coast and in the hills.

2023 could certainly not be described as a Painted Lady year. I only received 46 records and it was the first year, since I started recording butterflies in the 1990s that I didn't see one myself. The first record received was on 29th May and the maximum number seen in a week was 8 in August, indicating that they had managed to breed. It is interesting that the other migratory butterfly, the Red Admiral, did so well, but not so the Painted Lady.

The first Meadow Brown was recorded on the 4th June. They had the best year since I have been collating the butterfly records with 2565 butterflies recorded. Almost every year they are our most numerous butterfly recorded.

In contrast, the Common Blue had its worst year since I have been collating the records! The first record was on the 12th June and I only received records of 252 butterflies, with the average number over the previous ten years being 465.

The Large Skipper is a fairly recent arrival in East Lothian and is still seen in relatively small numbers. The first record I received was on the 13th June and I only received a total of 17 records. They have spread their range across the county, being seen along much of the coast and the foothills of the Lammermuirs. I suspect that it often goes unrecorded, being quite tricky to identify as it whizzes between flowers.

Ringlets were another species that had a poor year. In fact the worst year in the last ten years, not counting 2020, when we were in lockdown. The first record was on the 15th June and initially they seemed to do well, but just didn't peak in July as they normally would.

The Dark Green Fritillary also didn't do well in 2023 with the number of records being about a third of what we would normally expect. The first record was on the 18th June. The caterpillars feed on various species of Violets. I wonder if these plants didn't do well the previous summer with the dry weather we experienced.

On the 21st June I went into the Lammermuirs in search of Northern Brown Argus at a well known site for them. I managed to see five, which wasn't too bad for a short visit. They are only know to occur in a few small colonies in East Lothian and there have been no records from a couple of those sites in recent years. However, they were spotted on two occasions on the Barns Ness transect, so it would seem that there is a colony there, too. Also eggs have been found in a couple of locations north of Traprain Law, so there are probably more colonies than we realise.

I saw five Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries when I was looking for Northern Brown Argus. They were the only records that I am aware of this year. It is a rare butterfly in East Lothian, which has only been recorded from a couple of sites.

The final species to be recorded in 2023 was the Grayling on 3rd July. There is a well-established colony on the pyramid at Meadowmill. I am aware of them being seen in an east Lammermuir Dean and I hear that they are often seen at the old power station site at Cockenzie. This year there was one seen at Levenhall, which is very exciting. Maybe our re-location project is going to be a success after all!

Sadly, there were no Brimstones seen in East Lothian in 2023, having had a few records in 2021 and 2022. We normally rely on the odd migrant flying in and I suspect that until we have more food plants available for them, they will not be able to maintain a presence in East Lothian.

I didn't receive any records of the Green Hairstreak in 2023. They are known to occur in a few remote locations in East Lothian, so we rarely get records of them. I saw some just over the border at Soutra, where they appeared to be doing well, so hopefully they are doing as well in their colonies in East Lothian.

Similarly, the recently discovered Purple Hairstreak occurs in a few small colonies in East Lothian. I didn't receive any records in 2023, but I am sure they would still have been at their covert colonies in the eastern Lammermuirs

There are 25 species of butterflies known to breed in East Lothian, with two or three additional species that are occasional visitors to the area. In 2023 I received 2244 ad hoc records, totalling 7737 butterflies. These were in addition to the transects, which recorded another 6025 butterflies. In addition to these, there are other places that butterflies are recorded such as iRecord, iNaturalist and the Big Butterfly Count. We are never going to get close to recording every single butterfly that is in East Lothian, but I think we have a pretty consistent recording method that gives us a good idea of what has been going on in East Lothian over the last few years.

I am very grateful to all of the Countryside Rangers and volunteers who contributed records and I am always keen for anyone else to send me details of butterflies they see in East Lothian. All of the records I receive are passed on to Butterfly Conservation.