Although in June the place was a little greener, this July it seemed particularly dry. Initially I thought this may just be me comparing it to June, but over the two weeks we were there I realised that it was drier than normal.
This Sage Skipper, Syrinthus proto, was guarding a spot on the track outside the villa, where I have seen one every year.
Spain had more than normal levels of rainfall over the winter and spring, causing a lot of vegetation growth, but very hot dry weather since had dried it all out. The wildfires seen across Spain were the result of all of the dry vegetation.
In previous years I would see loads of Southern Gatekeepers, Pyronia cecilia, hiding from the sun in shady areas along the track. This year I only chanced upon a couple.
My usual walks up the track close to the villa didn't result in as many butterflies as I normally see there. A few kilometres along the track there is a small, steep hill, where I have seen Swallowtails and Wall Browns in the past. At least this hill didn't disappoint this year. There were a lot of Painted Ladies, Vanessa cardui, flying in an area of Thyme at the base of the hill.
Higher up there were Long-tailed Blues, Lampides boeticus, and Wall Browns, Lasiommata megera, battling for territories.
Even on days sitting around the pool there were very few butterflies flying through the garden, which was quite unusual. A very bedraggled Lang's Short-tailed Blue was rescued from the pool the first day, and we saw a Swallowtail and a couple of Small Whites flying past.
The places where I used to find flowering Thyme and Lavender had much reduced plants with very few flowers. As well as being very warm and dry it was also quite windy, which didn't help.
I was very disappointed to see that some work had recently been done on the river, to ease flooding and erosion problems. The area of Mint and other wild flowers where I used to see so many butterflies had been completely cleared. However, I spied an untouched area on the other side of the river, so drove round to check it out.
I was delighted to find an area of small flowers where there were about ten African Grass Blues, Zizeeria knysna, flying.
There were also Southern Blues, Polyommatus celina.
Small Coppers, Lycaena phlaeas.
And Southern Brown Argus, Aricia cramera, a nice selection of small butterflies.
My final count of species seen (22) wasn't too much lower than normal, but there was certainly not the quantity of each species that I would normally see. The number of species was boosted by a visit to Antequera, which I will talk about in my next post.
