Alora Butterflies - September 2019

I realised that I have not posted about our holiday to Malaga in September 2019, so ... 

We went on a week's holiday to southern Spain at the end of September 2019 to catch some much needed sun! We were at the same village we have visited on five previous occasions. Of course, I was keen to fit in a few walks to look for butterflies, but I wasn't expecting to see much with it being so late in the season. I did have a couple of nice surprises, though!

After an amazingly easy journey we arrived at the apartment in Alora in the early afternoon. Claire needed a sleep, which gave me a perfect excuse to go and look for butterflies. I started at my old favourite butterfly spot, which is just above the villa we used to rent. It is a steep valley up a mountain, and the way the track has been cut into the side of the valley shades an area where thyme, rosemary and lavender grows. During our normal July holidays these plants provide rare flowers and nectar in the area.

When I had visited this spot in April I was too early for any flowers, so there were very few butterflies. This time I was far too late for any flowers and after a long search all I saw was a female Lang's Short Tailed Blue, Leptotes pirithous. It was laying eggs on a rosemary plant.

I then decided to try a spot I had found in April above the village cemetery. Here there are tracks through olive groves where there had been a lot of wild flowers. However, in September there were no flowers left under the olive trees. I noticed that there were yellow flowers along the edge of a track and what I figured out was a helipad. These plants must have been able to get to the moisture under the concrete.

The plants proved to be a draw for butterflies. There were a couple of Long-tailed Blues, Lambides boeticus, flying about furiously in the heat, but they wouldn't stop for a picture. More biddable was this Mallow Skipper, Carcharodus alceae, which looked as though it had fairly recently emerged from its chrysalis.

This little Sage Skipper, Muschampia proto, was flying in the same spot.

There were also at least five Painted Ladies, Vanessa cardui.

Having had so many migrate to Scotland in 2019, I wondered to myself if these individuals had been born in Scotland and were on their way to Africa.

There is an area down by the river where in the spring there are a lot of wild flowers and in summer there is an area of mint, which proves very attractive to butterflies. In September there were far fewer flowers, other than the same yellow flowers I had seen in the hills. However, this still proved to be the best place to find butterflies near to the village, despite the goat herder regularly passing with this goats! Butterflies seen there included, Bath White, Pontia daplidice, Lang's Short-tailed Blue, Leptotes pirithous,

... some very worn Meadow Browns, Maniola jutina,

... some slightly worn Small Coppers, Lycaena phlaeas,

... Small Whites. Pieris rapae,

... a few male Mediterranean Skippers, Gegenes nostrodamus,

... and one quite different-looking female.

And a Rosy Grizzled Skipper, Pyrgus onopordi.

There were also a lot of  Painted Ladies and my favourite of all, the little African Grass Blue, Zizeeria knysna.

Occasionally, in the village I would see a small butterfly flying around a shrub bed or window box. These always turned out to be Geranium Bronzes, Cacyreus marshalli.

Most of the butterflies I saw at this time of year were the same species as those I usually see in the summer. I also visited a couple of areas further afield, Antiquera and Casarabonela, where I saw a few different species. I'll report on these in my next posts.

Malaga, Spain - Butterflies - July 2016

From the 1st to 15th July this year we had our annual family holiday in a villa 45 kilometres north west of Malaga. This is the third time we have holidayed there, coincidentally being there for exactly the same dates in 2012 and 2014 previously.

The holiday went off to a really good start, with me seeing a Small White, Pieris rapae, as we were driving out of the airport and then a Plain Tiger, Danaus chrysippus, flew across the road in front of us.

There is an area that I tend to walk to each day to look for butterflies just a little way up the road from the villa we rent. Over the previous two years I have learned that this is the best local spot to find them. Probably the most common butterfly there is the Southern Gatekeeper, Pyronia cecilia, although they weren't as numerous as the first year we visited.

Dusky Heaths, Coenonympha dorus, are beautiful little butterflies with the line of silver scales along the edge or their wings. They always seem to be flying around this area.

The track turns into a feint path that climbs along the ridge of the hills through olive groves. On the exposed parts of the path male Wall Browns, Lasiommata megera, take up territory, chasing after any other butterflies or large insect they see.

Common Blues, Polyommatus celina, were the other butterfly that could be relied upon to be there each day. They seem very much smaller than those that I see back home. I wasn't sure if I was just imagining this, but I also remember when I saw a Small Copper, Lycaena phlaeas, how much bigger it looked than the Common Blue. The two species are more-or-less the same size back home.

I only saw a Small Copper once this year. It seems to be a very widely distributed butterfly, but it's never seen in great numbers.

I was delighted to see a Striped Grayling, Pseudotergumia fidia, on the first day I walked up the path. It was there again in exactly the same place the second day too, but I didn't see it after that. Two years earlier I saw a lot of them in the next valley, but have never seen them at this spot before.

Mallow Skippers, Carcharodus alceae, seemed to have small territories along the road to the villa chasing after anything that flew anywhere near them.

Up the track, on the wild Thyme, Sage Skippers, Syrinthus proto, were doing the same thing.

On a couple of occasions I saw a Mediterranean Skipper, Gegenes nostrodamus. I saw this species very briefly for the first time two years ago.

Other butterflies that I saw occasionally were Clouded Yellow, Colias crocea,

... and Bath White, Pontia daplidice.

The Southern Brown Argus, Aricia cramera, is a beautiful little butterfly, which I regularly saw flying among the wild flowers.

I'll continue with the other butterflies I saw in my next post.

Spanish Skippers - July 2012

I am not very familiar with Skippers - we don't get any in this part of Scotland, so I have problems identifying any I see. This isn't helped by the fact that there are quite a number of very similar-looking species, but each species can be quite variable! During our recent holiday to Spain I came across five different species. Not that I realised that at the time, I had to post my pictures on the UK Butterflies forum, where Guy Padfield and Roger Gibbons kindly identified them for me.
The pictures below are the five species they identified for me, but please don't ask me what the identifying features are!!

This one I managed to identify myself - it's a Mallow Skipper, Carcharodus alceae.

And this is the other one I managed to identify as a Sage Skipper, Muschampia proto.

This is the underside of the Sage Skipper.

This one I am told is a Red Underwing Skipper, Spialia sertorius. I had noted that it was smaller than the others I had seen, but I had no idea what it was!

This is a Southern Grizzled Skipper, Pyrgus malvoides.

And this one is a Southern Marbled Skipper, Carcharodus baeticus. 

A page of brown and beige - very 1970s! I am very grateful to Guy and Roger for their help identifying these pictures. 

Valencia, Spain - Butterflies - July 2009

We spent two weeks in the Jalon Valley in South East Spain towards the end of July 2009. The area looked as though it should have been good for butterflies, but I was a little disappointed in the number I saw. Mostly "little brown jobs"!
I suppose I saw more than I managed to photograph, but with the heat many of the butterflies were very active. I think I would have seen more earlier in the year when there would have been more flowers out and everything would have been a little greener.

The Southern Brown Argus, Aricia cramera, was probably the most common butterfly around the village where we were staying. It was interesting that most of the butterflies I saw rested with their wings closed and with their heads pointed towards the sun. This made photographing them a little difficult as their wings would usually be in shade.

The other butterfly that could be relied on was Lang's Short-tailed Blue, Leptotes pirithous. As this one is doing, many of them seemed to be laying eggs on a variety of different plants.

I was very excited when my wife called me over to see this butterfly in a Lantana bush in the garden. It turned out to be a Cardinal Fritillary, Argynnis pandora. It is a beautiful, large butterflies with green and red shading on the underside of its wings.

I chased a number of little blue butterflies around the scrub area above the villa we were renting. They all turned out to be Common Blues, Polyommatus icarus. There are a lot of different blues occurring in Southern Spain, so I have to admit to being a little disappointed to find a species that occurs back home!

This is the one and only Dusky Heath, Coenonympha dorus,  I have ever seen. It settled under a root, which unfortunately cast a shadow across it. I managed this one picture and then it flew off. Although it is predominantly shades of brown it has a row of metallic silver scales towards the edges of its wings and I find it very beautiful.

These little South African interlopers had made themselves at home in a flower bed at the villa which was planted with Geraniums. The Geranium Bronze butterfly, Cacyreus marshalli, was found all over the village enjoying the Geraniums in window boxes and tubs.

Another first for me was this Holly Blue, Celastrina argiolus. It was spotted by my daughter as we returned to the villa late one afternoon.

While I was watching the Holly Blue I thought I saw a leaf move and noticed this Meadow Brown, Maniola jurtina, among the dry leaves next to the path to our villa. This is a very common butterfly back in Scotland and it seemed a little incongruous in the Spanish heat.

 This is a Mallow Skipper, Carcharodus alceae.

One day we went for a walk to what was supposed to be a lovely river with pools of clear water. The thought of jumping into the cool water after a hot walk was very appealing, but was dashed when we arrived to find a dried out river bed! A consolation on the way back was this Purple Hairstreak, Favonius quercus, that was flying around a shady spot. This is the subspecies ibericus, which is much more faintly marked than the regular Purple Hairstreak.

The Small Coppers, Lycaena phlaeas, would always rest with its wings closed in the Spanish heat. In Scotland I always see them resting with their wings open, trying to absorb the sun's rays.

This Southern Gatekeeper, Pyronia cecilia, gave a quick flash of colour and just long enough for me to take a slightly blurred picture before it flew off.

This Wall Brown, Lasiommata megera, was nicely camouflaged against a wall. This is another beautifully marked butterfly.

As well as the above I saw various other butterflies that didn't stop for a picture:
Large White - Pieris brassicae
Painted Lady - Vanessa cardui
Swallowtail - Papilio machaon
Long-tailed Blue - Lampides boeticus
Scarce Swallowtail - Iphiclides podalirius
Clouded Yellow - Colias crocea
Small White - Pieris rapae
Speckled Wood - Pararge aegeria
Wood White - Leptidea sinapis
A total of 22 butterflies which isn't bad and is more than occur back home!