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Unfortunately two weeks holiday in Italy went by too fast. At the moment I'm in France trying to 'survive' the extreme heat wave. During our stay in Italy we visited some higher mountains as one of my dream species is the Yellow-banded Skipper. Instead of this Skipper we noticed a lot of fluttering Clouded Apollos around the higher area's on almost every mountain. In one area we counted 45 Clouded Apollos at the same time in two meadows!
The Clouded Apollo has a remarkable flight and as soon as a cloud moves in front of the sun, this species drops into the vegetation.  Couded Apollo (Parnassius mnemosyne) in the vegetation I visited the one spot with the 45 Clouded apollos three times early in the morning; twice I found two butterflies climbing up between the flowers next to the path and the third morning I could not find a single butterfly. I did not enter the meadow to search for them as I was afraid I would step on them. In the afternoon we visited an other mountain top and we had lunch between the fluttering clouded apollos. I was happy to see that this species is doing well in the mountain areas!
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In the first week of my stay in Umbria I noticed a small dark butterfly visiting the white clover in the garden of the accommodation. When I looked through my binoculars, I recognized a Large chequered skipper....unfortunately he flew away after a few seconds. Although I was pretty sure of my observation, I still doubted as the habitat is completely different from the habitat I knew in the Netherlands. A few days before my departure I found a freshly emerged Large chequered skipper in the grass in the garden of accommodation:  Male Large Chequered Skipper After the sun arrived the next morning, this male opened his wings but closed them immediately as soon as I created some shadow....my mission to get a photo with open wings without hard sunlight failed.
But I will not complain as I was very happy to photograph this species again! I was completely surprised that I found an Italian Festoon (Zerynthia cassandra) because it was already June. The butterfly was sitting on a leaf close to his larval foodplant (Aristolochia rotunda). It was an old butterfly as the colours have faded but I was lucky that I found this leftover:  Italian Festoon (Zerynthia cassandra)
One week ago we arrived in Italy/Umbria, our accommodation is located in the middle of nature with a large plot of land; every day I hear the golden oriole singing and deers barking....a perfect place to unwind from stress and our busy life. Every evening I search for butterflies in the big wild part of the accommodation and a few days ago I found one of the dream species, the endemic Italian marbled white (Melanargia arbe), it's a species, as the name implies, which only appears in Italy:
The weather conditions that morning were perfect...no wind and some dew so the butterfly was very cooperative. The next evening I found this species roosting again but unfortunately the weather was too bad for photographing; so I hope to find this beautiful species again the coming days.
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Jibt dir dit Leben mal een Buff, denn weene keene Träne. Lach Dir'n Ast und setz Dir druff und baumle mit de Beene.
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