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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.
In the last weeks we worked hard to (almost) finish the larval butterfly garden (for more information, please read my blog from 27 november 2025). I created a garden with logistic boxes in which I planted larval foodplants for a lot of butterfly species.   First, grass was growing between the boxes but it costed too much time to keep the paths nice and clean. This weekend we covered the paths with woodchips. The garden has two entrances, one with an arch of 5 meter against which we planted grapes and wild honeysuckle.  While we were busy, a female swallowtail visited the garden and layed a lot of eggs on the fennel and carrot plants....I hope the ants will not eat them. And last but not least....we created a nice corner were we can enjoy our coffee and the first sunlight:  Yesterday I was wondering when I will use my camera for the first time this year and today it happened; I saw a female orange-tip laying eggs on my honesty plants. Especially for this species I created two flower beds in my larval butterfly garden with pink honesty and it worked! I found three eggs, all laid between the flower buds. In the beginning the eggs are white but soon they will be orange.  Egg Orange-tip (Anthocharis cardamines) with 180 mm The start of 2026 has been made; I wonder what will come next....in the meantime we are very busy in the garden with creating new flower beds and making plans for building a greenhouse.
A new chapter of 'my' Little Owl story started on the 24th of December 2024 when I found a beautiful Little Owl nest box under the Christmas tree. On the 10th of January 2025 this nest box was placed in a birch tree in the back yard (with a camera in it) and in the evening of 13th January we had the first visitor in it....a male Little Owl...a few days later the female visited the nest box too. They both became regular visitors.
The 4th of June was the last time I saw them all together in front of the nest box. After that night the first chick left the nest box and the following days they were all leaving but still hanging around in the neighbourhood. One week later I saw mum with three young owls on my roof which gave me hope that they had survived the first week in which they could not fly. I do not remember the exact day but suddenly it was quiet around the nest box and for month no owl came to visit the box; time enough to clean the inside and to change the camera position a little bit.
Now that spring is in the air, I hope that they will breed again; during the breeding season dad is less shy and easier to spot; I feel privileged to have dinner on my terrace and to see a little owl sitting in my yard. Last year I wrote that 2024 was the album with the fewest butterfly images ever....I was wrong as my 2025 album is the half of 2024. The decline of butterflies is worrying and given the political developments I'm afraid nothing will change soon. Next to the decline of butterflies, 2025 was the year in which Jane Goodall went on her last big adventure. I met/saw her a few times and for me she was the most inspiring conservationist who gave everything to protect nature/planet earth!  Everybody makes a difference every single day and it's up to you which difference/impact you will make....so with Jane Goodall in my mind I wish you all Merry Christmas and the best for 2026! Merry Christmas - Prettige kerstdagen - Frohe Weihnachten - Joyeux Noël!!
As I was a long weekend in the Large Copper area, I visited the hot spot again the last morning. This time it was a magical morning as everything was covered with dew and on my way to the Large Coppers I noticed a lot of dragonflies and made plans to photograph them too. Although I was there the evening before and remembered their roosting spots, they were all roosting in different places well hidden in the grass. The first butterfly was the male which mated the evening before.
As it was my last morning/day in this area I tried to catch them with open wings:
My plans for the dragonflies must wait for another time/visit...when I was ready with the Large Coppers, the dragonflies were flying too.
As it is now the time of the year to make plans for next year, I'm considering to visit this area again. When the first signs became clear that we were able to buy the house we are now living in, I started dreaming creating a big butterfly paradise. During the first year we only mowed some paths and the rest was free to grow. I ordered some blackthorn and hawthorn to create two hedges for birds and with this order I received, by accident, a lot of young beech plants which I was allowed to keep. As these beeches needed to be plant quickly, I decided to create two gardens. One around the solar panels and one for a future larval butterfly garden.  April 2024: The start of the future larval butterfly garden In 2024 nothing happened (except mowing) in this part of the garden as a lot of other jobs needed to be done first. In 2025 I made plans for this garden and looked for garden boxes from steel (to keep snails away). As I needed a lot of boxes steel was no option for my budget so I decided to buy 40 used logistic boxes and to treat them with black stain (to protect them against moisture/rain).
For weeks I was busy staining them and once I was ready I started placing them in the larval butterfly garden, filled them a big layer of cardboard and protected the wood with plastic foil.
The next 'problem' was the amount of soil to fill the boxes as for every box I need 0,3 m3 of soil. We drove to a kind of 'waste' point where everybody from the village can get 1m3 of free soil at a time. The advantage is that it's free, the disadvantage is that the soil is made of collected garden waste and that it contains a lot of plastic and glass pieces.  The first part of the larval butterfly garden The first boxes are filled with soil and planted with larval foodplants for some butterfly species alternated with flowering plants.
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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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