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Eunice was one of the February storms this year which struck the Netherlands on the 18th of February. Heavy gusts of 145 km/hour caused a lot of fallen trees and other damage. After the storm I searched twice for eggs of the Purple Hairstreak; I needed to be quickly as fallen trees and large branches were cleaned up quickly. After two searches I found 32 eggs on fallen branches, often with two eggs. Just before my trip to Greece a lot of the eggs were hatching and when I came back I had 13 little caterpillars (about 8 eggs never hatched):
I kept them on a cool place and when the caterpillars were finished eating they transformed into 13 little brown chrysalises. Due to the summer temperatures in the Netherlands 10 of them (five males and five females) have already emerged yet and flew into freedom.  Purple Hairstreak female - Sony A7RII, tripod, remote release, 180 mm, 1/25 sec, F11, ISO100 I also tried to catch the males with open blue wings but the blue is only visible under a certain angle and every time I moved my camera a little bit they were gone.....but I'm happy with this female who was cooperative and did not fly away immediately when I created some shadow over her.
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It's almost two weeks ago that I visited the Eifel again together with the Jordan brothers. We visited a lot of spots and the only thing I can say....it was scary to see how the vegetation of some places had changed enormously. Flowers and larval foodplants are pushed away by grass and other quick growing plants. A small bog area was transformed into high grassland with a few bog flowers left. The amount of Bog Fritillaries was not bad but they were almost fighting about the flowers; the next morning we found two fritallaries on one flower next to the path.
Our wish was to find Lesser Marbled Fritillaries but the meadow in which we found a lot of them in 2018 was completely transformed....no larval foodplants, no flowers....only grass. Fortunately we found one butterfly near the path on its larval foodplant and by the time my camera was ready for the first photo the sun arrived and some seconds later the fritillary was gone.  Lesser Marbled Fritillary Despite the low amount of butterflies we counted 28 species and we had a nice weekend with of course delicious 'Kaffee & Kuchen'.
More than two weeks ago I returned from a short family holiday to the Dordogne/France. It was nine years ago that I visited the Dordogne for the last time and I have to admit that I forgot how attractive this region is. On the way we visited a well-hidden 'old friend' in the forest....after twelve years I was happy that he was still there and that nothing has changed!  My old friend Simca Aronde....somewhere in France For one week we rented a house with a terrain of 1,5 hectare, enough to search and find nice butterfly species; the two most common species were the Pale Clouded Yellow and Marsh Fritillary.
Due to a cold spring the number of butterflies was low but fortunately the weather was good and day by day the number was increasing. A very nice surprise was the presence of the Provencal short-tailed Blue (Cupido alcetas).
It won't be long before I will return to the Dordogne again!
The other location of the False Apollo we visited four times and we stayed there almost the complete day as I wanted decent photos of this species. I learned that the hour before they dive into the bushes to hide for the night they are less active and that they were sitting longer on a flowers or on the path, but I needed to approach them very carefully.  Male False Apollo (archon apollinus) Although I photographed in the morning the same male butterflies as in the afternoon, which gave me the impression that their area is not that big, I never saw them the day after. Every day I photographed other False Apollos....the same for the female butterflies. This lovely lady with a lot of red in her wings I did not see again.  Female False Apollo (archon apollinus) An other female False Apollo was very slow around noon....first I thought that she was attacked by a spider. When the wind moved her wings I learned that she emerged earlier that day. I was watching her and hoped that she would have been noticed by a male....and suddenly it happened..... a male noticed her and within a few seconds they were mating:  Mating male & female False Apollo (archon apollinus) My mission False Apollo would be 100% complete with photos of the eggs and caterpillars. I found three different kind of larval foodplants but unfortunately without any eggs or caterpillars.
Nevertheless, mission False Apollo accomplished! After two days of seeing my first False Apollo ever, I returned early in the morning to this spot with the hope to find a sleeping one....at that time not knowing that this species have an other sleeping strategy. After a long search without finding any butterfly, the sun arrived. Shortly after the sun touches a field of grassland, a grey/dead bush near the path started moving....a female False Apollo had awakened and started climbing out to enjoy the first sunshine:  Female False Apollo (archon apollinus) Two days after this photo was taken I found this species on an other location and observed them the hole day and learned how they disappear in the bushes of grass. On a large field I first saw a male and a minute later a female diving into the dry/dead bushes of grass and I could not find them back. Although a lot of other butterfly species were still flying around, the False Apollo was ready for the night good camouflaged low above the ground....I guess that this is the reason why they have the name Apollo.
Yesterday evening I visited the Maasheggen (an area with wet meadows near the river Maas) for the first time this year. Since weeks I was saying that I will skip photographing Orangetips this year......so I was searching for other white species. The amount of Cuckooflowers per meadow was completely different comparing to last year. There are a lot of smaller with bushes surrounded meadows which are perfect for detailed macro work but not suitable to catch the sunrise. Fortunately I found a larger meadow with roosting Orangetips and Green-veined Whites....on one Cuckoo flower two Green-veined Whites were roosting.  Green-veined White - Sony A7RII, tripod, remote release, 180 mm, 1/250 sec, F3.5, ISO100 With two roosting butterflies and a red sun in my mind I returned to this area again this morning....unfortunately one of the butterflies left the flower and was roosting in the grass and the sun was shining too bright too soon.
But, I'm happy with this image and I wish all my Dutch friends a happy national 'orange' holiday and for Gerard: Happy Birthday!!! On the fourth day of being in Greece I saw my first False Apollo (Archon apollinus), a male, and some seconds later I saw the second one flying around. It was warm and sunny and they were very active. Making a decent photo of them was impossible as they like to sit low on the ground. After a beautiful day with lot of imperfect images I decided to come back two days later early in the morning. The larval foodplants of the False Apollo are Birtwort (aristolochia) species which are also the foodplants of the Southern and Eastern Festoon.
Twice I found a roosting Southern Festoon (Zerynthia polyxena); the Eastern Festoon (Zerynthia cerisy) was an other story as I only saw male butterflies around noon which were rushing past.....without tripod I followed one and finally I have one shot:  Eastern Festoon male (Zerynthia cerisy) The Southern Festoon is a more lazy flyer, not that quick as the Eastern one, and much easier to photograph but like the False Apollo they like to sit on spots near/on the ground with a lot of disturbing elements around. After I had found the second roosting Southern Festoon I waited until he opened his wings.  Southern Festoon male (Zerynthia polyxena) Finding the exact locations of the False Apollos (archon apollinus) took me a few days as I needed warmth and sunshine to see them flying. We had cold days (8 degrees max) with a lot of wind (force 5)....impossible to find the False Apollo. After being three days in Greece I finally found the first spot with at least 4 False Apollos flying around. Shortly after our arrival a mini-group (with a big butterfly net) arrived with the same goal....photographing the False Apollo. I took some 'shots' of a female of the False Apollo but not the kind of photos I'm longing for. Because this species is feeding from flowers low above the ground it's very difficult to make 'my kind of photo's' from this species without disturbing elements. As it was the first warm day a lot of other butterfly species were flying around too and I was happy to see two mating pairs of butterflies:
After two hours the mini-group left this spot and we were alone again....sitting under a big tree we observed the butterflies the rest of the day and noticed that the False Apollo like to dive into the bushes of grass in the afternoon to survive the night. From the websites of two tour operators I learned that there would be a chance that one or both tour groups will return to this False Apollo spot the next day, so we choose a drive through the mountains to search for other spots....during this tour we found our first orchids:  Ophrys mammosa During the winter I was longing that much for butterflies that my partner & I booked a trip to Greece to photograph spring butterflies. From reports which I found on the internet I learned that early April is a perfect time to find some nice species in the mountain area around Alexandroupolis. On the first day, discovering the hills and countryside around Alexandroupolis we noticed two little puppies running near the road. Later that day we saw them again just outside the village Avantas near some other poor and skinny dogs.  Like a heavy car accident just happened....it was impossible to ignore this kind of skinny dogs....they needed help. We drove to a supermarket and bought our first big bag of dog food. Every day we drove to two, three our four spots with very skinny dogs and feed them. Some dogs were very shy but a few were very happy when we daily arrived and they greeted us very happy.
 On day 7 we found one of the little puppies dead....hit by a car and left dead on the street. I placed his dead body under a tree and with a lot of tears we said farewell to him.  RIP Sweetie This first blog is not about butterflies but dedicated to the street dogs of Greece who all deserves a better life! Adopt.....don't shop!!!
Two days ago I noticed a Large Tortoiseshell high in a birch near a sunny forest path. Unfortunately he, or she, had no intention to come down. After a while I decided to continue walking and a few hundred meters later I noticed a second Large Tortoiseshell. Yesterday afternoon I was on the same place again and.....they had found each other! High in the birch they were sitting together enjoying the sun and from their behavior I learned that they were female and male.  19th March 2022 - Large Tortoiseshell The female stayed high in the birch and liked the advances the male was making but not enough for copulation. After a while the male flew away, patrolling the forest path and a few times he was sitting low enough for some pictures (taken with my smartphone). It's nice to have this species back in the Netherlands but it's also worrying that I do see this species more than his little brother, the Small Tortoiseshell. But I will not complain, it's a good starter of the butterfly season!  19th March 2022 - Large Tortoiseshell |
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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