After a long day of travelling, I was happy leaving the highway. Near the highway exit I stopped to take something from the car trunk and noticed some Great Burnet plants. More for fun I took a look and started to dance when I noticed a Dusky Large Blue on Great Burnet. A few seconds later I noticed two females Scarce Large Blue who were laying eggs on/in the flower buds. Again I started dancing….unfortunately my camera was packed well in the car so I had continue without one photo…..but, my first trip was fixed up. My second trip was the place of the Dusky Large Blues which I discovered last year. Leaving in the dark has the (dis) advantage that I had no idea about the weather; so arrived in thick grey clouds on the butterfly spot….the same weather which I had last year. Although it rained during the night, the butterflies started moving directly as soon as I came too close. What a surprise when I found one single Scarce Large Blue between all the Dusky Large Blues.
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Everything has to come to an end.....two weeks holiday in the Bavarian Forest went by too quick unfortunately. The days that the weather was not against me were rare. I enjoyed the few mornings when my alarm clock went off early and with good music on Bayern 3 it was a pleasure to drive to the butterfly spots which I had discovered. The first spot was a small field near the road to the Dreisessel mountain in which I found a lot of erebia’s, some Nickerl’s Fritillaries and Purple-edged Coppers and to which I returned just in time to catch one of the two sunrises of my two weeks stay. Later I found near this spot the very endangered Cranberry Blue and some Violet Coppers (see the chapter Bayerischer Wald). The second spot which I visited three times were the Dusky Large Blue area (see my both former blogs). The Dreisessel and the mountain tops nearby have some remarkable ‘hedgehog’ look because of the aggressive ( they attack and kill live trees) bark beetle. I had the plan to visit the Dreisessel area very early before sunrise but due to a lot of rain and/or fog my plans will move to 2015 when I will return to the same accommodation/area.
It’s not often that I return to the same place, but Bayern and especially the people I met were special! And, last but not least the area is beautiful and has a lot of rare (endangerd) butterfly species to offer. In thick fog I left the accomodation early this morning to drive to the Dusky Large Blue area for the third time. Although I was early, a lot of Germans were on their way too through the butterfly area and some of them were driving very fast. The first butterfly I found after a search of one hour.....he was sitting near the road and again I tried to catch him together with a German car. Unfortunately my favourite German car was not passing so I had to deal with other brands. By the time I decided to go home, I entered an other meadow with some larval food plants which I had visited the second time and on which I did not find one single butterfly. Today, I immediately found two Dusky Large Blues on their larval food plants!
Remarkable that in three visits I found them widely spread. One of the two butterfies were sitting in front of Bird’s-Foot Trefoil which gave a special yellow background. Funny, how sometimes things happen. Since years I was hoping to find the Scarce Large Blue and Dusky Large Blue during a holiday. I remember how I was searching in Austria in 2008 for them in area’s with Great Burnet (larval foodplant of both species).
Again my alarm clock went off early today and after a 25 km drive I arrived at the Dusky Larg Blue area......a road with Great Burnet. Photographing butterflies was very risky as most people were driving very fast and the road was too small for two cars. In the first place I thought that this species was only living next to this road but some later I entered a meadow in which I also found resting butterflies and a lot of Great Burnet. As I noticed yesterday some more larval foodplants on the other side of the meadow I assume/hope that this group has a 'safe' habitat.
On the hottest day this year (36 degrees), I arrived in the southern part of Germany near the Austrian and Czech border. It’s a beautiful area but I immediately noticed that every meadow and slopes has been mown. No wild flowers around the accommodation or nearby! Yesterday evening, after having a tastefull pizza in the rain under a sun screen the weather changed. This morning it was very foggy and I started photographing alpaca’s in the fog in case it would be again a butterflyless day (= not photographing butterflies).....but fortunately it turned out differently from what I had expected. Driving to the Czech border at the ‘Dreisessel’ point, on 1250 m above sealevel, I noticed some wild small fields near the road; immediately I found a lot of butterflies....I almost stepped on a resting Dark Green Fritillary which flew away unfortunately. I found mostly erebia’s but also some other fritillaries, whites and two Purple-edged coppers. As it was still foggy it was a challenge to photograph butterflies as at this height it was windy; the left one is taken an exposure of 1/100 sec. and the right one with 1/30 sec. Tomorrow morning I will use the car again for hopefully a good second catch!
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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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