Magyar pillangók

Long time ago, I heard about Farm Lator, the ‘hot spot’ for butterflies in Hungary which is located at the foot of the Bükk Mountains. Last year I received an invitation to join a group of passionate nature photographers and for a week and recently I travelled to Hungary by car. Together with Marielle, Hans, Ed, Mees, Debbie, Jacco, Frank and Gerard, I enjoyed a wonderful week with a lot of fun and beautiful nature encounters.

The first morning I had the mission Clouded Apollo and within a minute Jacco found an old and damaged specimen. In the absence of a ‘better’ apollo I photographed this oldie which represents the charme of faded glory.

Clouded Apollo

Some later Ed and Hans entered the meadow and two more apollo’s were climbing up to warm up. A few days later I entered the same meadow again but the Clouded Apollo’s were gone. 

During my stay I counted 53 butterfly species and as the temperatures were rising, day by day more butterflies emerged. On the first day Gerard showed me a yellow chrysalis which probably was a brenthis species but we did not exactly know which one. On Friday the 13th Marielle witnessed the ‘birth’ of the butterfly and we found out that it was the Marbled Fritillary (Brenthis daphne). 

Coloured chrysalis Marbled Fritillary

Freshly emerged Marbled Fritillary

An other big surprise was the discovery of a Large Copper which I found in the evening with a lot of wind. I decided to skip an other trip the next morning and returned together with Marielle to the area with the Large Copper. Just that morning it was cloudy and due to one big and dark cloud we had to wait extra long before the sun came out to show the brilliant coppery colour.

Large Copper

Next to all the beautiful butterflies we also found some Stag Beetles, snakes, lizards, a dormouse and on the last day as dessert the Rosalia longicorn. 

Stag Beetle

Rosalia Longicorn

More photos can be found in the Gallery A -> Z under Hungary.

Unfortunately the week went by too quick and I’m looking forward to our next trip together! 

First, I would like to thank everybody for the fun and nice conversations we had together and especially I would like to thank Gerard and Frank for their efforts to make this possible! 

Hans, Gerard, Ed, Debbie and Jacco at the 'Tard' area