Second catch in Aosta

The first week Aosta has passed by very quickly and until now we counted 40 butterfly species. Summer temperatures needs to rise and summer species still needs to emerge; a few days ago I saw in a higher area some fresh Orange-tips flying.
​But, I will not complain as I have no ‘choice stress’ and we often visited the area of the Iolas Blue as I wanted some decent photos of this species. On Wednesday we also visited this area after breakfast but all butterflies in this area were already flying around. I noticed a male Iolas Blue and dropped my camera bag on the path when suddenly a black snake crawled next to my bag. The first snake I have ever seen in Aosta, I was too much flabbergasted that I forgot to use my binoculars but I guess that it was a dark Western Whip Snake. No photos of the Iolas Blue as the sun was shining and they were flying around without resting.
​Yesterday, after two days of rain, we visited this area again and found a roosting Iolas Blue (I guess that she was surprised by the rain on Friday as between the showers the sun was shining shortly).

Female Ioloas Blue - Iolana iolas

Unfortunately she was sitting on a spot with the longest shadow….so I waited three hours before she opened her wings. Although I plamped the twig of her larval foodplant, the heavy wind blowed her up and down during three hours and taking pictures with open wings was a kind of mission impossible.

Female Iolas Blue

Female Iolas Blue

​Sitting three hours in the shadow and waiting for the sun was also not convenient for the cold I already have for weeks. So next week we're going to take it easy.