It was clear to me at dinner the night before, and it was no surprise, that I was on holiday with a band of truly dedicated butterfly people (I don't know another way of describing them). The conversation got detailed, species were spoken about. I probably have more than the butterfly basics through chumming Buchanan on some of his adventures and by sheer osmosis, but I still have a resistance to this business of naming and then thinking you know something. I've taken this so far as to rename several birds and one insect and then regretted it because I can no longer remember the consensus name - the one that would allow me to communicate successfully with my fellow human-beings.
But my thinking is you that you don't want to lose the freshness of experience of encountering a thing by merely naming it. Also, it's just not how my brain works. I have trouble remembering peoples' names unless I've had some kind of meaningful encounter with them, and even then, I might know who they are but forget their names.
So anyway, none of that was going to fly in this company! I thought I'd keep my mouth mostly shut and just enjoy the hunt, which I generally do.
With a bit of work I could tell you where we went on the first day but I'm not going to - for one thing Sotiris was taking us to all his secret butterfly hot-spots which he's spent years finding, so it wouldn't be fair, and for another thing I don't want to do the work. All you need to know is that we were in places within an hour or so of Delphi. Let's get into some pictures and I'll endeavour to give you some names to go with them.
This dog was a stray, and there were many stray dogs to be seen - some in the towns like this one - which was very old and peaceable. There seems to be a kind of live and let live attitude to the stray dogs. I googled why there are so many and Google attributes it to " a different attitude to animals" but also to the massive economic crisis Greece went through when the banks crashed c. 2008, at which point people simply couldn't keep their animals any more. There were some very large dogs out on the roads in the country-side too though. Some were maybe farm dogs but some were also likely strays. Sotiris's wife Rachael told us that occasionally they form packs and then they can be a danger to people. This kind of put me off some of my thoughts that it would be lovely to cycle through Greece.
So I think this is an Adonis Blue because of the black lines going into the white fringe at the edge of its wings - but I'm not 100% sure.
This is a common blue. Yes I know it's brown, but the female blues are brown. Although the Brown Argus looks pretty much the same. In one kind of Blue - the Anomalous Blue - both sexes are brown. So don't tell me that's not just a little perverse.
And as an aside - with the whites - Large Whites and Small Whites cannot be differentiated by their size! So it's this kind of thing that has me saying I've just seen a Great White. And rolling my eyes.
an orchid
So this is a Brown Argus or a Southern Brown Argus or a Mountain Argus because of the black dots, but it could be a blue. It's handsome though isn't it?
This blue is the colour of a child's eye make-up
So Obsidentify (app for identifying things) says this is a Brown Argus but why it's that and not a female blue, I don't know. It's so smart through isn't it? With those little orange hearts on its wings?
Heath Fritillary and it's friend little skip in the background.
Actually I was thinking this was a Small Skipper but Obsidentify says Essex Skipper. Let's just call it a skipper.
Pretty sure this is a Forester Moth. Top notch.
This Lattice Brown came and sat on the van for me. Sotiris had said to shout if we saw anything exciting so I shouted "there's a thing that's a cross between a Meadow Brown and a Ringlet on the van!"
Out of focus I know, but the thing about the flipping yellows, they never sit still - until they did - later in the week. I'm pretty sure this is a Clouded Yellow and they're always hammering about.
Shield-bug
The Painted Ladies were so abundant that they got ignored from day 1, but I have to include one.
What could be better than a Heath Fritillary in a field of yellow flowers?
Who's this?
Pearl-bordered Fritillary, that's who!
Butterfly people in the field.
Spotted or Lesser-spotted Fritillary, take your pick.
Black veined White! In my view put all the other whites to shame - except the Balkan Marbled White, which we will get to.
Clouded yellow checking me out.
Queen of Spain Fritillary. At this point we were at the top of a windy hill and the sun was very bright.
Rose Chafer. Why's it green? You tell me.
This silver-studded blue sat on each of us in turn. This is Paul's finger.
This is Sotiris's binoculars. We could only tell for sure it was a silver-studded blue by seeing if it had a tiny spine half way down its front legs - which was confirmed by Peter with his macro lens.
These young people and their phones. Fried doughnuts for pudding! Yum yum!
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