Greek Holiday - first butterflying day

 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!

Greek Holiday - the next day

 The next day was to be the official start of our butterfly holiday with Greenwings Wildlife Holidays. We were all to meet back at Athens Airport at 2.30pm - so me and PB had the morning to kill. We knew the way back to the airport now, and the Economy Hotel let us leave our bags there until later, so we set off to explore Athens in the daylight.

Now that Peter knew that we were in spitting distance of the Acropolis and what-not, he thought it would be rude not to go and climb the hill as far as we could before we had to pay. We set out in the burning 30 degree heat, squinting into the bright light. Taking the possibility of it being hotter and brighter than we could handle into account, Peter had brought along Factor 30 suntan lotion. I had been sceptical back at home if we'd really need that. We never push the factor above 15 usually - and even then stop using it within a couple of days of arriving somewhere sunny - but this day I slathered it on, and continued to do so for the whole holiday.

I was also a bit sceptical about the need for a forced march through the city before joining up with the tour - but Buchanan was determined - so off we went.

Monastiraki Square, just down from our Metro stop, was hoaching with tourists. As we climbed the hill we got a bit more space. We went as far as we could before the official Acropolis entry, and then went for a wander round and about.

We got to the end of a street and saw there were some green areas over a large road so we crossed and found a little park and some flowers and before we knew it we were butterfly hunting rather than sight-seeing!

Well actually, Peter did some butterfly hunting but pretty soon I retreated onto a bench under the shade of a tree and messaged with my sister. We were stationed at the entry to a rather over-grown park and young single men seemed to keep arriving, holding onto their phones. I thought that maybe we were in a Grindr hot-spot; a thought that was further supported by the message that was inscribed on my bench.

Peter was oblivious to the stream of young men entering the park.

This cat was very friendly to me and too lazy to start anything with the pigeons.

Eventually we got moving again and went a bit wrong marching back through central Athens, only to be rescued by my phone again which steered us to the right and got us back to places that we knew. Picking up our bags from the Economy Hotel and marching with them on our backs back down to the Metro in the hot sun was a bit grim and we hadn't left ourselves enough time to grab something for lunch. Luckily I still had one of my big cheese sandwiches left over from the flight. It had survived 24 hours and was now more like a grilled cheese sandwich. We ate it on the Metro on the way back to the airport.

We met up with our Greenwings guide - Sotiris - and our three fellow butterfly hunters in the Arrival Hall and then set off for Delphi.

View from the van on the way to Delphi.

I was delighted to bag the seat furthest back in the van. I couldn't hear all the chat over the sounds of the air-conditioning and the engine noises, so I let my mind drift free watching the Greek landscape swish by.

After 3 or so hours we arrived in Delphi and settled into our first hotel. The view from our room was astonishing; the land falling away from where we were to olive forests and eventually down to the sea. House Martins or swallows darted about in the sky nearby.

We went out for our first evening meal together - Sotiris taking the initiative and ordering several salads to share before our main course. It set the pattern for the rest of the trip. I ordered too much food for my main course and then was full after I'd filled up on the delicious salads and bread - but forced myself to eat everything anyway. The main dishes tended to come with 'potatoes' and what "potatoes" was was a big, lavish serving of chips. However I was brought up to eat all my food. And so was Peter. To our credit, we went easy on the wine; setting a pattern for most of the trip of sharing a half litre of wine with fellow traveller Liz. 

There was a tiny balcony outside the window with a thin metal railing which I did not trust, and a long drop. I stood out on it anyway to try to get pictures of the lovely gathering dusk.