My Favourite Butterfly

by fames Mann

The mind boggles. He

lives in the south of

France, what exotic

insect is he going to __,--:,;,:rl~"!:::?~ come up with. ,..-/ We know going to it's be ~<\:/:-::::::·;, ,{.,/:> . ·-.:::•::::,'<.',-.,. ,.· • one of the •.

Swallowtails he has gone on about. No, far too common, they can be seen all summer long all over the place. The Two-tailed Pasha? Again no, much less common

but if you know where to go it is not difficult to

find but generally limited, to hilltop habitats.

How about one of the Blues or one of the Fritillaries, many different varieties of each species can be seen but with my limited knowledge, the pleasure of watching them is tempered, by the headache I get trying to sort out which one I am looking at, and then, to find that many different ones are quite happy to mix together to nectar. Not like Suffolk where I, the expert, knew that Bell Heather and July meant Silver-studded Blue anywhere else had to be Common Blue except for Newmarket Heath where it is possible to see a ChalkhilJ Blue on a day out from Cambridgeshire. The Fritillary limited to the odd Queen of Spain.

Each year several CamberwelJ Beauties can be seen together with lots of Large Tortoiseshells but these are only ever seen by chance so cannot be looked forward to. I get a lot of pleasure spotring things that are common in Suffolk but are not so often seen here. The "three whites" are rarely seen, our common one is Black-veined. The SmalJ Tortoiseshell is generaUy seen above the 1500 metre mark. Skippers abound, but the three common to Suffolk are very seldom seen.

He is thinning down the likely candidates, we can now see where he is heading, and we are going to end up with the Apollo. Sorry, wrong again, if you remember the lengths, distances, heights, times and even depths I went to, to find them you must agree that my relationship with them is likely to be of the love/hate nature. O.K. so what was easy to find? He found the beautiful Spanish Festoon by just driving up to Jujols and walking in the sunshine for ten Orange Tip by Douglas Hammersley minutes. This may be so, but with Jujols a three hour round trip plus time spent there, then only being present for a few weeks of the year, this is not it.

The butterfly that is my favourite is one that I can see over several months, is seen in a variety of habitats at different altitudes, can be looked forward to, brings back memories and is easy to spot and identify. Not asking much is it?

In England, when he first appeared each year flitting along the hedgerows we knew that summer had arrived. His stay was somewhat limited, compared to here where he has been seen from the second week of April, at sea-level until the third week of July at over 2000 Metre altitude. We see him most weeks during this period when on our Monday mountain walks.

The clue is in the "he" my definite favourite is the Orange-tip. The females are also around bur for a shorter period, and in less number and of course not so distinctive to spot.