A Few Butterflies from Spain

On my previous trip to Spain, I ended up seeing about 60 species of butterflies. I was surprised to find that I was still able to recognize a few. Once Paul arrived, we spent 20-30 minutes or so at both Monfrague and the Sierra de Gredos to photograph cooperative butterflies.

Two-tailed Pasha (by Paul Thompson)

At Monfrague, the main highlights were Two-tailed Pashas and an abundance of hairstreaks. We also saw a number of Spanish Gatekeepers and a couple of Cleopatras, although the later eluded the camera. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, the hairstreaks all seemed to be just the same two species.

Spanish Purple Hairstreak (by Paul Thompson)

False Ilex Hairstreak (by Paul Thompson)

Southern Gatekeeper (by Paul Thompson)

I then found another butterfly that looked rather like a Common Snout, a species that occurs in America. We saw several of these and they turned out to be Nettle Tree Butterfly, which is in the same sub-family as the Common Snout.

Nettle Tree Butterfly (by Paul Thompson)

In the Sierra de Gredos, a brief birding spot at a somewhat lower altitude morphed into a butterfly photography session. Unfortunately a boleria (e.g. Pearl-bordered or similar) fritillary eluded the camera and we didn't bother with the Clouded Yellow-types, given how hard identification is, even from photographs.

Long-tailed Blue (by Paul Thompson)

Glanville Fritillary (by Paul Thompson)

Sooty Copper (by Paul Thompson)

Comments

A Productive Pelagic

Whenever there is an El Nino, there is a lot of anticipation of rare pelagic species owing to the changes in water temperatures and potential displacement of species far from their normal abodes. In practice, there are a number of species – Least and Black Storm-petrels, Craveri’s Murrelets and Elegant Terns, for example – that do predictably move further north, but we are still waiting for Wedge-tailed Shearwaters to show up more commonly even though they are quite regular in numbers around the southern tip of Baja California. One group of birds that has become much commoner over the last decade is boobies. I was hopeful that the “Super El Nino” would bring in an influx of Masked, Nazca and Red-footed Boobies into Southern California mirroring the effect of the “Blob” a few years ago. Although sea surface temperatures were much warmer than normal in the spring, after that they failed to advance much through the early part of the summer and it was only in August that they sta...

A Big Montane Year Arrives

Although a few bird species that require coniferous forest are resident in the highest peaks of the San Rafael Mountains in Santa Barbara County, these mountains need special access permissions and require multi-hour drives on poorly maintained dirt roads. As a result, it makes more sense to drive a slightly longer amount of time to the California Sierras or other high mountain ranges in Southern California to see these species and several others that do not breed or winter regularly in the county. In my case, you may have read here that I just had driven a lot further to see many of these species in Washington and British Columbia. However, in some years the failure of cone crops can trigger irruptive behavior in many montane bird species when they can appear in areas far from their normal range. On the morning of September 5, I visited the Hollister Tech Park, which is sometimes a productive site for migrating warblers. I found very few warblers but was surprised to turn up...

Return to the 49th State

Over 30 years ago, I made my first visit to Alaska. Several more followed over the next few years and culminated in me publishing the state’s first bird-finding guide. I eventually sold 3000 copies before passing the rights on to the American Birding Association as the basis for a new guide. Since the mid-90s, I have only visited the state once, with my family in 2008. That trip was memorable for the wrong reasons as my young son and daughter spent the long drives to Denali and the Seward Peninsula constantly fighting and bickering in the back of the car. Fortunately, they grew out of this after that. A return visit was always in my plans because of my goal to see again the great majority of western USA and European bird species. Two of my old UK birding friends, Paul Thompson and Andy Silcocks, were keen to join as they had never been to the Arctic or the Bering Sea area. After a fair amount of planning and booking, we arranged to meet up in Anchorage on May 30 and from there ...

The Goleta Birder

Search This Blog