Graham Hart has lived in Ariege since May 1998 and has known the area since 1991.He has a life-long interest in natural history, which started with butterflies and birds and now includes other insects (especially moths) and flowers. He leads butterfly watching holidays in the region and is writing a book on the butterflies of Ariège. When not out chasing butterflies Graham works as a vet in Ax-les-Thermes.

10 August 2002

The weather remains very mixed, we are having a lot of rain and the temperatures are well below average, however as soon as it is sunny the temperature soars. The vegetation is very green and lush and there are lots of butterflies when it is sunny.

BUTTERFLIES
It has been an exciting few weeks, the peak period of the year species wise and this was reflected by a visit of a group from the West Midlands branch of Butterfly Conservation who stayed for four days with me acting as guide. We found 99 species of butterfly including a new life first for me, the Spanish Purple Hairtreak, which we found just over the border from Ariege in the Pyrenees Orientales. We saw upto 65 species in a day.

For me the most memorable species was of course my new life first the Spanish Purple Hairstreak, but perhaps even more exciting was the finding of two more colonies of Rebeli’s Large Blue. There we were just wandering through a calcarious meadow when from about twenty metres I spied the characteristic outline of Cross Gentian. I think the members of the group thought I had finally flipped as I let out a loud "wow" and went zooming of to look at a plant, not a butterfly. The there were five plants growing near one another and they were peppered with the characteristic white eggs of a lycenid butterfly. As there is only one species of butterfly that uses this food plant it was positive proof of the existence of a colony of Rebeli's Large Blue. When they heard this the members of the group were fascinated to look at the eggs through a hand lens, and after that everyone was on the look out for more Cross Gentain plants. The number of sites now known in the area now stands at five, all in the same part of the departement so suggesting that a detailed search would probably reveal a number of other colonies.

It has been a fantastic year for the Large Blue, they have been seen all over the place and often several at a time. We saw them at six of the nine sites visited by the West Midlands branch of BC.

For the people on the trip it was things like the Apollo, Moroccan Orange Tip and the Swallowtails, not forgetting the Large Blues, that seemed to cause the most excitement. Also people said just the huge scale of the wildscape they were in and the density of butterflies in some places, were amazing.

At one site someone found a Grayling which I probably found rather more exciting that everyone else since it is only the second record we have for Ariège of that species. The others were far more interested in Great Banded Graylings and Woodland and Rock Grayling which are just about impossible to differentiate. I usually differentiate Woodland and Rock Graylings by looking at the genitalia of the male under a hand lens-- there are some characteristic differences easy to spot like this. Of all of the Grayling type species it is the Great Banded which is my favourite. It seems to really enjoy flying, flittng around with strong wing beats and gliding inbetween, it seem a little less shy of humans than its cousins. It is easy to differentiate from the others when settled by an extra white mark on the leading edge of the underside hind wing. Another similar species is the Hermit, a bit smaller than the Great Banded Grayling but looking very similar in flight except the at the Hermit usually stays pretty low, takes short flights over open ground, very like the Grayling. This difference in behaviour is often a give away; however we went to a site where I expected to find Hermits: it was rather open grassy habitat. There was indeed a lot of a Grayling type species with an obvious white band flying around………but every last one of them was a Great Banded Grayling!! That is one of the sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating things about being here--you can go back to the same site on the same day a year later and not see the same species. This seems due to the vagaries of the weather in the mountains and I am sure other factors as well.

On the moth front, we ran moth traps a couple of nights which caught mostly species common in the UK, some rather pretty like Rosy Footman and Black Arches. Also there was a smattering of species not in British identification books such as Skinner, with a few of these a French book proved useful, but as this book was not exhaustive we were left with a few question marks. Of day flying moths Humming Bird Hawks have been regularly seen as have a number of species of Burnet, some of whom have white surrounding the red spots making them look very spectacular. I also found a black Forester moth; it is a species not a aberration.

FLOWERS
Due to the wet weather everything is very lush, the Marjoram is in full flower and attracting many butterflies, also various Valerian speices are providing both lovely colours and great places to see butterflies who love their nectar. The Buddlia bush is something which has naturalised here, it is very common along river banks and in valley bottoms and is of course a great attractant for butterflies and moths. Most of the Humming Bird Hawk moths that I see are at Buddlia. Soapwort is now coming into flower, with its light pink flowers sometimes in great swathes by roadsides and the edge of tracks. Up high the Dactylorhisa type orchids (I believe alpestris) are just passing their best. They are amazing, being very well marked and every one a bit different to all the others, and sometimes there are hundreds at a time in boggy places. Martagon lillies are now in flower, I have spotted them in two places this year. They are much less common than the Pyreneen Turks Cap lilly but none the less, where they grow they can be quite common. Their pink petals with crimson dots are very striking.

BIRDS
Birds are busy feeding their young so are keeping out of sight and working hard. However, by the hotel where my butterfly group stayed there were some Alpine Swifts nesting, in a large cave half way up a rather large cliff face. They made quite a racket all through the night, but then when its Alpine Swifts you can put up with it. (See Dave Watts' report on Birds and Wildlife of Summer for more detailed information on birds.)