Blue bonanza (part three)

As well as three new species of butterfly, my trip to the Gaume also got me a new dragonfly species with this Western Clubtail.  Since then, I've just done a little birding around Amsterdam, where a small nature reserve along the IJ held some Red-crested Pochards, including one female with six ducklings, plus lots of displaying Cuckoos.  We also heard one Savi's and several Grasshopper Warblers singing but the highlight, and continuing June's blue theme, was this handsome male Bluethroat, which seemed to be both singing and guarding his recently fledged young.

Bluethroat by Christophe Reijman. Bedankt!

Blue bonanza (part two)

I was very pleased with my two new blue species but had only had brief glimpses of a few fritillaries in flight, until I went round the outskirts of the reserve and came across this flowering bramble bush which had attracted three Marbled Fritillaries, as well as a White Admiral.

Although not a lifer, I'd only ever seen this species once, in 2015, so I took a few pictures and then moved on to my next destination on the outskirts of Virton.  Here, I discovered a lovely walk which took me past this poppy field.  Behind it, a farmer was mowing, attracting four Black Kites plus a curious juvenile Red Kite.

There was also a flowering bush covered in around 40 butterflies, most of which were Meadow Browns together with at least ten Small Tortoiseshells, and one each of Green-veined White, Comma and another fritillary.  This fritillary was obviously slightly different and I knew it was another new species for me but it didn't stay around long so I continued on, locating several more of them in the marshland along the River Ton.

This is Lesser Marbled Fritillary, only slightly smaller than Marbled Fritillary and very difficult to tell apart from its bigger brother.  The only sure-fire way is by the colouration of one of the cells on the underwing; yellow and the same colour as the rest of the band in Lesser, a deep orange in Marbled.  Here is a comparison of the two with the all-important cell highlighted.

Blue bonanza (part one)

Since my most wanted bird refused to show, my attention has again turned back to butterflies and so, earlier this week, I returned to the Gaume, at the southernmost point of Belgium.  I was hoping to find some more fritillaries and decided to first visit a reserve which also has Silver-studded Blue, a back-up lifer should the fritillaries not show.  The first blues I saw, however, were totally different and unexpected.

This is Green-underside Blue, which is easy to identify thanks to the very obvious turquoise flush on the underwing.  In fact, almost all the blues which stopped long enough for me to photograph seemed to be this species, which is restricted to a few localities in the very south of Belgium.  Eventually, though, I also found my first Silver-studded Blues.  I had long wondered about its name, until I read that it was due to the silvery centres to the black spots on the underwing which are solid black in most other species with a similar pattern.  Here, first, is a male with its wings open, followed by a female with an arrow pointing to one of her silver studs.

Back to the birds

I've been digressing quite a lot lately, with butterflies, orchids, dragonflies and even the owlfly of my last post.  Last weekend, however, news broke of a Greenish Warbler, a potential lifer, singing near the German border so I've had a tense week hoping it would stay.  Greenish Warblers overshoot most springs but very rarely stay for more than a couple of days and are usually in hopelessly inaccessible places.  After lots of juggling with bus and train timetables, I eventually found a bus stop only 5km's walk from the bird, which was still singing Friday, and so, yesterday being my first free day since it was found, I gave it a try.  Once there, it didn't take long to hear it sing twice from the other side of the river but then it shut up completely for the next half hour.  This scenario repeated itself several times over the next two hours with the bird giving just one brief burst of song and then remaining slient, making itself impossible to locate.  Four other birders were there with me and no-one managed to see it at all so Greenish Warbler now joins Corncrake, Dupont's Lark and Great Snipe on my unwanted list of heard-only species.  Very frustrating, therefore, although the long wait was livened up by three passing Black Storks, a male Goshawk and a Raven.  On the way there, I found a pair of Whinchat, a scarce breeding bird in Belgium and probably the first time I've seen them on their breeding grounds.  There were also lots of Violet Coppers and Bog Fritillaries flying around, which I pretty much ignored in my hurry to get to the warbler, but had time to photograph after I'd given up.  I particularly like this one where my butterfly portrait was photobombed by a hoverfly!

On a roll!

Earlier this evening, a friend mailed me a picture of a day-flying moth he'd photographed while hiking in the Alps.  I didn't have a clue what it was, other than guessing that it was probably one of the huge and extremely varied family of geometrid moths.  After about 45 minutes of searching the Internet, however, I managed to come up with the identification!  Spurred on by this success, I decided to finally have a go at identifying this gorgeous thing I'd photographed in Cyprus six years ago and which has remained unidentified ever since.

Back then, I'd presumed it was also a day-flying moth or perhaps some weird wasp, yet it didn't take me long at all to discover its true identity. 
This big-eyed bug goes by the name of Macaronius Owlfly and is not a moth at all since the owlflies belong to the family of net-winged insects including lacewings and antlions.  I'd never even heard of them until now but, if this one is anything to go by, I'd certainly like to see some more.

Brussels dragonflying

Whereas my month of May was taken over by butterflies, June has gotten off to a distinctly dragonfly-focussed start.  This is a Red-veined Darter, a predominantly Mediterranean species which irrupts northwards every few years and has suddenly appeared in several of our city parks.  Today, I found at least ten different species on my regular patch, plus a possible Lesser Emperor which got away before I could be sure of the identification.

The unusually numerous Scarce Chasers, on the other hand, were showing extremely well. There were also several Norfolk Hawkers, which were constantly flying and rarely perching although I did eventually manage to get a picture of one of these 'green-eyed cigars'.