As you may have noticed from my recent posts, it's that time of the year when butterflying tends to take over from birding but travelling to far flung corners of Belgium does have some birding rewards even if I am looking more down than up. On Friday, I visited the Fagne de Malchamps, south of Spa, spotting a Black Stork from the train on the way. Once there, the biggest surprise by far was a heard-only Wryneck calling from a dense thicket, with more Red-backed Shrikes and a nice Woodlark. It was, however, the butterflies I'd come for with Cranberry Fritillary being my main target. I did see one fritillary flying low over the fen but, despite following it for over 100 metres, it showed no signs of stopping. I thought that was probably the only species likely to be seen in that habitat, so was happy to count it as a 'probable' Cranberry, until I then found some Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries in some bushes nearby.
My first of the year and a nice species I've only ever seen in one other
location, but not what I'd come all this way to see. There was a second potential new species for my Belgian list, though, and that one did play ball. I first saw it buzzing around some buttercups and then noticed just two flowering spikes of its hostplant, Common Bistort, so sat down and waited.
I'd never really understood why it was called Purple-edged Copper, the purplish leading edge to the forewing not really showing well in the fieldguides, so I was very happy with the above photo of my first one in Belgium, having only seen it once before in the
Alps.
