Luxerflying

Spurred on by my success with the Alcon Blue, I headed down to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg last week in the hope of finding another new butterfly, Nickerl's Fritillary.  I was probably too late for that species since I didn't see any but I did manage to record 31 species of butterfly in the country's largest nature reserve, just west of Dudelange.  This Weaver's Fritillary posed nicely on a leaf for me and there were lots of Silver-washed Fritillaries around.  I glimpsed one Purple Hairstreak and then found a tree which had several White-letter Hairstreaks, a species I've only seen once before, so I spent a long time trying to get a photo of them up amongst the leaves, which was far from easy.

Blue summer

It's been three, long years since I last added a new species of butterfly to my Belgian list.  Having already seen 81 of the 90 or so regularly-occuring species, the remainder are all rare, extremely localised and most have very short flying times, meaning a carefully planned trip to the right place at just the right time is required to have a chance of connecting with one.  Yesterday, I made an expedition to the Turnhoutse Vennengebied north of Turnhout for Alcon Blue, which is only found in three or four places in Belgium.  There were lots of Silver-studded Blues flying around trying to confuse me but, as soon as I spotted an Alcon Blue, I knew it had to be that since it was much bigger.

I only saw the one adult although I did also find two eggs on a gentian, the caterpillar's foodplant. 
Two short walks in the forest last week were much bluer, though, since I got to see a Kingfisher entering its nesthole with a fish and spent a while photographing damselflies, including Azure Bluet and this Small Red-eyed Damselfly.

Cuter and cuter

Challenging the Grey Wagtails of my last post for the cutest baby prize, this Little Grebe chick was one of two I found being fed by their parents in the Sonian Forest yesterday.  There were lots of young birds around, indicating a good breeding season, and I even got to watch a young Buzzard being taught to fly by one of its parents.  At the other end of the cuteness scale was this juvenile Carrion Crow, whereas a fearless baby Robin allowed me to get really close.