I met a couple of guys who were looking for orchids and hadn't found any so they were over the moon when I showed them this one I'd discovered by chance whilst trying to photograph a Dingy Skipper. Grizzled Skippers were abundant and I managed to get a good enough photo to identify my first Red-underwing Skipper.
I had hoped to see some fritillaries, however, so the orchid guys told me to visit another hillside visible in the distance, where they had seen lots of butterflies. Sure enough, as soon as I got to the other nature reserve, I spotted several fritillaries doing a mating dance. They were pretty hard to photograph, let alone identify, so I was relieved to find this one reluctant to leave its flower and posing for the camera for as long as I wanted.
Even with pictures like these, identification isn't straight-forward but it seems they were Heath Fritillaries, another new species for me and my 17th butterfly species of the day. I realised once again that birding and butterflying are mutually exclusive as you can't possibly be looking both down at the ground and up at the sky. I did see a couple of Melodius Warblers and a pair of Red-backed Shrikes, though, both of which are restricted to the very south of Belgium, and the House Martins nesting at Couvin station kept me entertained whilst waiting for my train back to Brussels.
