Friday 14th February 2014 (2)

A missed Spring jewel On this wild, stormy winter's night, with the rain lashing down and the wind whistling around my roof, the last thing I would normally think of would be butterflies, those jewels of the summer meadows. Yet I am now returning to my original plan of presenting those butterfly species which I did NOT manage to see last year, but which I would normally have expected to be able to find on my usual stamping grounds in the Netherlands, Belgium, northern France and westernmost Germany. 

My final total for 2013 within this area, plus a short spell in Scotland, came to 77 species. I then started this project of discussing the extra species I should have seen, and by the time I wrote my last post on 13th January, I had "added" Large Tortoiseshell (78), Mallow Skipper (79) and Woodland Ringlet (80) to my imaginary list! 

The next species I failed to see, chronologically speaking, was the Green-underside Blue, Glaucopsyche alexis. The only place I know within my regular area is the wonderful military camps in the northern Champagne region of France, an absolute oasis of biodiversity amid a sea of intensive agriculture in which hardly a butterfly can survive. Long may the French Army continue to require these chalky areas, preventing the cereal farmers from ploughing up the flower-rich natural grasslands and converting them into vast swathes of rapeseed or grain. 

The Green-underside Blue has a short flight season, from late April till mid-June, and as the weather was cold and grey through much of this period, and the few warm, sunny days did not coincide with any weekends when I could possibly have visited, it is perhaps hardly surprising that I missed this beautiful butterfly, which can easily be identified by the fact that the black spots on the underside are far larger on the forewing than those on the hindwing. 

Had I seen Large Tortoiseshell, Mallow Skipper, Woodland Ringlet and Green-underside Blue, my 2013 total would have been: 81 species