David: Enjoy seeing the "broad picture" followed by close-ups, followed by some great butterfly shots. You appear to have really mastered using the T180 during the past year or so. Thank you for including all those images! Great fun! William
Lovely series, David. I particularly liked the Spanish Purple Hairstreak and Spanish Marbled White, much nicer the the british species!
All the IDs appear correct, or, at least, give me no reason to doubt, except one.
The photos of the Pearl-Bordered Fritillary set off alarm bells, they looked very different from what I often saw in Britain, both on the upper and undersides. After checking the 50+ Fritillary species, I finally came to the right one, last in the list, as usual (I should have started at the back). This species is Euphydryas desfontainii baetica (Spanish Fritillary), a much more interesting and local species. The markings fit perfectly.
Bobby, this is a good time to go to Spain. Costs were low and much cheaper than what I experience here in Australia. A beer or coffee was 1 Euro everywhere. Dinners were typically around 10 Euro. If you go there, I hope that you like pork. I have never eaten so much pork in my life. Virtually every meal was a variety of pork. It was good and I had smoked, cured, and various cuts cooked in many different ways. The Spanish don't seem to like "green" food so most lunches and dinners were meat with fries. Their lifestyle is totally different to mine. Dinners were never served before 9pm. After the "mandatory" drinks with the customers, my dinner was usually 10:00pm or later. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the trip since the workdays began at 7:30am and usually did not finish until 8pm or later. Here in Australia, I walk each mornings for exercise but that was impossible in Spain.
Thanks, Sunny and William. William, I still have a long ways to go when I look at Sunny's photos. For me, it seems to be really hard to know when the lens is exactly perpendicular to the butterfly. I think that everything is fine but then get home, look at the photos on the computer and see that part of the butterfly is not sharp. I am beginning to wonder if this might be age related since my eyes are not as sharp as they once were.
Thanks for your help, Les. I will change the mis-identified fritillary. By the way, these certainly act much differently to the fritillaries that I knew in the States. Those were typical nympalids where these act so much like acraeids. The Spanish Hairstreaks were slow and almost lumbering flyers.
Thanks, Khew. The BC forum is almost always "exotic" to me. The Marbled Whites were not too hard to approach. They usually departed after a few photos but were no where near as wary as the Clouded Yellows. These are called "Whites" but they are actually Nymphalids rather than Pierids.
Large Psammodromus (Psammodromus algirus) were common lizards in the hills.
females:
males:
Our visit to Spain was special to my wife, Angie, and I. This trip coincided with our 30th wedding anniversary. Here is a picture of Angie at the summit of Cerro San Cristobel.
On the weekend, we also drove to a few of the surrounding villages. Here is a shot of Cortegana, a little town about 6km from Almonaster.
Aroche, a little town in Spain near the Portuguese border:
I started and ended the trip with a night in Mertola, Portugal. I found Mertola on the net when looking for a place to stay near the Spanish border. It turned out to be a lovely area and well worth a visit.
Here is a map that shows the location of Mertola. I found it on the net while looking for a place to stop before heading into Spain.
Mertola was a pretty place with an old Moorish castle and walls around the town.
It was especially beautiful at night with its soft lighting:
Street views in town. White-washed buildings with red-tile roofs were the standard in both Portugal and nearby Spain.
It was interesting to see a flock of Lesser Kestrels that roosted each night on the castle. Spotless Starlings, House Martins, Swift, Great Grey Shrikes, House Sparrows and Blackbirds were all common in town.
The surrounding hills were dry and often overgrazed. Reptiles including snakes were obviously numerous based on the number of DORs that I saw, but I only spotted one live snake briefly before it disappeard into cover. Lacertid lizards were numerous.
River valley where I spent a few hours. European Bee-Eaters, Eurasian Golden Orioles and Azure-winged Magpies were numerous here. Birding was pretty good in this area with sightings of many Red-legged Partridges, Crested/Skylarks, Serin, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, White Storks, Jay, Sardinian Warbler, Dartford's Warbler, Red-rumped Swallows, Barn Swallows, Common Buzzard, Hoopoe, Blue Tit, Great Tit and others.
I saw these turtles in the river but could not get close to them so I don't know the species.
I saw a single live Montpellier Snake (Malpolon monspessulanus) and a number of DOR including the one photographed here. The live animal was sighted mid-morning along a dirt track but it quickly raced into cover before I could stop and jump out of the car. I could not relocate it.
Large Psammodromus (Psammodromus algirus) were the common Lacertidae of the area. I also saw a large, green lacertid on the road while driving but I was unable to take photos.
At the start of the trip, there were many flowers on the roadsides. Three weeks later, though, these were mostly gone.
Lavenders must be native to this area and they were in full bloom on the hillsides.
Butterflies in the subfamily Satyrinae were abundant. I did not see many species of these but there were larger numbers of individuals on the roadsides.
Southern Gatekeeper (Pyronia cecilia)
Power Member
A nice job!
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