Off to the Hütte

Unlike my brother, I decided to have a nice lay in, but it wasn't long before I too was having to role out of bed after being woken by his alarm. When he had got back from his first walk about the place I was ready to go so Samuel was kind enough to go out again. Bird wise it was dull with only a possible Spotted Flycatcher and a possible Black Kite which had a very shallow forked tail but other wise to me was unrecognizable due to it only being a silhouette. But on the Butterfly side of things we had a great day. We started off with a Map Butterfly which was very shy when it came to photos.

Map Butterfly

We also had some Clouded Yellow Butterflies which were very reluctant to land anywhere so I gave up on trying to photograph one. We also had Painted Lady which showed nicely. But it was when we got to the edge of the woods when we began to see the real good Butterflies. It started with a Silver-washed Fritillary which kept on growing in number until we had a total of 3. I then spotted a butterfly which was flying away from us at first in flight it looked like a gatekeeper but when it landed and we were able to inspect it turned out to be a Fritillary. We first took our ID photos and then when we had IDed it as a QUEEN OF SPAIN FRITILLARY one that I had never before seen we went into proper photography mode.

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Next on the list was a Mallow Skipper a butterfly which does not occur in the UK. I was more interested in the Fritillaries so I left my brother to photograph the skipper whilst I ran around after the other butterflies.

Queen of Spain Fritillary

Later on when we eventually got to the Altenburghütte we saw a few Purple hairstreaks due to the hütte being so high we were at the top of the oak trees so a perfect opportunity to photograph the Hairstreak.

Purple Hairstreak

To read my last post about my trip through France click here.