Charity Toy Shop

Canoeing with the Daynes (and some pirates...)

 

Biking with Granny & Poppa

French butterflies

We saw some wonderful wildlife on the trip. As expected, widespread birds included things like Black Kite, Serin, Black Redstart, Short-toed Treecreeper and Great White Egret. Up in the Alps several Lammergeier sightings were almost upstaged by large numbers of Griffon Vultures which also seem to be thriving following a number of reintroductions. We also saw several Golden Eagles, Nutcrackers, Snowfinches, Choughs and Alpine Choughs, Alpine Swifts, Crag Martins, Red-backed Shrikes, Whinchats, Marsh Warblers and, perhaps most intriguingly, breeding Fieldfares. Down in the Ardeche, we watched Honey Buzzards, Booted and Short-toed Eagles from the pool along with a few Bee-eaters and the odd Black-bellied Dipper on the river. Golden Orioles hid in the tops of riparian poplars whilst good numbers of Nightingales skulked in the thickets below and Cirl Buntings flitted around camp. Our final couple of nights as we headed home we were beside Lac d'Orient and adjacent forests where an enormous bonus was a Black Woodpecker and a couple of Middle-spotted Woodpeckers. 

Despite some good birds, the alpine meadows were arguable the highlight of the trip, although the most consistently engaging (and photographed) creatures of the holiday were the butterflies. We recorded just over 70 species and below is a selection of the ones that behaved for the camera. 

 Alpine Heath

 Apollo

 Arran Brown

Baton Blue

 Black-veined White

Carline Skippers

 Cleopatra

 Common Brassy Ringlet

 Damon Blues

 False Grayling

 False Heath Fritillary

  

 Grison's Fritillary

 

High Brown Fritillary

 Idas Blue

 

 Lang's Short-tailed Blue

Large Ringlet

 Large Wall Brown

 

 Lesser Marbled Fritillary

 Lesser Mountain Ringlet

 a bizzare, presumably leucistic Meadow Brown

 Map

Mountain Clouded Yellow

Niobe Fritillary

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

 Piedmont Ringlet

 Purple Emperor

 Purple-edged Copper

 Scarce Swallowtail

 Short-tailed Blue

 Silver-spotted Skipper

 Silver-washed Fritiallary

 Small Blue

 Southern Gatekeeper

 Southern White Admiral

Spotted Fritillary

 Striped Grayling

Swallowtail

 Titania's Fritillary

 Tufted Marbled Skipper

 Weaver's Fritillary

 White Admiral

 Wood White

Woodland or Rock Grayling

And puddles were often our favourite places...