It seemed appropriate that the first exciting new butterfly on the drive south through Spain was the Queen of Spain (to add to yesterday’s Duke).
The Queen of Spain Fritillary is sometimes seen in the UK – one year there were some next to the Minsmere toilet block – but it’s not a species one would expect to see in the UK very regularly. And so, with rather more species to choose from, it took a bit of figuring out that this was what we were looking at. The fact that in the field guide it was sandwiched between the Painted Lady and Comma also threw us off the right scent for a while, but careful examination of the blotches on the underwing got us to the right place in the end.
I think my favourite butterfly of the trip, so far, is not the QoSF, nor even the showy Spanish Festoon, and not the Provence Hairstreak, but the Moroccan Orange-tip, which is easy to see and easy to identify. It’s a bit like the butterfly equivalent around here of the Hoopoe or Azure-winged Magpie.
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The High Brown, Dark Green and Marbled Fritillaries could be confused with the Queen of Spain on the upper side of the wings, but none of them have the large pearly spots characteristic of the latter on the underside of the hind wings.
Swallowtails of either species are always good to see but I think Two-tailed Pasha is my favourite Spanish butterfly. Offhand, I’m not sure of its distribution but they seem common enough in Cadiz province if you’re heading that far.
A lovely butterfly with a very long flight period. I expect them to migrate to UK more often as things warm, and maybe oneday we will have established colonies. Hope your bird records are going into bird track for the European Breeding bird atlas (final summer is here, spain needs record as do many parts of Europe… eveyones chance to participate) atlas….I will contribute in the same way in NW spain in a months time, Enjoy the trip.