The calm before the storm: Very weak to moderate winds, few clouds and 21°C (11:15 AM), this field trip would be the last for another week of rainy and stormy conditions.
+-------------------------+---------------------------------+--------+ | Species | Location | Status | +-------------------------+---------------------------------|--------+ | Coenonympha arcania | Zone II / III | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Coenonympha pamphilus | Zone I / II | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Cupido minimus | Zone II / III | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Maniola jurtina | Zone I / III | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Melanargia galathea | Zone I / II / III | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Ochlodes sylvanus | Zone III | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Pieris napi | Zone I / II / III | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Pieris rapae | Yard / Mixed Field / Zone I / | Adult | | | II / III | | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Plebejus argus | Zone II | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Polygonia c-album | ! neighbor's house ! | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Pyrgus malvae | Zone I | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Thymelicus sp. + | Zone II | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Vanessa atalanta | Zone II | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Canopteryx splendens | Zone II | Adult | |-------------------------|---------------------------------|--------| | Coenagrion mercuriale | Zone II / III | Adult | +-------------------------+---------------------------------+--------+
There were a lot of whites and Hesperiidae I was unably to take a closer look at due to them likely sensing that the weather was set to change drastically around late afternoon. "Mixed Field" was largely skipped due to a large group of school children slowly passing the area.
With the return of P. argus, M. galathea and T. lineola are experiencing their strongest seasons since I began to keep track of my local habitats in 2022. I also finally managed to make my first observations of P. c-album and O. sylvanus. One unidenified butterfly suspiciously resembled M. atharia, yet it disappeared as fast as it approached me.
One female C. spendens was resting close to the underside of the bridge of the bycicle path, letting me identify it with ease. C. mercuriale appeared to be recovering for the recent destruction of their preferred resting spot, albeit individuals still were much more reserved and searched for hiding spots the moment I grabbed my camera.
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During my stay at Zone III, I was approached by the woman taking care of the wild meadow in our village (a spot I visit less often that, sadly, still hasn't attracted any butterflies this year). She expressed her disappointment with our local mowing regimes, which inspired her to keep her front yard "wild". Zone III, she said, is a highly valuable legacy of "Odrich" – indeed, this area has changed rather drastically in terms of flora and fauna over the last 20 years and it still is seeing a higher species abundance than the FFH territory to the north/nothwest ("Bog Hill"). She then tried to recommend some career paths to me, all of which... well, there are multiple reasons why I'm publishing my observations to a Gemini capsule and I did not want to burden her with my frustrations about academia, our local forestry and how "big tech" is exploiting anything online (and my mind switched off entirely when she claimed that she "doesn't do much on her tablet" and implied that her data is not valuable to marketing companies – she already struggled to comprehend my brief mention of AI and how Google and Microsoft truly operate).
Also mentioning a bunch of species I recorded so far did not really raise her curiosity, instead she merely acknowledged them, nodded along and pretty much avoided to let me share more details with her. She was more interested in the morally-driven abstracts of how certain biotopes are being managed and my career (which I considered annoying and slightly insulting because she asks about it and tries to nudge me into some conventional profession every time we cross paths, despite stating that my amateur research is supposed to stay amateur-ish). Eventually I ended the chat by pointing to my camera and continued my research – I can't deny that this chat drained me quite a bit and I even was relieved to have reached the sparse, southeastern part of Zone III, which greeted me with a single M. galathea and one of my neighbor's cats relaxing among the chicken of another neighbor.
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Addendum (22 June, 2024): And again, not a single "pure" individual of either T. lineola or T. sylvestris.