Great Banded Grayling (brintesia circe)
2008 photos highlighted green. Click on any photo to go to an enlarged picture, or simply scroll down the page.
|
|
|
|
| 7017_sex?_Var_15Jun07 | 4045_female_Var_31Aug06 | 11897_female_Var_2Jul08 |
|
|
||
| 9612_female_Var_10Sep07 |
A quite magnificent butterfly, which could easily mistaken for a Purple Emperor (apatura iris) on a first fleeting sighting because of its huge size and strong white band on the upperside, as well as the powerful and often soaring flight, which is very un-grayling like. Generally widespread and quite common and I have seen them in large numbers only in the lavender fields of Provence. They never rest with open wings and have a habit of resting on the trunks of trees. It cannot really be confused with any hipparchia species but the short white unh band in the basal region clearly differentiates it from any other species.
7017: generally quite pale markings, although the unh white band in the basal area is less pronounced than most circe. Hard to say whether it is a male or female. Altitude 185m.
4045: this seems to contradict my earlier statement about resting with open wings, is not in fact, resting - it was settled with closed wings on a tree trunk but I noticed that every 30 seconds or so it flicked its wings open momentarily; I watched it closely and found that it was only flicking its wings open when an ant went too close, presumably to scare off the ant. I got the photos using the rapid-shoot feature on my camera that takes fives frames per second - I knew this would come in handy at some point!
11897: a female based on body shape, it is helping itself to the rum and banana mixture I use to attract Two-tailed Pashas (charaxes jasius). The butterfly was in the shade so I have had to lighten the image, making the background very white indeed, but at least the detail of the butterfly came out well.
9612: this was very large, as I recall, and therefore almost certainly a female. The unh had very little contrast and the basal white mark is quite inconspicuous, given that it is often cited as a key means of identification. Altitude 430m.
