Raison d'être
These photos taken over 2006-2007 (and a few from earlier years) in southern France, principally Var and the Alpes Maritimes, with some from the Alpes de Haute Provence and neighbouring départements, and some from the Pyrenees.
The website is principally for interest of fellow "leptors" (I am open to suggestions for any other terms to describe butterfly enthusiasts) and to actively invite comment and feedback. I don’t profess that it has any scientific value other than adding to the knowledge of which species occur where and providing a visual record of some interesting variations. There are other sites with considerably more information. I do, however, hope that the more people who see the beauty of these incredible and fascinating creatures, the more it will lead to an appreciation that we need to be more pro-active in protecting them against the greed and stupidity of the human race in general which seems to only be concerned with "development" and short-term monetary profit. This is particularly true in the UK, where species are declining at alarming rates, not to mention the number of extinctions in the past two or three decades, and the work of Butterfly Conservation is vital - if you feel strongly about this and are not already a member of BC (http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/), I urge you to join.
Prior to 2006, I used a Canon 500 (SLR) with a Sigma macro lens (105mm F2.8). At the beginning of 2006, I decided to go digital, principally it was so time-consuming to scan the negatives for images to go on this web site, plus the inevitable loss of resolution. As I suspected I would upgrade fairly quickly if I bought an entry-level digital camera, I went for something near the top of the range, a Canon 20D with a 2GB card, still with the 105mm lens. At the start of 2007 I upgraded the lens to a Sigma 150mm macro, mainly because the 150mm lens does not extend when focussing (the 105mm did, and occasionally scared the subject off), it is silent when focussing (the 105mm makes a slight whirring, also a bit scary to the butterflies), and greater working distance for the same size image.
I bought a cheap monopod in 2004 and tried it out on a few occasions but in the heat of the day, with butterflies highly active, there just wasn't time to get a monopod in place, and so I hardly used it. I then bought a cheap tripod in 2005 in case I found I needed it, but this, too, stayed in its case until... I was persuaded in May 2007 (thanks, Peter) to persevere with it, and to compare the results of hand-held and tripod. OK, I am now convinced and have moved from the "why do you need a tripod, hand-held is perfectly good" camp to the "look very closely and you'll see the blur caused by camera shake" camp. The cheap tripod served its purpose, although it wasn't very robust and gave up in the Autumn of 2007, and I have decided to buy a Manfrotto Neotec with a ball-joint head for 2008; this is expensive, as tripods go, but the speed of set up is vital in the field when there often isn't the time to extend six tripod leg sections and adjust three levers on the head.
Several years ago, I bought a ring flash for use with the film camera in situations where the light was not good, but it is not a "dedicated" flash (these seem to cost a small fortune) and I never really worked out how to use it to enable a faster shutter speed. As the daylight is generally good when butterflies are active, there weren't too many occasions when it would have made a difference. It is really not necessary using a digital camera with built-in flash, and so many ways of post-processing and compensating for poor light.
The species count of butterflies we have seen in France is 189 and although ticks on a list are not the prime motivation, it is a great thrill to realise that you are looking at a species that you have never seen before. It's terrific just being in places where you can count seven different types of fritillary in one field. From an English perspective, it's hard to get your head round the fact that the Heath Fritillary (mellicta athalia) and Adonis Blue (lysandra bellargus) are common species almost everywhere.
Butterfly watching in England is enjoyable enough but you know you’re not likely to see anything you didn’t expect to. And that’s the thing about France – there are just so many species (about 245 in total) that you never know what you’re going to see. Much of France is under recorded and it is quite possible to see species in areas where they are “not supposed” to be. Much of the country, especially in the mountainous or pre-mountainous areas, is undeveloped and the butterflies are as numerous as they have been for centuries. There are so many places where you can see forty or more species in a day, that it's hard to keep track of what you have seen.
I principally use the Collins guide by Tolman and Lewington (1997) (T&L) and the learned work by Higgins and Riley (1971) (H&R).
The book on French butterflies (in French) by Tristan Lafranchis is very good on information but I was slightly disappointed at the number and quality of photographs (although a few of them are exceptional), where I would have expected at least male and female uppersides and undersides, as well as major variants, especially in a work costing £35. The book is very well researched and Lafranchis is clearly the leading French authority (although he now lives in Greece), with what in my experience is very accurate and current information on distributions by département, larval host plants, flight periods and altitude ranges. You have to have some knowledge of French but it is worth buying for anyone planning to spend time in France. It's a very heavy book, being printed on quality coated paper, so not a field guide.
Lafranchis has published a new book on identifying European butterflies, generally considered to be the best (recent) photographic work on identification but again it is limited by size - you just can't cover everything in a book that stays within most people's budgets. The emphasis is on identification from photos of each species, so there is little narrative by comparison. More information is available here http://perso.wanadoo.fr/felixthecatalog.tim/lafranchis.htm
The T&L is the best European publication for illustrations, which include all major variations, absolutely necessary for identification purposes. Richard Lewington’s illustrations are superb - you have to look twice to realise that they are drawings, not actual photographs. I had previously preferred actual photographs to drawings for identification purposes, but the detail and comprehensiveness of the illustrations makes it an excellent work for identification. Incredibly, it was out of print for several years and very difficult to obtain, but I believe it has recently been re-issued. This easily compensates for the text part of the book, where my experience is that the information regarding distributions, altitudes and flight periods is often unreliable. The text is very brief and seems to rely heavily on the illustrations, rather than attempting to give detailed textual guidance on identification features. Worth buying for the illustrations rather than the text. There was a later Tolman "photographic" guide to European butterflies with virtually no text and not even a single photo for quite a few common species, whilst, perversely in my opinion, giving photos and details of many obscure Canary Islands species. This book really adds nothing to earlier works and would not be a good starting point.
However, following the revised taxonomy in Tristan Lafranchis' new European ID book, the species previously classified as clossiana are now re-classified as boloria. As Lafranchis is the most widely published European expert on taxonomy, and as his publication is the most recent, I have followed his classification on this web site.
Photos from 2005 and earlier are only 450x300 pixel size. Photos from 2006-7 are shown on-screen at the top as 450x300 images for comparison, but click on each image to go to the larger image below (2006 photos are generally 1000x667, 2007 are 1200x800). The larger versions are on the same species page, below the narrative. You'll need to scroll back up the page, as I haven't yet put in return links.
Even with the aid of enlarged photos and many excellent reference works, it is still quite difficult to identify certain species with any degree of certainty, especially the pyrgus family of grizzled skippers. So the identifications are my “best guesses” in many cases and any comments are welcome – via the contact page. I am indebted to several experts on European butterflies who have knowledge about the identification of difficult species that is far greater than even the more detailed books, in particular Tim Cowles, Guy Padfield and Matt Rowlings. They all have excellent sites and there are links to them on the links page.
I have used the fairly standard notation to describe wing-areas, e.g. upf for upperside forewing, uph for the upperside hindwing and similarly unf and unh for the underside. The areas of each wing are defined as basal, discal, marginal etc and the specific locations (especially relevant with regard to the positions of eye spots or "ocelli") by the “space” between veins e.g. s6. Nearly all text books have diagrams showing these positions.
I have endeavoured to differentiate between "subspecies" and "form" as defined in H&R, in that a subspecies relates to differing populations of a species that occupy separate although often contiguous areas and as such may be considered separate geographical races. A form may be any recognisable variant, e.g. female form, seasonal form i.e. different broods, local forms that co-exist with the nominate form, or a variety or aberration.
I have listed the species in a grouped order so that I found it easier to make comparisons between similar species. You can hop through each page by clicking “next species”. In cases where two species are very similar, I have included them both on the same page to enable direct comparisons to be made, in many cases with parallel columns.
Sometimes it is possible to be so absorbed in getting the photo you want that you are unaware of how you must appear to passers-by – on one occasion I was flat out by the roadside (but well off the road) in the Pyrenees to get a shot of a False Heath Fritillary (melitaea diamina) on the ground – my wife said that passing cars slowed down to look at the body laid out flat on the roadside, presumably thinking that it was the victim of a car accident!
Incidentally, I do not – and would not – catch any butterfly for the purposes of identification or photography.
All photographs are copyright Roger Gibbons. I would be happy (flattered, even) to grant permission for non-commercial use.