Although our tour was mainly focussed on Dragonflies, the diversity and number of butterfly species was once again very impressive, and for the 2nd year we saw over 90 species of butterfly in our 9 days in the Country.
Of course, not all of them posed for the cameras, but all the guests that were into photography had a brilliant time with all the insects.
There are not many sights more impressive than seeing numbers of Black-veined Whites flying over flower meadows. In the early 20th century this was possible to see in the UK until the insect became extinct. However, plans are afoot to re-introduce the Black-veined White into a few sites in Britain.
On our first afternoon we saw plenty of these large butterflies floating over a meadow, and one of our team spotted a mating pair in a Hawthorn bush. What made this even more interesting was the pupal case next to the female. The male clearly found her before she flew and joined up with her before she could escape his advances.
Mating pair of Black-veined White with pupal case.
Black-veined White on Viper's Bugloss.
On the 2nd day we found a sparkling new Spotted Fritillary, one of my favourite butterflies in Bulgaria.
Spotted Fritillary.
As we gradually moved south through the week we came across so many species. Many have the pretext 'Eastern' here. Like the Eastern Knapweed Fritillary.
Eastern Knapweed Fritillary.
Or some had the pretext 'Balkan'.
Balkan Zephyr Blue.
Mating Clouded Yellows.
Plenty of Queen of Spain Fritillaries were seen throughout the whole tour with them being seen on 6 of the 9 days.
Queen of Spain Fritillary.
Grecian Copper.
As well as the Grecian Copper we also saw Sooty Copper, some very dark Small Copper, Scarce Copper, Purple-shot Copper, Purple-edged Copper, Lesser Fiery Copper and Balkan Copper.
Scarce Copper.
On the higher slopes where we saw the Spearhead Bluet, I spotted a stunning female Amanda's Blue. As the sun was getting lower in the sky she was opening her wings for the sun and then closing them when the sun went in. She did however, still give us a peep of her top wings.
Female Amanda's Blue.
One of the hotels that we stayed in had a magnificent wild meadow in front of it. We were only there the one night, so it was an early start looking for the special insects that were hiding in the meadow. Our only Balkan Copper of the trip was found here along with several Eastern Large Heath, Pearl-bordered Fritillaries as well as a newly minted Glanville Fritillary. It was a very special meadow and much better than the actual hotel!!
Balkan Copper.
Eastern Large Heath.
Glanville Fritillry.
We then drove to a wooded area where we had some more special sightings. The most impressive being a Poplar Admiral which unfortunately escaped my camera, but fortunately, several members of the group did get photos.
It was nice to see some other beautiful species though with Mazarine Blue, Pearly Heath, Silver-studded Blue, Chequered Skipper and Wood Whites.
Pearly Heath.
Chequered Skipper.
We then did a little birdwatching as the gorge we were in is a regular spot for seeing Wallcreeper. Although our views were not up to last year it was lovely seeing these cracking birds as they parachuted down the steep gorge.
In another area we had clouds of butterflies mud-puddling. These included several types of Skipper, Wood Whites, Scarce Swallowtail and various Blues. Nearby Hummingbird Hawk-moths were feeding on the Viper's Bugloss along with a Broad-bordered Bee Hawk-moth, Eastern Festoons and Clouded Yellows.
Eastern Festoon.
Further up the road we visited my favourite butterfly spot from last year. Unfortunately some bad weather had returned and most butterflies had gone to roost. This would have been a disaster had Dansko, our Bulgarian leader, not spotted a fantastic Yellow-banded Skipper. Possibly the highlight for me of the butterflies that we saw. A first for me as well. I took lots of photos as it roosted. Only a couple were really sharp enough to keep as the light was awful, and the rain was also falling.
Yellow-banded Skipper at roost.
We decided that on our last full day we would try to return to this very productive butterfly site, which I'm glad to say we did.
Two Cardinals were seen throughout the tour. This one was around the lake where we were watching the Black Pennant dragonflies. It was fortunately more than content nectaring on the giant thistle heads.
Cardinal.
On a much better day we then returned to the spot where we had seen the Yellow-banded Skipper.
I had only just got out of the van when I spotted a butterfly known as The Hermit. unusually it was nectaring instead of taking salts from the ground. A lovely butterfly of the Grayling family.
The Hermit.
We also had several Grayling that were taking salts from the ground. One of the problems here is that the Grayling and Delattin's Grayling are so similar that they can only be identified by examining the male genitalia, so that was not going to happen!! However, going by the fact we were in Southern Bulgaria it was most likely that these were the Delattin's, as the Grayling we know from Britain doesn't usually occur this far south.
Probable Delattin's Grayling.
We also had some Woodland and Great Banded Grayling and several types of Blue butterflies joining in.
Woodland Grayling.
Male Meleager's Blue.
Eastern Baton Blue.
Great Banded Grayling.
Anomalous Blue.
It really was as well that we did return to this wonderful site as our butterfly list grew quite a bit here.
Our last full day was also hit by some poor weather. After visiting our sites for dragonflies we headed to a site where last year we had some beautiful Large Coppers. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived here the clouds had rolled in, and although we did have a few brighter patches, these were very brief. We did see Lesser Fiery Copper, but the only other notable butterfly was a rather nice Eastern Bath White. This actually was the last photo I took on the trip as we were heading back to Sofia early the next day.
Eastern Bath White.
There are still some fantastic creatures that were photographed, although the dragonflies and butterflies were what most of us were really interested in.
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