Notes from Wild PlacesLes Papillons de Bellon

The butterflies in August are still present in good numbers in old pastures, woodland edges and especially along the railway line where access tracks are carefully maintained and the vegetation cleared annually.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — The habitats on the sides of the railway line are full of flowers and butterflies

Violet fritillary

Provencal short-tailed blue

Spotted fritillary

Brown argus on chicory

Brimstone on purple loosestrife

White admiral on adjacent oak

Large skipper on viper’s bugloss

Mating pair of Provencal short-tailed blue and an interloping male

Provencal short-tailed blue male

Small heath on wild carrot

Wood white

Mallow skipper on mallow

Berger’s clouded yellow

Heath fritillary prefers the knapweed

Near a fishing lake and nestling between a poplar plantation and lines of tall oak trees, a small field of plantains, docks, knapweed and common fleabane, is bisected by a wet ditch full of purple loosestrife, hemp agrimony, hairy willowherb and water mint. This colourful assemblage pulls in a wide range of butterflies to nectar and a few more than last August.

Knapweed fritillary

Adonis blue

Silver-washed fritillary

Charente-29 — Unimproved damp grassland with wet ditch

The small and sooty coppers sit on the mint whereas the large coppers nectar solely on the fleabane. This last species, in French the le cuivré des marais or grand cuivré, is restricted to damp, unimproved grasslands most of which have been drained and tidied up, as a consequence it is a rare and notable species in France and an important record for la commune de Bellon.