Just in case you’re new here…there will be moths! If you’ve been with me for a while, you know all too well just how many moths there might be. I’ve been “mothing” since July 2018 with various kinds of UV lamp and traps as well as doing some wild mothing beyond the garden and campsite facilities block mothing. My garden list is now well over 500 species.
Here are some Pixlr collages I’ve used on the socials to share the kinds of Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) that I’ve recorded and photographed.
Clockwise from top left: Marbled Beauty, Toadflax Brocade, The Coronet, Giant Water Veneer, Oak Lantern, Tree-lichen Beauty, Small Rivulet, Flame Shoulder, Little SlenderMoth photos, clockwise from top left: Canary-shouldered Thorn, Dewick’s Plusia, Smal Ranunculus, Coxcomb Prominent, Latticed Heath, Sallow Kitten, Jersey Tiger, Ruby Tiger, Gypsy MothClockwise from top left: Early Thorn, Dusky Sallow, The Clay, Nut-tree Tussock, Silver Y, The Dun-bar, Meal Moth, Double Square-spot, Peppered MothClockwise from top-left: better shot of Anania coronata, V-Pug, Brown Silver-line, Swallow-tailed Moth, Wainscot Smudge, two Privet Hawk-moth, one with a missing chunk from its wing
I’m riding through the sacred lands
Where they’ll take you down and they’ll break your hands
Riding in the shotgun fire
Where the trees are scorched by the funeral pyre
Tell me now, do you know what’s on the inside?
Beyond the world, we can run but we cannot hide
Tell me now, can you feel the flames drawing your breath
from your very bones with a spirit that never grows old, never grows old?
I’m blowing ash to the wind
Where they’ll cut you down and they’ll bury your sins
Screaming for the life and times
Of a medicine man with his tainted signs
Kicking up the dust again
When they shake you down and say “Amen!”
Listen to the spirits cry as they pick it up with their eagle eyes
Tell me now, do you know what’s on the inside?
Beyond the world, we can run but we cannot hide
Tell me now, can you feel the flames drawing your breath
from your very bones with a spirit that never grows old, never grows old?
I’m blowing ash to the wind
I’m riding through the sacred lands
Kicking up the dust again
Shake me down and say “Amen!”
Shake me down and say “Amen!”
Shake me down, Shake me down
The spirit never grows old
Never grows old, never grows old
Something of a 70s southern rocker heading from near sweet home Alabama all the way back to early 90s Madchester by way of Willowdale
Lake Kerkini is an astonishing place in northern Greece. Mrs Sciencebase and I visited in June 2024. I’ve put together galleries of the butterflies and moths we saw on our trip, trekking and boating in the area.
Lake Kerkini fishermen
I took rather a lot of photos and have only now got around to processing the birds. We saw a lot of birds, tens of thousands of them were Common Cormorant, hundreds were Great White Pelican and Dalmation Pelican, lots were herons and egrets of various species, Spoonbills, a handful of Nightingales, fleeting glimpses of Hoopoe (sadly), a solitary Glossy Ibis, and just the vocalisations of Sardinian Warbler, Cirl Bunting, and a few others no solid sightings. Merlin app also picked up a few that we didn’t see nor hear, and are possibles but questions that will never be answered, such as Wryneck, Thrush Nightingale, Hawfinch, Red Crossbill.
Grey Heron and chicks
Here’s a list of the 90+ bird species we saw and heard. I suspect we also saw Lesser Kestrel and Eleanora’s Falcon at some point without getting positive IDs on those two:
Bee-eater, European (Merops apiaster)
Blackbird, Common (Turdus merula)
Blackcap, Eurasian (Sylvia atricapilla)
Bunting, Cirl (Emberiza cirlus) (heard only or Merlin)
Buzzard, Common (Buteo buteo)
Buzzard, Honey (Pernis apivorus)
Chaffinch, Eurasian (Fringilla coelebs)
Chiffchaff, Common (Phylloscopus collybita)
Coot, Eurasian (Fulica atra)
Cormorant, Great (Phalacrocorax carbo)
Cormorant, Pygmy (Microcarbo pygmaeus)
Crossbill, Red (Loxia curvirostra) (heard only or Merlin)
Crow, Carrion (Corvus corone)
Crow, Hooded (Corvus cornix)
Cuckoo, Common (Cuculus canorus)
Dove, Collared (Streptopelia decaocto)
Dove, Turtle (Streptopelia turtur)
Eagle, Booted (Hieraaetus pennatus) Michael d only
Egret, Little (Egretta garzetta)
Firecrest, Common (Regulus ignicapillus)
Flamingo, Greater (Phoenicopterus roseus)
Flycatcher, Spotted (Muscicapa striata)
Goldcrest (Regulus regulus)
Goldfinch, European (Carduelis carduelis)
Grebe, Great Crested (Podiceps cristatus)
Greenfinch, European (Chloris chloris) (heard only or Merlin)
Gull, Black-headed (Chroicocephalus ridibundus)
Gull, Caspian (Larus cachinnans)
Gull, Yellow-legged (Larus michahellis)
Hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes) (heard only or Merlin)
Heron, Grey (Ardea cinerea)
Heron, Night (Nycticorax nycticorax)
Heron, Purple (Ardea purpurea) Niko the skipper only
Heron, Squacco (Ardeola ralloides)
Hobby, Eurasian (Falco subbuteo)
Hoopoe, Eurasian (Upupa epops)
Ibis, Glossy (Plegadis falcinellus)
Jackdaw, Eurasian (Corvus monedula)
Jay, Eurasian (Garrulus glandarius)
Kestrel, Common (Falco tinnunculus)
Kingfisher, Common (Alcedo atthis) (heard only or Merlin)
Nightingale, Thrush (Luscinia luscinia) (heard only or Merlin)
Oriole, Golden (Oriolus oriolus)
Owl, Little (Athene noctua)
Pelican, Dalmatian (Pelecanus crispus)
Pelican, Great White (Pelecanus onocrotalus)
Pigeon, Common Wood (Columba palumbus)
Pigeon, Stock (Columba oenas)
Raven, Common (Corvus corax)
Redstart, Black (Phoenicurus ochruros) (heard only or Merlin)
Robin, European (Erithacus rubecula)
Shrike, Masked (Lanius nubicus)
Shrike, Red-backed (Lanius collurio)
Skylark, Eurasian (Alauda arvensis)
Sparrow, House (Passer domesticus)
Sparrow, Spanish (Passer hispaniolensis)
Sparrow, Eurasian Tree (Passer montanus)
Sparrowhawk, Eurasian (Accipiter nisus)
Sparrowhawk, Levant (Accipiter brevipes)
Spoonbill, Eurasian (Platalea leucorodia)
Starling, Common (Sturnus vulgaris)
Stork, Black (Ciconia nigra)
Stork, White (Ciconia ciconia)
Swallow, Barn (Hirundo rustica)
Swallow, Red-rumped (Cecropis daurica)
Swan, Mute (Cygnus olor)
Swift, Pallid (Apus pallidus)
Tern, Common (Sterna hirundo)
Tit, Blue (Cyanistes caeruleus)
Tit, Coal (Periparus ater)
Tit, Great (Parus major)
Tit, Long-tailed (Aegithalos caudatus)
Treecreeper, Eurasian (Certhia familiaris)
Wagtail, Grey (Motacilla cinerea)
Wagtail, White (Motacilla alba) (heard only or Merlin)
Warbler, Cetti’s (Cettia cetti)
Warbler, Eastern Olivaceous (Iduna pallida) (heard only or Merlin)
Warbler, Great Reed (Acrocephalus arundinaceus)
Warbler, Moustached (Acrocephalus melanopogon) (heard only or Merlin)
Warbler, Sardinian (Sylvia melanocephala) (heard only or Merlin)
Wheatear, Northern (Oenanthe oenanthe)
Woodpecker, Great Spotted (Dendrocopos major)
Woodpecker, Green (Picus viridis)
Woodpecker, Middle Spotted (Dendrocopos medius)
Wren, Eurasian (Troglodytes troglodytes)
Wryneck, Eurasian (Jynx torquilla) (heard only or Merlin)
All my blog posts about our Greece24 trip can be found here. The bird gallery is over on my Imaging Storm site.
With thanks to Tricia, Michael “d”, Martine, and Niko for many of the first sightings and IDs of birds, butterflies, moths, and other creatures. I have added photos of several of the various invertebrates we encountered to the introductory blog posts on our 2024 trip to Greece.
I started off with several thousand photos from our recent trip to northern Greece (June 2024). A lot of those were simply burst-mode shots of the same specimen where I hoped to capture it in the perfect pose between fluttering or flapping of bird or butterfly wings. I backed up all the full SD cards on to an external hard drive and then used FastStone Viewer on my laptop to work through the collections as quickly as I could discarding obvious blurs and duds and then homing in the generally decent photos.
I think I ended up with about 500. I then processed these with DxO PureRaw 4, Topaz Sharpen, and PaintShopPro and began adding to the Sciencebase site. This is the final batch (batch 10) of butterflies from the trip and rather than break it up into several blogs, I’ve made it one long scrollable page with all the decent remaining shots from the collection.
This is the rare, “helice” form of the female Clouded Yellow butterfly, Colias croceus f. helice. Not to be confused with the Pale and the Berger’s Clouded Yellow species. Spotted first on our trip Mrs Sciencebase. We get Clouded Yellow in rare irruption years in the UK, as I’ve mentioned before. Not seen this helice form before though.
Clouded Yellow (F, helice), Colias croceus f. helice
Yellow-banded Skipper, Pyrgus sidae, looks a bit like Mallow Skipper from above, but has this lovely custard yellow banding on the underside of its forewings, visible in my photo.
Yellow-banded Skipper, Pyrgus sidae
Large Blue, Phengaris arion, quite rare in the UK and found only in specific pockets of habitat.
Large Blue, Phengaris arion
This skipper, the Large Skipper, Ochlodes sylvanus, is one of a handful of species we see in the UK.
Large Skipper, Ochlodes sylvanus
We have a couple of fritillary-type butterflies in the UK, but there are a lot more species in Greece. This is one of them, the delightful Knapweed Fritillary, Melitaea phoebe.
Marbled White, Melanargia galathea, is a species we do see in the British summer. Funnily enough this mainly white-coloured species is not a “white” by family, but one of the browns, a Nymphalidae, more closely related to the Meadow Brown than the Large White, for instance.
Marbled White, Melanargia galathea
I’ve mentioned White-letter Hairstreak, Satyrium w-album, several times on Sciencebase over the last few years, having identified a colony myself in Rampton in 2022. Very much present in the UK too. But, lovely to see the species in Greece too. The scientific name suggestive of the butterfly being a satyr, with a white (album) “w” on its wings. Also in the shot, what I believe is a Red Longhorned Beetle, Stictoleptura rubra, in flight.
White-letter Hairstreak, Satyrium w-album
Clouded Yellow, Colias croceus f. helice
Yellow-banded Skipper, Pyrgus sidae
Large Blue, Phengaris arion
Large Skipper, Ochlodes sylvanus
Knapweed Fritillary, Melitaea phoebe
Marbled White, Melanargia galathea
White-letter Hairstreak, Satyrium w-album
On our recent butterflying, birding, and mothing trip to Northern Greece, I was keen to catch sight of an Eastern Festoon, Allancastria cerisyi, and hopefully get some photographs of this amazing member of the Papillonidae. The Papillonidae family is the “swallowtails” featured elsewhere on our trip in the form of the Scarce Swallowtail and the Yellow Swallowtail.
Eastern Festoon, Allancastria cerisyiEastern Festoon, Allancastria cerisyi, not quite wings open as I’d hoped for
Our intrepid guide Michael spotted the first of our Eastern Festoons in a little fallow field we were investigating that had a nice bramble border. The same field with our first European Green Lizard. Later I saw an Eastern Festoon in flight with its wings full displaying, but didn’t get a flight shot. So, these will have to do for my records of this species.
It has taken quite some time to work through the 1000s of photos I took of butterflies, moths, and birds in Greece. I’m trying to just pull out the single best shot of each species, but it seems a shame to waste flight shots of beautiful species like the Clouded Yellow, The Cardinal, and others, so they will feature in the various batches at least a couple of times.
As regular readers will already know Mrs Sciencebase and myself went on an expertly guided trip to Northern Greece in June 2024. We were there to see the local butterflies and birds, as well as a few moths, and any other wildlife that came into view and to enjoy the local food and drink. This is batch 4 of the butterfly photos. I am yet to process the birds, but that will happen soon, so subscribe to the newsfeed to get the word when the word is out.
The Black-veined White is the species that keeps getting mentioned in the British media when people illicitly raise them from imported eggs and release them into the wild. It used to be on the British list, but no longer. With climate change and the right wind direction it may re-appear hear naturally. It doesn’t need fake introductions into inappropriate habitat that do nothing but distort the scientific data.
I think I was the last of our group to spot this species, Lattice Brown (Kirinia roxelana), Michael, Martine, and Tricia having seen it on the second day. I didn’t get this shot until the last day of the tour.
Large Tortoiseshell, Nymphalis polychloros, used to be an extant (the opposite of extinct) species in the UK, but no longer. That said, there have been occasional sightings, these are usually captive-bred specimens. There are hints that some are vagrants that have made it across The Channel. Of course, they are very much extant in Greece and elsewhere in mainland Europe. We were unable to see this one’s legs to check whether it was the yellow-legged species, N. xanthomelas.
Lesser Fiery Copper, Tarucus balkanicusLittle Tiger Blue, Tarucus balkanicus, aka the Balkan PierrotBlue-spot Hairstreak, Satyrium spiniThe Cardinal, Argynnis pandora
You might think The Cardinal, Argynnis pandora, is one of those fritillaries, it certainly looks like one, but that cardinal-red margin, marks it out as a bit different and so while it is certainly one of the Nymphalidae like the fritillaries it stands ecclesiastically apart
Top view – The Cardinal, Argynnis pandoraThe Cardinal, Argynnis pandora – in flightThe Cardinal, Argynnis pandora – face onClouded Apollo, Parnassius mnemosyneRecord shot of Large Blue, Phengaris arion
Black-veined White, Aporia crataeg Lattice Brown, Kirinia roxelana Large Tortoiseshell, Nymphalis polychloros, aka Blackleg Tortoiseshell
Lesser Fiery Copper, Lycaena thersamon Little Tiger Blue, Tarucus balkanicus, aka the Balkan Pierrot
Blue-spot Hairstreak, Satyrium spini The Cardinal, Argynnis Pandora Clouded Apollo, Parnassius mnemosyne Large Blue, Phengaris arion
Large Tortoiseshell, Nymphalis polychloros, used to be an extant (the opposite of extinct) species in the UK, but no longer. That said, there have been occasional sightings, these are usually captive-bred specimens. There are hints that some are vagrants that have made it across The Channel. Of course, they are very much extant in Greece and elsewhere in mainland Europe. We were unable to see this one’s legs to check whether it was the yellow-legged species, N. xanthomelas.
