Cirque de Navacelles and butterflies galore!

This day finally dawned nice and warm and sunny, just what you want on holiday! We headed south to this gorge that I was really looking forward to seeing. It was every bit as spectacular (and more) in real life as it was in the pics I had seen. There are quite a number of belvederes (scenic viewpoints) on both sides of the gorge, so we stopped at this first one overlooking the little village of Navacelles, which is on the border of the Gard and Herault departments.

  Part of an info board explaining about meanders with a bit in English.

Looking to the right up the gorge and part of the road that we took to get to the other side!

Blue Spot Hairstreak (Satyrium spini). This was a lifer for me and I saw it on both sides of the gorge. In the first photo I took the image with my dslr and a 'normal' lens, so was able to crop in a lot, but you can actually see the blue spot better in this image than the ones below, which I took with my SX50 which I used on the south side of the gorge.

Driving up the other side of the gorge I took some photos with my phone. You can see where we stopped on the north side at the long flat building in the middle of the flat bit on top of the gorge, though you will probably have to view this large to see properly!

The road was absolutely fine in a 7m motorhome, though we didn't venture into the little village itself. I thought that might have been chancing it as I had read that it wasn't recommended to go down there in a moho. I hadn't realised that the road continued up the other side though, so I thought it might mean just that last part to the village. Yes it is steep, but no worse than anything else we have done in a moho up in the mountains of Spain and France. On the way there were clouds of butterflies flitting about, especially noticeable were what looked like the Black Satyr butterflies which were en masse on some particular pink flowered plants along the way. However, sadly there is nowhere to stop in a vehicle on either side of the gorge. For once, I felt envious of the many cyclists we saw because they could stop wherever they liked! 😀

We pulled into a parking area near one of the belvederes to have some lunch, but I was straight out with my camera as there were butterflies about! The first species I noticed were quite a number of Black Veined Whites (Aporia crataegi), not a butterfly I have seen very often. They were very flitty so hard to get a decent shot.

This next one puzzled me at first, but I think it's a Marbled White (Melanargia galathea) that is newly eclosed, as the underwings are still wrinkled, and it has the black and white markings on the edges of the wings like a Marbled White. I think its colouring is just darkening up as it matures - you can just about see some slightly darker markings appearing. 

On the left is a Small Heath (Coenonympha pamphilus), and the right is a Spanish Gatekeeper (Pyronia bathseba).

A Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris). I can see the red underneath the tip of the antennae, differentiating it from the Essex Skipper, whose antennae are all black on the tips.

Surprisingly, these butterflies were active in the shade here on this Knapweed (I didn't mind being in the shade of a shrub at all!). Here we have the Spanish Gatekeeper and two Marbled Whites.

Then I noticed this Fritillary, which upon a bit of IDing, I think is a Heath Fritillary (Melitaea athalia), and it's sharing the flower with one of the Burnet Moths. I'm not sure which one, as there are so many different red and black ones! 

Marbled White, Heath Fritillary and Burnet Moth.

I made this collage to show the underwings and top side of the Heath Fritillary.

This is also from the family of Zygaenidae which are the Burnet and Forester moths - it's a Green Forester Moth (Adscita statices), the first time I've seen one.

Spotted Fritillary (Melitaea didyma).

We finally spotted a Black Satyr (Satyrus actaea)* up on the top of the gorge, but it went underneath a shrub in heavy shade. I had to seriously overexpose this image to get the markings on the underwings, resulting in a rather noisy shot, which wasn't very sharp anyway. But it was a lifer for me, so it's here as a record shot. 😀

* It is possible this might be a Great Sooty Satyr, as I am no expert.

This wasn't even the end of the day, as we travelled further which I will document in my next post, as this one is quite long enough. But if you like butterflies, you won't mind that! 😀💕