15th May - Butterflies and Birds of the Chania Shore, Crete, Greece

An overcast morning allowed me the chance to walk further along the coast from the hotel.  The area was very much the same as the rock we walked earlier in the week, but the wild flowers were in much better conditions and as such were attracting many butterflies.

As I walked around the Volley Ball courts a Greenfinch was singing in a pine tree.  Not an unusual bird, but I thought the composure was lovely.

Coming out of the cover of the trees a Speckled Wood settled on the rocks.  This is a male of the nominate species Pararge aegeria aegeria in the UK we have P. a. tircis and it is a little more pakle and buff.

Plenty of poppies.

A surprise was this Wood White, but it is an Eastern Wood White, found across the Balkans and Greece, despite th ename it can be found in rocky gulleys and shores.

There had been many sparrows around the shore and buildings, some of the sparrows using the holes in the rock to nest.  I dismissed them as House Sparrows, but today a closer look showed this male to have an all brown cap.  It turns out that it is a male Italian Sparrow.

Similar to the House and Spanish Sparrows, the males have a brown crown and white cheeks like a Spanish Sparrow, but a restricted black throat and upper breast like a House Sparrow. Females essentially inseparable from the other two species and voice also identical. Habitat preferences are similar to House Sparrow; they rarely stray far from urban areas. A result of an evolutionary intermediate between the House and the Spanish Sparrow following historical gene flow to create a new species.

Then a butterfly that is reported in the UK wrongly, the Eastern Bath White.  

There is a similarity with the female Orange Tip as the underwing is similar, but it is larger and has a black and white pattern on the upper wing.

There were many of these on the sea lavender.  It is a Mammoth Scolid  Wasp and is quite large, measuring 45 mm in length.  The mammoth wasp resembles a very large, elongated bumble bee. The female is larger than the male and has a yellow head, the male has a black head. Its body is covered in downy hair and is glossy black in colour with two yellow bands across its abdomen which are sometimes divided to form four yellow spots. Females have shorter antennae than males. The female also has large mandibles which are used to manipulate the prey.

The adult mammoth wasps feed on nectar from flowers. The female hunts in dead wood for the grubs of the European rhinoceros beetle which it paralyses by stinging it and then lays a single egg on the larva. The larval wasp consumes the beetle larva apart from its skin. Once the beetle larva had been consumed the wasp larva builds a cocoon and pupates, emerging from the cocoon as an adult in the following Spring.

A little less worrying a Southern Small White.

The black on the upper wing extends slightly along the edge of veins 3 and 4 in the male.

Then I started to find a lot of Painted Ladies, they were settled on the path, in the sand and also nectaring on the sea lavender.

Maybe the good numbers here will herald a Painted Lady year for Northern Europe, it has been a while since we had an influx.

Sardinian Warblers were singing from the scrub and trees and I finally was able to get close enough for some acceptable shots.

A compact, robust, and big-headed warbler. The males are striking with a black hood contrasting with whitish throat, grey back, and red eyering. Females duller with a grey hood, white throat, and buff body. 

Common in many typical Mediterranean habitats including tall bushes, open woodlands, gardens, coastal scrub, and plantations; also in oases, acacia woodlands, and scrubby desert in non-breeding range. Usually first detected by its song, a fast, angry-sounding rattling.  They are resident birds and not known for long range migration.

With the sun coming out and the temperature warming the butterflies became more active.  This a surprise, just a Common Blue.

I had been chasing Berger's Clouded Yellows around the paths and across the rocks, but as usual they would not stop, then as I passed patch of what looked like verbena I found one nectaring on the flowers.

When seen in flight there is much more black in the upper wing than the Clouded Yellow, also there is a "eight" shape on the hind under wing, this is just a spot on the Clouded Yellow.

Another butterfly I had seen briefly was the Swallowtail, and it to eventually gave itself up to me, falling for the lure of the verbena once more.

This is a most majestic butterfly, huge and floating effortlessly. 

It posed very well for me and with a lovely background to emphasise the beauty of this striking butterfly.

A couple of hours well spent along the shore and grocks just outside the hotel.