Wolves Wild

A painted lady giving prolonged attention to the individual flowers on one of the flower-heads of a buddleia bush, opening and closing its wings as it shifted position.

Bumblebees gathering pollen from lavender flowers. Filmed on a hand-held mobile phone. The bees were so busy with their task, that I could get within a few inches of them.

The prolonged hot, dry weather is finally producing insects in more numbers. As the buddleia flowering season arrived, they attracted some butterfly species which don’t often encroach into suburban gardens: there’s been several meadow browns, and an occasional gatekeeper. But regulars like red admirals, or the small peacocks in this set, are now showing in some numbers.

Cassis, another Mediterranean resort along the coast from Marseille. Outside the town the predominantly limestone geology forms the miniature fjord-like warm water calanques along the shoreline towards the city, while inland there’s an extensive limestone plateau. The entire area is now a designated nature conservation area, with many species threatened by over tourism, forest and scrub wildfires.

But even in the bustle of the town itself, there’s wildlife spotting opportunities. A small park has lots of of exotic trees. A pool is home to terrapins and mallards. These palm moths were among the other insects which were also attracted to the area.

Another picture I’ve dug up from a dozen years ago. Bandol is one of the Mediterranean resorts a little along the coast from Marseille. This butterfly is a

Lang’s Short-tailed Blue (Leptotes pirithous) according to iNaturalist.

From a summer a while ago (2010 to be precise) a lizard sunning itself on a garden wall on Capri. The only human disturbance was from occasional walkers, so the lizard wasn’t worried as we went by.