19 June 2016

Un lépidoptère

Some recent days have been very buggy. I guess all the moisture allows insects to live and reproduce, and as soon as there's a ray of sunshine, they get hyperactive. At this time of year, when the sun does shine, it feels hot. It rained for only about an hour yesterday, early in the evening.


Butterflies are the prettiest insects, and the most inoffensive. You don't need to wear bug spray even if you see a lot of them flitting around in the vineyard. I just read that there are about five thousand species of lépidoptères in France.

11 comments:

  1. Most of the 5000 are moths, tho', Ken....some of them pretty, but pretty tiny too!
    And, amongst the moths, we also get Europe's largest....the Giant Peacock Moth with a 3" wingspan....a wonderful beastly to behold.
    And just yesterday we had a sudden influx of Cinnibar moths.... Dark metallic green fore wings with s scarlet dot and line...and vivid scarlet hind wings....wonderful to watch flitting across the green grass.
    I am jealous of the photo...it is a wonderful macro shot!
    The new-old Panasonic I presume?

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  2. Yes, the new-old Panasonic, and taken with a long zoom. That explains the fuzziness of the photo. The last time I saw a peacock moth was four years ago. Once we had such a large moth in the house that at first we thought is was a small bat. I don't know what it was. And then there are the hummingbird moths. They're pretty amazing.

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    1. Ken, that is a Peacock Butterfly...
      The one you had in the house was probably a Giant Peacock Moth....
      15cm wingspan...
      And a big body!!

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  3. Gorgeous photo, looks almost like a butterfly wearing a fur coat :-)!

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    1. It's a little warmer today, but recently we all could have done with a light fur coat.

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  4. The butterfly is a Small Heath Coenonymphus pamphilus (Fr. le Fadet commun). They are extremely fuzzy and not easy to photograph even in good light and sitting still. The camera doesn't know how to cope with all the downy fuzz. I don't have a really good photo of one, despite how often I see them.

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  5. Wonderful photo, wonderful creature. So fuzzy ! I see the usual, Florida type butterflies around right now. They are all nice .

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