acropolis now

 

A while back, Mary saw on the internet a guided butterfly holiday in the mountains of Southern Greece. While it was far more expensive than our usual package holiday deals, it would drive us to specific places to see a huge number of butterflies. I think Mary had hardly finished the sentence are you interested before I said I'm in. On paper it looked like my perfect holiday - being chauffeured about in a minibus to the best places in a sunny warm country to see exotic wildlife. With restaurant meals in the evenings serving traditional Greek cuisine. But would it really be as good as we imagined?
Spoiler alert: it would!

The price of the holiday did not include the flight to Athens. Mary also arranged this (while I renewed my passport) and it seemed the only flights direct from Edinburgh arrived the day before we were to meet the group in Arrivals at Athens airport. I asked Mary why she hadn't just booked us a room in a hotel near the airport. She had made a reservation in the centre of Athens in The Economy Hotel which was an hour's trek across Athens on the metro. With luggage. In the steaming heat. However it turned out to be a good idea (although stressful) as Athens is the Edinburgh of the South. Lol.

better than it sounds or the wonky sign suggests

Athens is nothing like Edinburgh. Although it has an abrupt hill near the centre of town on which are some ancient buildings, so there is that. On previous holiday adventures I have spent the nights before on google earth familiarising myself with the place we are going and trying to get a feel for where the best places to visit (wildlife) will be.

Because this was a guided holiday I'd neglected to do this to the extent we were wandering around in Athens slightly jetlagged, in the afternoon heat which was seriously hot, and I was thinking out loud, that the hill at the end of our street looks noteworthy, it almost feels like I should know what those columned buildings are? It took a while for the fog of the flight and metro ride across a foreign urban landscape to clear enough, to realise that that was possibly one of the most famous spots on earth: the fecking Acropolis!

Acropolis now!

downtown Athens: a jumble of styles and eras

the ascent to the acropolis

a balalaika shop

We climbed some of the way up towards the acropolis, still not exactly sure that that was what it was. Mary's not-dead mum would be spinning in her not-there-yet coffin if she knew - she studied and taught Classics and/or ancient Greek, but never quite made it here to visit, and here we were coming across it accidentally. On the way to somewhere more important! It felt slightly dreamlike that we should have bumped into this iconic place by accident merely on our way elsewhere. That's one of the three types of ancient Greek column btw: iconic, doric and corinthian, or was it ironic?

There were more and more ancient ruins and partly standing temples kicking about the closer we got to ground zero. However Mary's legs were not enjoying the gradient after a long 12+hrs travelling, so we descended to look for a restaurant that was not charging premium prices. We pretty much ended up paying premium prices but it was very delicious and finished with a complimetary shot glass of something that was not ouzo. 

A.I. says...The liquor you are thinking of is Mastiha (or Mastika). It is a sweet, herbal liqueur crafted from the crystallized resin ("tears") of the mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus), a small evergreen shrub native to the Mediterranean.
(And, IMO, better than ouzo)

sunset on the acropolis - if that's what that is
(it is)

We had gone out with street lenses (12~60mm) on - not the usual (wildlife) zoom lenses. It was a delight to have a smaller camera taking top quality pics and to be able to put it in a small back pack when not in use. After a couple of drinks I almost relaxed and thought nothing of wandering around a strange place at night with an expensive camera. The warmth of the evening (no jacket required) made the place feel open and welcoming although there were, no doubt, less desireable elements about.

lots of stray cats
you could get very close but only a brave/foolish man would go in for strokies!

not that building but another looky-likey

moonlight over Athens - seemed unreal

plenty of soft dring

Okay just in case it all looks to be high culture and trips to the parthenon, here was an experience just yards from the reception of our hotel. Not sure exactly what they might serve up or why you might want to stand/sit shoulder to shoulder with others while experiencing it. 

also there were shops like this one full of collectables
right next to much posher shops - quite an eclectic variety

We slept well - I always sleep well - then got up and had plenty to eat at the stuff-yourself breakfast buffet. (Really love a cheese, ham, scrambled eggs, sausage, toast, cereal, fruit, yoghurt and custard pastry buffet. You're supposed to eat it all, right?) This was included in the bargain price of 63euros, pretty amazing for 2 staying one night in the centre of Athens (or less than 1km from it.) Great value. Well done Mary, I'd've had us overnight in the airport premier inn. Although we had to vacate the room before 11.30am, we were allowed to leave our large luggage behind reception while we went out walkabout for a few hours with our carry-ons. 

old building, new buildings

I felt that since we'd probably never be here again, we should go see if that was the Acropolis and Parthenon and check them out. Mary gamely said she'd give it a go. It became evident as we got higher and closer that it was indeed the famous set of ruins and that we weren't the first people to realise this. The crowds got more chaotic as we got closer. I found out the entry fee to access the top of the hill was 30 euros, but it was the distant crowd scenes of rammed tourists between fluted columns that dissuaded us from handing over 60 euros for a hot hustle round some ancient marble. Instead we photo-ed some butterflies nearby and took the trail round the side of the hill where we found some park-like green spaces to enjoy, and pass the time till we went to the airport.

eastern bath white

mallow skipper

oh oh, disney cos-play time!

no thanks!

possibly that building

more fun doing naturewatch in less crowded places

oriental hornet

common blue in local park

on such a hot day, this was a relief

red admiral

cat amongst the pigeons, enjoying the shade
possibly 30' ish

clouded yellow

keeled skimmer (female) ?

small white

We were pleased to see parakeets in the city and tried to throw some birdseed for them. They weren't interested but they would happily graze on fallen flowers very close by, letting us get photos. They were not the ring-necked parakeets of London and Tenerife but (says Obsidentify) monk parakeets. Very charming!

monk parakeet

We took a bit of a diversion on the way back to the hotel and had to navigate by instinct. Well I did - Mary used her phone to confirm our position.

our Athens 5 miles walkabout map before catching the metro to the airport
Hotel Economy at top of blue trail, the Acropolis and Parthenon just below centre

when you're on a hot train (that's rammed with people)
and carrying loads of luggage, with no seats, what do you really really want?

We returned to our hotel, collected our luggage and fought our way onto the metro (tickets: 2 x 9 euros) and back along a sticky hour's journey to the airport where we met our guide and butterfly guru Sotiris Alexiou. Our 3 fellow travellers arrived and we packed the luggage and ourselves into the 9 seater minibus and headed to the Kastalia Boutique Hotel, Delphi. 

the view from our balcony
It felt like we had arrived in paradise after the exhausting travelling and busy hot city. 

I've never seen a better hotel room vista!

off to find an evening meal in sit-outside sunshine

the restaurant also shared the entrancing view

All the food we had in Greece was terrific. Meals would often follow the same routine of Sotiris ordering several salads or starter type dishes which we would all share. Grilled cheese rounds or beans in sauce as well as leafy bowls of salad with feta cheese. Really healthy and delicious Mediterranean eating. Then, as we got well through those, our main meals (plenty to choose from including vegetarian options) would arrive.

What with the bread that always arrived and was always really good, and the abundant salads, we rarely managed to finish everything on the table. All food was covered by the price of the holiday, and this included our packed lunches which Sotiris bought in local bakeries, after we had chosen whatever pies or sandwiches we fancied. If we had wine or beer with our meals (which we did every night) then we'd have to pay for those. It was mostly 5 euros for a half litre kilo carafe of house red and always extremely drinkable. Most nights restraint was shown and we rarely had more than a glass or two.

Our routine became a familiar pattern: breakfast in the hotel 7.30ish and regroup in reception at 8.55 to jump in the minibus and head somewhere. We'd visit between 2 and 6 venues daily, many of them at altitude in the nearby mountains, between 10am and 5pm. This provided not only lots of amazing alpine butterflies, but it was cooler by about 10' than at sea-level. Mostly temps were between 18' and 30' with perfect weather daily. It was certainly warm enough to get sunburned and we wore sun screen and hats to avoid this. Although we rarely covered more than a mile or 2 at any venue it was surprisingly tiring being out all day in hot weather.

Sotiris adopted just the right attitude between disciplined and relaxed. He was firm about departure times but made sure everyone's needs were met. Not only the business of looking at butterflies, but also making sure we were all enjoying the food and drink, and accommodation. He carried plenty water and fruit in the back of the van which we enjoyed during the day. The information from Greenwings before departure had been quite rigorous; about what footwear and clothes to wear or carry, but Sotiris was amenable, to an extent, for us to make our own decisions. He didn't check our packs for the recommended waterproofs. (I only put mine on once during the week for 20minutes.)

I asked on day one was it possible to wear shorts rather than the recommended long trousers. He was okay with that although there were moments when long trousers would have given more knee or shin protection, while taking photos on very rough ground or areas with jaggy shrubs etc. Paul, a veteran Greenwinger, wore knee pads as protection. 

downtown Delphi!

eating outdoors became the norm

Mary, Nick, Paul, and Liz (with myself taking the photo.)
(Sotiris was collecting Rachael from Athens.)

outside our bathroom window house martins were feeding young

female adonis blue

silver-studded blue

Mary's hat

Mary and I didn't own hats and had to do some pre-holiday hat shopping. She bought that one online and was never terribly happy about it. It let her neck get red when she bent forward to photograph butterflies, which was nearly all day. I bought a similar brimmed version from M&S which hasn't yet been worn in anger. And then saw a better one in Tiso's but at more than twice the price. While swithering, I eventually bought a baseball cap in White Stuff which was worn daily although I suspect it won't be on my head lots, going forward.

brown argus

Chapman's blue

Paul found this which I think he said was a bag worm. Obsidentify says it is a Canefora hirsuta - a hairy sweep! A (European) moth which gathers plant or other matter around it like a sleeping bag. Nice!

a forester - fantastic!

One of the early highlights was this forester moth. One of the burnet family or related Zygaenids. If we get these in Scotland*, I've never seen one. Except in books where their viridian blue-green forms have taunted me. Until now. I was stoked! Particularly because it was unexpected. Lots of the delights on this trip were the specimens I have seen in books but never in real life, that appeared without fanfare, but gladdened the heart immensely.
*So you can find these moths in South West Scotland, although records and information are somewhat sketchy. Better to go to Greece than travel to Dumf and Galloway!

small skipper, female

brown argus

another forester

brown argus

lattice brown - larger than most

While we were near the van, a couple of large, top drawer species flew by. The first was a Balkan marbled white. It's a shame that the UK marbled white does not seem to be migrating North to Scotland as it is such a pretty butterfly. However the Balkan marbled white is a thing of incomparable beauty and I chased most of the specimens that crossed my path on this holiday; some huge, some moderately sized. Just a stunning design of warm dark grey patterns on white.

But then Mary said a large brown job that looked like a wall and a meadow brown had landed on the van window. Since the Balkan marbled was stationary I checked out what turned out to be a lattice brown - something, as Mary had suggested, that looked like a meadow brown, wall or ringlet on steroids. We didn't see many of these, so it was very nice of this one to pose for a great photo, reflecting itself in the window, albeit for seconds before it flew off again.

After which I returned to the Balkan beauty and got slightly better photos.

Balkan marbled white - a top quality beast!

transparent burnet (moth)
or (since not very transparent) maybe Zygaena osterodensis

this is ID-ed by both google and Obsidentify as common blue

there were certainly plenty about

painted lady

turquoise blue

turquoise blue

wood white

Adonis blue - a truly amazing butterfly
only slightly bigger, they are a level above the common blues with a nearly metallic sheen

(helpful fringe scalloping and marks to ID)

Carpocoris (?) shieldbug 

Adonis blue

Balkan zephyr blue ? 

That particular site was great for a variety of blues. The trouble is remembering which was which. Sotiris seemed expert at ID-ing them but there were many types and sometimes you wish there were just three or four and that they were all very different or had easy-to-distiguish markings.

BTW I am not going to publish little maps of where we were hunting butterflies. Sotiris has for many years been building a collection of locations: flowering meadows and small turn-offs where he finds butterflies in abundance, and it would be wrong to post the locations of his special places for others to find. They were mostly within a short-to-medium drive of where we were staying.

heath fritillary

On a trip to Galicia a few years back, one of the best butterflies I saw was this heath fritillary. On return to the UK, research showed it was not common here and I liked it even more, being a rarity. It does appear to be quite common in Greece. We saw them regularly and they are a fantastic species. I do like the fritillaries - most being orange and black and having sharp looks! (One thing we didn't see in Greece was the finest (IMO) Scottish fritillary - the dark green fritillary.)

female sooty copper
I was hoping to see a few metallic-like coppers. 

cicadetta montana

I photographed this unusual fly (above) as it seemed large and interesting. Jimmy, on facebook, later updated me that it was a cicada, which I hadn't noticed as it wasn't making any trademark rasping song/call. We were to become familiar with cicadas over the next few days.

amanda's blue; another top (blue) species

large white

an extraordinary fritillary

Now from memory Sotiris said this was a lesser spotted fritillary. Obsidentify says spotted fritillary 100%, though it is wrong more times than Sotiris. I have had a wander down the online identification chat (page 3 of 7) and it also suggests spotted rather than lesser spotted. The trouble is there are so many variations as well as male / female discrepancies that I have come to the conclusion it is not important what this actually is, other than magnificent.

top butterfly
swaying in the wind!

Even though quite small (maybe small tortoishell sized) it had a real impact and visual dynamism - the colour almost went beyond what humans can absorb visually, as it if were leaching into a brain-flavour or sound-outwith-the-human-range, as well as visual delight. It sat very helpfully while we all took photos. A thing of astonishing beauty.

great underside too!

brown argus ?

Liz was not shy about getting into the environment
and taking photos at butterfleye-level

she also wore a camera harness similar to mine

I was suprised that nearly everyone on the trip had M43rds cameras, with the exception of Liz who had a couple of Nikon full frame jobs. She was the smallest of us and yet carried the weightiest equipment! She had two different lenses on them though neither did birds or stuff-at-distance. She is in a photography group and I suspect knows her craft well. Paul had an OM1 with the same macro lens I have - the 90mm, a cracker, and a longer lens. Nick had the same set up as pals Ken and Mairi - the original Lumix G9 with original 100~400mm zoom. Mary has recently moved from Lumix bridge camera, getting a G9ii body but with a 100~300mm zoom (lighter) and (12~60) for scenery and street photography. She did a good job of familiarising herself with its workings for this holiday, over the last few weeks. I had the G9ii with 100~400 mk2, and 12~60 street lens, and 90mm OM systems macro lens. Which I used occasionally but mostly stuck with the zoom. Sotiris carried a Lumix G series with the same lens as Mary, the 100~300. He used binoculars more regularly than his camera. As did Rachael who didn't carry a camera, just binoculars.

It was great having such a small group as we could all gather round a specific butterfly without scaring it off. (Mostly!) Also sitting round tables in restaurants was easier than with a larger group. It was interesting to see how things transpired with everyone staying in the same seat in the van for almost every trip. Despite the suggestion we could /should move around and maybe share the preferred front view, we all seemed happy to continue in the random chairs we sat in once term had begun! There were never any journeys of arduous length, or if there was I was too busy yakking (or sleeping on the way back) to notice.

there were quite a few small heaths about

black-veined white

Another species I'd seen in photos but never in real life was the black-veined white. It was like a freshly washed duvet floating across flower beds. Much bigger than I'd realised, and with more gravitas. A real star of the butterfly world, it was a pleasure to meet and photograph them. While we saw a few of them, there was never so many that we became blasé about them.

Which sadly did happen with painted ladies and even clouded yellows. I almost stopped taking photos of painted ladies after the first day or 2, and clouded yellows only made the grade if they were sitting in exquisite fashion without any spoiler grass stems crossing the image. Although we were encouraged to shout out any interesting species, to alert the others, nobody was calling out clouded yellows after day one.

clouded yellow

so beautiful - if commonplace!

Mary would often wander off and enjoy solitary moments.
Here she is enjoying her lunch in a flowering meadow!

lots of UK species including this wall

the sort of area just off the road where we'd park up and explore,

virtually all of them very rich in lepidoptera

mother shipton moth

clouded yellow

burnet moth type (as above)

Escher's blue (?)

our trusty transport

rose chafer beetle

The first time I saw one of these shiny green beetles it was flying through the air, with a low buzz. So I was very pleased when the second one landed near to where I was standing. In the air they seem large and swooping - on the ground or on plants they are slow and ponderous. Very likeable and useful for photos. And they don't seem to have any bad habits like biting or stinging: I had one crawl across my hand and there were no surprises.

I noticed a few bee-flies which all seemed smaller here 
than their Scottish counterparts - presumably a different species

Lots of grasshoppers and bush crickets about. I tended only to photo the really large ones. The one above is medium to small. Obsidentify does not cope well with them. I'd have taken more hopper photos but there was so much competing for the limited room on the SD cards.

Also I had a battery problem. I had taken the Lumix battery that came with the camera and a non-brand back up. The Lumix battery started to malfunction - not holding a charge and running flat after just 350 photos. Normally it would last for around 1200. This put a lot of onus on the non-brand back-up which performed really well every day. Both were recharged nightly. I suspect the heat affected the Lumix battery which has had extensive use over 2.5 years, because it returned to more normal behaviour once we got back to Scotland. Not everyone works well in the heat!

The back-up battery would record about 1200 files before I had to swap over to the ailing Lumix. This near disaster was possibly a blessing in disguise as it made me concentrate on just shooting the good stuff I came across, and not going overboard in machine-gun burst mode. (Which was very tempting in such rich surroundings.)

It made the final tally of around 6000 pics and videos far more manageable when we got home. It would likely have been closer to 10,000 images for the week if I'd had unlimited battery power. And I didn't miss anything major due to batteries being flat. It was a lesson in restraint.

Obsidentify says the above (above) is Escher's blue. If I remember correctly Sotiris said this was a Zephyr blue or maybe Balkan zephyr blue. It was towards the end of a long hot day and the only thing I do remember is I found a splendid new friend - the one below, (a silver-studded blue) which hopped onto my thumb. Since I had my macro lens on the camera I was able to get a photo. It then went round the entire group of 6, landing on each one in turn, bringing a smile to everyone's face. I suspect it was enjoying the minerals (sweat) on our skin. Or the taste of sun screen, although that does seem unlikely.

it landed on Mary too

and on Liz

then on Sotiris's binoculars

At this point Sotiris asked to get a macro shot of the front legs. Apparently the only definitive way to tell the difference between silver-studded blues and Idas blues is a tiny spine on the tibia of the silver-studded that does not exist on the Idas. That seems to be it below although I had various photos where it seemed absent. Looks like it was a silver-studded. Which seemed less significant than the fact it made us all smile when it blessed each of us with a visit.

It may have been that afternoon (there were many venues each afternoon and they blurred somewhat) that Sotiris shouted Camberwell Beauty! as one of those legendary butterflies breezed by and we all ran down the empty road after it. Until it took a right turn, flew across the road and into a gap between trees. A search proved fruitless and it remained only a ghostly memory of a mythical beast.

Shortly after, Liz found this pair of blues mating (Obsidentify unequal to the task of ID-ing them.) I can't remember what species. Was it Pontic? However it was clear we had some unfinished business with the Camberwell Beauty. While Sotiris was very confident about seeing many/most of the species on our checklist, the elusive Camberwell Beauty was not one he promised us; saying there was a chance, but no guarantees. He also said he remembered each occasion on which he had seen one of these fabled creatures. The pessimistic interpretation of that being he hadn't seen them very often. Would we get more than a passing glimpse of this unique and elusive creature...?

And on that cliffhanger, we'll end chapter one. 
Chapter two following shortly.