Purple Haze

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R1DdX6-RBHQ

The second week of our holiday in Portugal we headed inland to the edge of the Penada Geres National Park.  Our stay in a renovated water mill was fantastic as the sizeable garden, bordered by streams and weir in the bottom of a oak clad valley was full of interest, particularly invertebrates.

I had thought the Emperor season well and truly over so I was ecstatic to find that the riverside maples in the garden were the assembly point for Lesser Purple Emperors. Every afternoon we watched them holding territory and engaging in spectacular and violent dogfights, chasing high into the sky at break neck speed.  A little too far for photos on their favoured bits of canopy, it was possible to watch them up close with the scope and grab a few images through the phone.

Beneath the Emperors the meadows and glades were alive with Spotted Fritillary, Cardinal, Swallowtails and Blues.  Metallic fairy Demoiselles  - Beautiful and Copper danced across the sparkling waters alighting on prominent vegetation, inviting close admiration.  Iberian Golden-ringed Dragonfly held prime territory along the weir and Scarce Pincertail skulked nearby sticking to the airspace just beneath the tangled overhangs of vegetation.  Overhead Honey Buzzards were frequent with vocal young just up the hill and huge Mammoth Wasps tumpled drunkenly through nectar rich flower heads.  Following a night and morning of steady, heavy rain Pied Flycatchers appeared all over with a few Redstarts thrown in for good measure.

 

 

  

 

 

Nearby river beach looked like a fantastic spot from the Google satellitfe and was full of Dragonflies, the finest being Violet Dropwing - a northward moving colonist from Africa.  Ultra-vivid and full of verve I spent a wonderful few hours, until the sun dropped behind the valley ridge, wading thigh high through the river between the rocks and little vegetated islets they favoured.

Trips out into the National Park provided spectacular butterflies in the form of Two-tailed Pasha, Rock Grayling and Striped Grayling which included a pair in cop, which we moved from a busy track.