@selbypaul.bsky.social
Butterfly Holiday Guide for Mariposa Nature Tours, Street Tree Campaigner, Elm Tree enthusiast, European Butterfly Watcher & Civil Servant.
I can't wait to visit!
13.10.2025 05:52 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Ophrys reinholdii © Jon Dunn
Ophrys umbilicata © Jon Dunn
Our Orchids of Rhodes tour is the ultimate exploration of the orchid flora of that wonderful Greek island. The 2026 tour has been fully booked since April 2025, and now the first bookings are coming in for the 2027 tour... this one always fills fast! (And donates to support @bsbibotany.bsky.social)
12.10.2025 17:32 — 👍 37 🔁 7 💬 2 📌 1
Blue Argus (Aricia anteros) © David Moore
Lesser Fiery Copper (Lycaena thersamon) © Jon Dunn
Good morning and welcome to a new week!
This week's featured tour is Butterflies of North Greece, our immersion next June into the intoxicating richness of butterfly life in the region. With David Moore & Martin Davies as their leaders, guests are sure...(1/2)
mariposanature.com/tours/butter...
Front cover of the European Butterfly Red List, showing Polyommatus humedasae. The report can be downloaded at https://www.bc-europe.eu/webpage.php?name=red-list-butterflies-2025
The new European Butterfly Red List is published today, with worrying findings. Over 1/4 (28%) of Europe’s 442 species are threatened with extinction or are close to being so. The situation is far worse for our 148 endemic species, 40% are now threatened or nearly so www.bc-europe.eu/webpage.php?...
11.10.2025 09:17 — 👍 147 🔁 96 💬 2 📌 5
Plate 40 of FW Frohawk's 'Natural History of British Butterflies', featuring Large Heath (Coenonympha tullia)
It's #FrohawkFriday, the day we celebrate the butterfly studies & artwork of FW Frohawk.
Today features Large Heath, inhabitant of acidic, wet peatlands mostly in the north. Since Frohawk's time it's declined badly in England and Wales; Scotland remains a stronghold to this day.
Canary Blue (Cyclyrius webbianus) © Stephen Culley
Canary Red Admiral (Vanessa vulcania) © Clive Burrows
Good morning, and welcome to a new week!
Our featured tour this week is Butterflies of Tenerife, a guaranteed departure on 24-30 March 2026. Like ALL of our butterfly tours, it generates a donation to support the great work of @europebutterfly.bsky.social. (1/2)
mariposanature.com/tours/butter...
Desert Babul Blue (Azanus ubaldus) © Jon Dunn
An unforgettable day with my @mariposanature.bsky.social group.
I found Desert Babul Blue on the European mainland!
There are a mere handful of past claims of it - this is an African species that's an ultra-rarity in Europe. I'm in a state of some shock.
#butterflies @europebutterfly.bsky.social
A fit-to-pop overripened banana (handle with care!), some rum, and a little sugar
Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo) © Jon Dunn
Dunn's Patent Pasha Paste.
Take one ripe banana. Slow cook on a car dashboard for a day in full sunlight until liquified. Add rum and sugar for added vim. Enter suitable hilltop habitat full of Strawberry Tree... (1/2)
Ophrys lacaitae © Michele Viganò
Ophrys lunulata © Jon Dunn
Just three places remain available now to join us next year for our Late Spring Orchids of Sicily tour, led by 'Orchid Summer' author Jon Dunn, and local Sicilian naturalist legend Andrea Corso. As the Sicilians say, amuninni!
www.mariposanature.com/tours/botani...
Plate 39 of FW Frohawk's 'Natural History of British Butterflies', featuring Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus)
It's #FrohawkFriday, the day we celebrate the butterfly studies and artwork of FW Frohawk.
Today features Ringlet, a widespread species across most of Britain, whose range has expanded north a little since Frohawk's time. Bejewelled with eyespots, its name is self-explanatory.
At times it felt like it!
01.09.2025 06:00 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Well and truly home now after 8 days on the @mariposanature.bsky.social holiday to Madeira. Such a wonderful island. Yes I focused on the endemic Madeiran butterflies. But the scenery is stunning. I'll certainly be visiting again. 😍
31.08.2025 09:33 — 👍 42 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 0
Fascinating Day 7 of the @mariposanature.bsky.social Madeira holiday. Hundreds of this Madeiran subspecies of Small Copper, having seen 0 previously. They're beautiful & locally common . Much underresearched in terms of their LHP & phenology. I suspect they'll become a distinct species soon
28.08.2025 17:57 — 👍 41 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
Madeiran Speckled Wood on the left. (European) Speckled Wood (introduced invasive) on the right. Superficially similar but very different when seen in field. Fascinating to observe their different habitat likes & their interactions. Loving the @mariposanature.bsky.social holiday to Madeira
23.08.2025 18:26 — 👍 14 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
This is one of the two last Gatekeeper butterflies in my garden for this year. Still hanging on, but tatty round the edges. They don't normally last until mid-August, so it's been a long flight season given their early emergence this year.
11.08.2025 10:04 — 👍 8 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
My main target in Moscardón was the Zapata's Ringlet, an endemic in the area. The first day I drew a blank but a couple had been seen.
The second day I saw a couple in the afternoon, on the third day more but none behaved apart from one on a guy called Roberts wrist taking salt.
Blog on lojawildlife
Iberian Sooty Copper (Lycaena bleusei) © Jon Dunn
Some utterly gorgeous Iberian Sooty Copper basking in the morning sunlight heralded the start of our final full day in the Montes Universales yesterday.
05.08.2025 22:50 — 👍 61 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 1Postcard from the field, from tour leader @dunnjons.bsky.social on our final full day of the Butterflies of the Montes Universales tour:
This was a day that included more wonderful views of endemic Zapater's Ringlet, but we were spoilt for choice as other beauties vied for our attention.
More bad news for butterflies. Our new paper led by Wendy Leuenberger shows common species are declining even more rapidly than rare ones. @ZipkinLab
Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2501340122
Anacamptis syriaca © Jon Dunn
Ophrys iricolor © Jon Dunn
Ophrys lapethica © Jon Dunn
Orchis sezikiana © Jon Dunn
It's a guaranteed departure on 2-9 March 2026, and it's also guaranteed to generate a donation to our good friends at @bsbibotany.bsky.social, to help support their vital botanical conservation work. Great orchids, great birds, great reptiles, great butterflies - this tour has it all. (2/2)
04.08.2025 05:09 — 👍 16 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
Orchis punctulata © Jon Dunn
Ophrys kotschyi © Jon Dunn
Good morning, and welcome to a new week!
Our featured tour this week is Orchids of Cyprus, a marvellous way to start the spring, looking for orchids (and other wildlife) on this warm and friendly island with @thenewgalaxy.bsky.social & Dave Fairhurst. (1/2)
mariposanature.com/tours/botani...
Mother of Pearl Blue (Polyommatus nivescens) © Jon Dunn
Mother of Pearl Blue (Polyommatus nivescens) © Jon Dunn
Mother of Pearl Blue - I will never get bored of these little gems, least of all when they're as fresh as this beauty was early this morning here in the Montes Universales.
01.08.2025 21:15 — 👍 78 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 0
Silver-spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) © Jon Dunn
It goes without saying that we love butterflies of all kinds, regardless of rarity, and take time on our tours to enjoy seeing the various aspects of their life cycles. Yesterday, here in the Montes Universales, a new generation of Silver-spotted Skipper was beginning.
02.08.2025 05:56 — 👍 67 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 0
Chuffed to find a small colony of Chalkhill Blue on the Purbeck Ridge. First I have seen here in 5 years of looking. They have vanished from most of Dorset for unknown reasons. Either they are having a good year or I have been very unlucky in previous years! @dorsetbutterflies.bsky.social
24.07.2025 21:37 — 👍 47 🔁 5 💬 4 📌 0You couldn't possibly micro-target this tour to me more effectively than showing that much thistle at once! 👀
20.07.2025 00:51 — 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Postcard from the field, from our sun-drenched Pallas's Fritillary and Summer Butterflies of Hungary tour this week:
A roadside stop demonstrates how butterfly-rich this wonderful country is. Dozens of fritillaries in constant motion. Joy!
youtu.be/b13-wDvE3Go
Eastern Baton Blue (Pseudophilotes vicrama) © Jon Dunn
Quick BOC shot before I fall asleep here - a smart, fresh Eastern Baton Blue this afternoon near our hotel here in Hungary. It’s so good to be back in this friendly country - I first came here 30 years ago and, while much has changed in the interim, the butterflies and the warm welcome remain.
18.07.2025 19:41 — 👍 37 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 1Postcard from the field from tour leader @dunnjons.bsky.social, co-leading our Hungarian summer butterflies tour:
We arrived in Hungary this afternoon, so will be getting properly underway tomorrow, with a great weather forecast ahead of us, and hopefully some outbreaks of great #butterflies!
Best of luck co-leading the Hungary holiday @dunnjons.bsky.social
16.07.2025 15:29 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Ended my time in south Spain today with this Plain Tiger. This following my 5th new species in 3 days with Andalucian Anomalous Blue. Back to work tomorrow!
Thanks to @lojawildlife.bsky.social for the help in site identification
