Borderline Butterfly Gallery

All the photographs in our gallery were taken in our immediate local area – the valleys of Luz Saint Sauveur, Bareges, Heas and Gavarnie in the Hautes Pyrenees. Many thanks to Mark Brown who took most of them. 

The Midi Pyrenees region has 200 species of butterflies and 28 species of day-flying moths recorded to date. This represents 75% of the 260 butterfly species recorded in France.

While the French are aware from butterfly monitoring, and particularly that undertaken in the United Kingdom, that butterflies are an excellent indicator of the health of the natural habitat, the existing butterfly records date from the 19th century and the early 20th century and cover only a very partial area.

With many species in decline or under threat, the importance is now understood of having a working tool to help reverse the decline and save threatened species from extinction. Several of the red list of threatened species of European butterflies can be found in the Midi-Pyrenees.

So, under a new initiative, the Conservatoire Regionale des Espaces Naturels (CREN) de Midi-Pyrenees (Groupe Invertebres) in conjunction with Nature Midi-Pyrenees are now working together to produce a regional atlas of butterflies and day-flying moths of the Midi Pyrenees. 2013 marks the last year in the field for collecting data towards the atlas for butterflies and day-flying moths of the Midi-Pyrenees.

As a member of Butterfly Conservation European Interests Group and the Nature Midi Pyrenees CREN working group on butterflies please contact me if you wish to share your recordings in the Midi-Pyrenees.

Jude Lock • lock.jude@gmail.com

A few links -

                                                                                        Philippe Bricaire's site - superb butterfly photos
                                                                                            and guide to identification of burnets