GreenEye Ecotours and Images

Before our forthcoming tour we used a last opportunity to visit a very remote location of Tolna county in search of Tree Grayling, a very scarce species in Hungary. Here this species usually occurs at sandy area or at some riverbanks, but getting very rare, unfortunatelly. This is especially rare at the Transdanubian area (west of the Danube). It was collected in 1908 around Fenyõfõ, later discovered in Õrség during the 40's, but no recent observations. There are some uncomfirmed records from the area of Gyõr too. During my university years I did find some specimens from the 80's in the university' collection from Tolna county, which excited me very much since than, and now with the help of Google Earth we shorted our the possible habitats. With the help of two best friends I visited the area for a day, and located the species at the first attept, which made us very happy, however the population is on the verge of extinction, we didn't count more than 10 specimens. There were also many Grayling, Woodland Grayling, Alcon Blue and hundreds of Cardinals. We also had two night for light-trapping at night, which resulted some good species, incl. Simyra nervosa, Hadena irregularis, Actinotia hyperici and Oxycesta geographica. There was a big number of hawkmoths around, too. The most exciting moment of the night was, however the howling of two Golden Jackals. Jackals were extremely rare in Hungary since the mediaval times, and for twohundred years we only had four records until the recent balkan war, when the southern populations were highly disturbed, and vagrant specimens re-colonised Hungary again. Now we have probably 500 jackals in the country, and they are especially widespread around the southern Transdanubian counties. I have seen many jackals in Asia and Africa, however this was the first when I heard them in Hungary. There was two major howling from two specimens, probably a pair, asking each other: -"Are yoooouuuuu theeeeere???", "-Yeeees, here I am!" It was fascinating!
The next day we visited a nearby island in search of the mega butterfly, Freyer's or Hungarian Purple Emperor. This species was originally described from the vicinity of my former university town, Pécs, but the habitats around that area are completely demolished. They are still common and widespread along the riverbanks of the lower Danube, Drava and Tisza rivers. They are small population in Croatia and Serbia as well, but this is still a very hungarian butterfly, fascinating, rare, exciting. Its very easy to confused with the second generation of the common Lesser Purple Emperor, however - apart from the usual IDs - having a different flight and behaviour. Today we have had great luck at the sandy banks of Danube river, we did find the species immediatelly at first attempt again, and we took several great pictures. There were also some beautiful Yellow-legged Club-tailed Dragonfly, but they were terribly shy and I was quite unlucky to photograph them, just got some distant pictures.
20, Aug., 2009

A fresh Tree Grayling.

Another specimen try to chase away its photographer, with its "eyes" on the flasing forewing.

Freyer's or Hungarian Purple Emperor. A strictly protected species, probably the best butterfly of Hungary.

Freyer's or Hungarian Purple Emperor on its foodplant (Salix spp.)

Irrisation on Freyer's or Hungarian Purple Emperor.

The habitat (banks of the Danube river) of the Purple Emperor..

Actinotia radiosa, a scarce, attractive and fast day-flying moth (Noctuidae).

A bed record shot about Hadena irregularis. A rare species sharing the sandy habitat of Tree Grayling.

Oxycesta geographica. Another attractive and uncommon moth, photographed at night.

Laothoe populi, one of the most common hawkmoth of Hungary.

Yellow-legged Club-tailed Dragonfly, a protected, rare and endangered river dragonfly, part of the Bern Convention.

Trielis interrupta, a rare wasp (Scolioidae) in Hungary. I didn't see one for a decade © Gergely Szabó.

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