This morning I have walked down to Avlaki beach to explore the area around the pond again, it's a beautiful warm early morning and there is very little wind.
The yellow poppy's growing in the gravel along the beach are being visited by these huge carpenter bees, but they are very hard to photograph!
The first Butterfly image of the day, a Clouded Yellow feeding.
This is the area I am exploring; the path goes around the edge of the pool and then opens out into scrub land with old Olive trees in the distance but is too overgrown to walk very far from the path.
These are one of my favorite Butterflies, and I always try to photograph them when spotted. Much nicer light for this one compared to the first one is shot.
A view across the pool to the sea.
There are quite a few of these Darter Dragonflies, presume they are Red Veined Darters. But there was one with a much wider abdomen but was too fast to get an image of it.
A backlit Cleopatra clearly showing the orange inside the forewing.
A small Miner Bee sitting just long enough for a phone pic
These Darters are glowing in the sun, Amazing colour!
This one looks like a male Blacktailed Skimmer, there are quite a few but no sign of any females so maybe it is a different species.
This is the first Painted Lady I have seen this year, but not a good image unfortunately.
Another of the huge Carpenter Bees
Looking out from the poolside path into the scrub, there are very few flowers and grasses have taken over. I am really struggling to find many Butterflies that are close enough to shoot. Either side of the path there are a few fresh Spotted Fritillaries, but they only settle for seconds before flitting off1
The Glanville Fritillaries on the other hand settle for much longe , this one is fairly dark in colouration.
A Spotted Fritillary showing how bright they are compared to the Glanville above.
Underside of a Spotted Fritillary, it has been extremely hard to get a shot of the underwing.
Backlit Clouded Yellow feeding on Scabious flower (I think)
This is a Mallow Skipper, distinguished from an Oriental Marbled Skipper by the hooked antenna tips.
I have decided to walk back to the hotel now, one last Cleopatra sitting on a sedge leaf by the pond. It's been extremely difficult here; the mountains seem to have more to photograph so I will go back up there tomorrow hopefully to find a Southern Swallowtail which are now being seen on high ground.
Beautiful flowers along the road going back towards Kassiopi.
