Southern White Admiral
a reason to avoid Books, Beaches
and Burning
by Robert Jervis
“
T
wo weeks to go before our first holiday in Stoupa for eight years. Sarah was
already busy choosing which dozen books to take with her and various factors
of suncream. But what to do if you don’t like beaches and books and burning? Last
time I had two kids to entertain and not much time to myself, but I remembered
that I had found some interesting things to distract me. Some of these involved
a car so we would definitely hire one for a few days. As a keen amateur naturalist,
photographer, and hiker I trawled the web to see what I could find about the Mani.
Well, there were some very interesting
walks to do, but this was August and
very hot. Last time I remember walking from
Stoupa to Pyrgos and feeling decidedly
lightheaded when I returned, needing
to spend three hours in a cold bath and
having to forsake my ouzo for a couple
of days.
It’s August, the quietest month for birds,
and it seems that the ornithological world
has little to say about specific places on
the Mani but plenty to say about the
other two Peloponnese ‘fingers’. Surely
there are some interesting birds around
the middle finger. I would find out.
Then I found a butterfly site and
remembered that Greece is famous for
its butterflies and has a far greater number
of species than the UK. So the obvious
thing to do was to try to photograph
them. It didn’t seem too energetic a
thing to attempt in the heat of summer.
Then I read that there was one particular
species that was found nowhere else in
the world but in the Taygetos Mountains.
Right. Even though it did seem a bit of an
energetic pursuit, I would find it.
But I would take the car.
My excellent butterfly book had good
photos of the Taygetos Blue. It was very
small. And blue. There were several
other butterfly species on neighbouring
pages which looked similar and some
which looked exactly similar. I put the
book to one side and then promptly forgot
to pack it.
As soon as we arrived in Stoupa I headed for
the acropolis, for it was here last time that I
had amazing views of the beautiful
Swallowtail and the Scarce Swallowtail
(see photo opposite). I was not disappointed and spent a couple of hours in
the company of dozens of them.
21 INSIDE the MANI
Scarce Swallowtail