Val d'Aran, July 2008
Switzerland, July 2008
My mother watches a great banded grayling fly around her feet. Switzerland 2003.
The great banded grayling is a magnificent butterfly, large and
strikingly marked like an admiral, and with an equally swooping,
powerful flight. It flies across much of Europe but is commonest in hot
regions with plenty of bushes. In the summer of 2003, which was
exceptionally hot in Switzerland, I saw greater numbers of this insect
than I have ever seen before.