We only had a short amount of time available today, but had one important stop planned to search for a rare butterfly we’d never previously seen in Bulgaria: the Scarce Fritillary. The name ‘scarce’ is indeed an accurate reflection of the species’ status in Bulgaria, with colonies only at a handful of locations in the north-east part of the country. It is a particularly attractive butterfly too; amongst the European fritillaries it could certainly be argued as the best-looking species. For me, it is just behind Cynthia’s Fritillary.

As it was a new site for us, we were unsure wether or not to expect success. The species seems to have a relatively narrow flight period, and given that these are not always consistent between years, with a lot of dependence on weather, we had some worry that the very start of June would be too early. However, from a photographer’s perspective, as long as one manages to find a few butterflies, the start of the flight season has the advantage of ensuring pristine-looking specimens.

At 10:00am we arrived at the site, a small stretch of road within a wooded valley, which was just open enough to allow some sun to hit the road and roadside verges. There was no safe parking exactly here, so we had to continue up through the woods a little more and then had a 5 minute trek back down to the clearing.

This turned out to be quite fortunate, when a few minutes in we stumbled across a small lizard scuttling through the leaf-litter. Given the habitat, we immediately knew what species’ it was likely to be: a Meadow Lizard - one of our target reptiles for later in the trip and a new one for us. I though it would be very challenging to photograph, as in theory it would be very simple for it keep hidden amongst the leaf litter, but this individual at least proved quite obliging and with a bit of patience kept re-appearing somewhere in the small area around the point we’d initially seen it. Photography was still quite challenging, as it’s a difficult environment in which to get uncluttered photos, and the lighting was so poor that flash was required.

After the welcome interruption from the lizards, our focus switched back to finding the butterfly. If we were unsuccessful today ,we did have a couple more sites planned for the following day, but it would still be a nice reassurance if we could tick the species off today. Fortunately our worries turned out to be needless, and there was no difficulty involved in finding them. As soon as we moved into the sun, several individuals appeared. During the 3 hours spent on site we settled for an estimated count of 20+ Scarce Fritillary. The lighting was harsh at this time of day, although there wouldn’t have been much point coming significantly earlier as the sun wouldn't have entered the glade. I took a small variety of images, a few of which I reasonably pleased with.

Other butterflies seen here included a probable Freyer’s Purple Emperor which flew briefly high along the road. It’s likely to be this species rather than Lesser Purple Emperor, but one can’t be certain without a proper view. There were also a couple each of Scarce Swallowtail, Cardinal and Speckled Wood, as well as a handful of Queen of Spain Fritillary and Silver-studded Blue. We also saw many Beautiful Demoiselle, the Geometrid moths Speckled Yellow and Rhodostrophia vibicaria, and a Common Wall Lizard.

As we drove on from the site towards our next destination, we stopped briefly in a nearby village to look at a freshly killed Caspian Whip-snake on the road.