We've just had a memorable long weekend in Estonia, courtesy of our good friend Katya who was 18 when she first met Penny on a flight from St Petersburg. Entomological readers of this blog can probably stop here as the brooches above were the only butterflies I saw on the holiday, apart from the little scrap below which may alternatively have been a moth. My iPhone tentatively suggests the Shaded Broad-bar.
What it lacked in lepidoptera however, the weekend made up for in beetles including this splendid Pine Sawyer which was spotted by some German children as it peeped up through a crack in the boardwalk over the Viro forest bog.
Completely harmless to humans, in spite of its size and intimidating appearance, it is a stubborn enemy of pine boardwalks which it eats for breakfast, lunch and tea. Nearby, we found a leather beetle, out and about from its aestivation or Summer hibernation which is a characteristic of the species.
Other forms of wildlife which entertained us included storks nesting on the traditional chimney wheels, Common Toads in profusion and a forest frog of some kind.
The landscape was marvellous and swimming in a bog lagoon - a cleasr 'eyehole' of the deep lake which underlies the surface cruts of bog foliage - and the flooded quarry of an abandoned prison delightful - neither sounds exactly enticing but both were, with marvellous clear and unpolluted water.
The biting insects can be a bit of a nuisance, but you won't starve in an Estonian forest (and indeed, guerilla bands of freedom fighters survived deep in the woods for years after the end of the Second World War). Alongside the yellow chanterelle mushrooms, there are thousands and thousands of bilberries, my favourite fruit and one which is hard to find in UK shops, though you can pick them on the Pennines, the Cumbrian fells and in Scotland, especially if you have a handy 'bilberry comb' like the women we met with the purple-stained hand.
The butterflies and moths of Estonia will have to wait for another time.
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