June 2026
Single logs from this month:
The May summary, with the exception the of the species summary, technically can be copypasted 1:1. The first three weeks of June started off unusually cool and wet but right around the 25th the weather drastically changed and gave most of Europe one of the worst heat waves ever recorded, with temperatures crossing the 40°C mark and lasting over two days (Central Germany) to over a week (France).
Species that already were seen in May and returned:
- Aglais urticae
- Anthocharis cardamines
- Araschnia levana
- Coenonympha pamphilus
- Cupido minimus
- Pieris brassicae
- Pieris napi
- Polyommatus icarus
- Vanessa cardui
---
- Pyrrhosoma nymphula
Species making their first appearances:
- Aphantopus hyperantus
- Celastrina argiolus
- Coenonympha arcania
- Maniola jurtina
- Melanargia galathea
- Melitaea athalia spc.
- Plebejus argus
- Pieris rapae
- Satyrium pruni
- Thymelicus sylvestris
- Vanessa atalanta
---
- Calopteryx splendens
- Coenagrion mercuriale
This drastic shift also affected insects across every species. The only profiteers were A. hyperantus, M. jurtina, M. galathea, P. rapae, T. sylvestris, V. atalanta and V. cardui. Every other species saw a sharp drop, most notably C. arcania which disappeared after less than two weeks. Blues took the greatest hit just right before the heat wave reached Germany and disappeared completely.
While the heat wave ended on the 29th in my area, the weather is predicted to remain mostly dry, meaning that July might see a drought.
---
Addendum (on the same day): While I finally could confirm the first official C. argiolus in Zone III during a normal walk through my field labs, one tiny section of "David's fields" (the "heart" of Zone II) suddenly got declared to be part of "Via Natura 2000". There are multiple issues with this:
1. First they just slapped a silly sign onto the field, put two flyers next to it and called it a day just shortly after my 25 June field trip (meaning they drove through the area while the risk of fire was the highest),
2. the sign claims that this field belongs to a different farmer who's got nothing to do with this area AT ALL (his fields are south to our village),
3. The very few pictures (three) only include credits but no species names whatsoever and they got so horribly compressed that they even would be of low quality when uploading them to Instagram (NEVER EVER PRINT INSTAGRAM SHOTS),
4. the flyer states that the "Via Natura 2000" project ended in April, 2026 – this sign was put up two months after that,
5. my village isn't even listed among the project regions,
6. those same pictures depict species that aren't exclusive to this spot at all and can be encountered almost everywhere,
7. the project claims to monitor butterflies on top of some vague consulting and management but the organization responsible for it ("LPV Mittelthüringen", the same organization that cannot tell bluets apart) doesn't offer any data and no data from my area has been submitted to "Tagfalter Thüringen" throughout the entire duration of the project,
8. the QR code that has been glued to the sign – you literally can rip it off – leads to the LPV MT's project page that offers nothing but copypasted text from the flyer,
9. I personally haven't seen any of those guys since I started my private monitoring in 2022, meaning that if they really should have monitored anything the data is very likely to be useless (as one endangered species – N. antiopa – disappeared during that time and two other species – T. betulae and S. pruni – preferring spots outside this very tiny area and both being notoriously difficult to observe),
10. "David" managed his private fields without any kind of help from some random organizations before and I highly doubt that he's aware of what's going on,
11. The homepage's – via-natura-2000.de – certificates expired on 23 April, 2026, a week before the end of the project.
Considering that this same kind of tourist-catering slop caused the FFH territory "Bog Hill" to just need a single heat wave like last weekend to become a full-blown desert with soil temperatures around 100°C, I'm close to quitting after this season. Those "professionals" don't communicate outside of lousy signs and flyers that are nothing but ads, don't even half-ass their shit and provide faulty or no data whatsoever to anyone, yet still pat themselves on their backs for having reached some sort of quota or received thousands to millions of funds for some short-term project that will be forgotten once the project ends after five years. While Odrich Jr. likely will tell them (again) to "fuck off", they likely will target Zone I next and do their own experiments after this place already was experimented on with disappointing results that obviously never got addressed anywhere.
All of my main areas were meant to be a contrast to the FFH territory which – and it really cannot be understated – has been managed to death by people who live in cities and never touched a wooden scythe before, let alone even know how rural people take care of their livestock. All of my (uncensored) data is going towards the respective property owner when known to me and I'm taking their privacy extremely seriously. Constantly seeing how some random groups constantly popping up to do whatever short-term thing makes them feel good for five minutes constantly mess with spots that would do much better if they'd just be left alone whilst ignoring areas that desperately need some management is wearing me out and ruining my hobby.
/oblog/