1600m up!

Discovered a colony of Purple Emperors in a partially wooded ravine 1575m up on a steep, heavily wooded north-facing slope in the Catalan Pyrenees today. Two of the three seen were feeding on sap oozing from Woolly Thistle heads which have been damaged by weevils and beetles.  

Here's an old male (centre) -

And here's the site, centre, from a distance. The rides in this pine wood were lined with highly suitable-looking sallows but we didn't see any Emperors there, maybe the butterfly simply hasn't found these isolated rides yet.

In the afternoon we watched Lesser Purple Emperor males behaving appallingly - every bit as badly as Purple Emperor males - clashing and chasing, from perching points on birch and sallow along a shady leeward edge (it was quite windy) in 30 Celsius -