Mariposa Nature Tours

12/08/2024

Good morning, and welcome to a new week! Our featured tour this week is False Comma & Summer Butterflies of Serbia - a guaranteed departure on 24 June - 1 July 2025. This is a very special tour, with one of the great European butterfly rarities at its beating heart.

Serbia is one of those rare places in Europe nowadays where it's like stepping back in butterfly time, into countryside where insects remain abundant and diverse. In addition to the mythical False Comma, we'll be seeing plenty of further beautiful species besides...

Amongst other desirable and localised gems, we'll be looking for the likes of Balkan Copper, Freyer's and Bog Fritillaries, Eastern Large & Russian Heath, Bulgarian Ringlet, Yellow-banded & Spinose Skippers, Poplar Admiral, Violet Copper, Blue Argus, Hungarian Glider, and Clouded Apollo. And there will be plenty more butterflies on the wing too!

Importantly, this tour will generate a donation to our good friends at Butterfly Conservation Europe. Butterfly Conservation Europe do such valuable work all across Europe, and we're proud to have been the first wildlife tour company to offer to support them.

Just four places remain available to book on our False Comma & Summer Butterflies of Serbia tour - it's filling fast. Full details on our website at https://www.mariposanature.com/tours/butterflies/false-comma-and-summer-butterflies-of-serbia

All images here reproduced with the kind permission and © János Oláh

05/08/2024

Good morning, and welcome to the new week! Our featured tour of the week is Orchids of the Gargano Peninsula, a chance to explore the orchids of this botanically world-famous limestone peninsula at the height of spring next year, running on 16-23 April 2025.

A great many other wildflowers will adorn our route - this holiday promises to be a feast for the eyes. Led by ecologist and Gargano devotee David Gibbs, and 'Orchid Summer' author Jon Dunn, just three places remain available to book on this popular and guaranteed departure tour.

As with all of our 2025 week-long holidays, this tour qualifies for our early bird booking discount - if booked before 30 November 2024, £125 will be subtracted from the listed price of the holiday. Our prior guests will also benefit from an additional £50 loyalty discount over and above that early bird offer.

Importantly, a donation will be made to our good friends Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland, supporting their proactive botanical research and conservation work.

We look forward to seeing you there for fine flowers, fine food, and fine photography opportunities!

https://www.mariposanature.com/tours/botanical/orchids-of-the-gargano-peninsula

Photos here © David Gibbs & Jon Dunn

29/07/2024

Good morning, and welcome to the new week! Our featured tour this week takes us to another Macaronesian island, Tenerife.

Butterflies of Tenerife offers a lovely selection of endemic, and American & African pioneer butterfly species in warm, pleasant surroundings.

With David Moore & Dave Fairhurst, you've got two of Europe's finest butterfly and bird guides respectively at the helm, and can be assured of a fine time, wildlife notwithstanding - they're both experienced tour leaders of many years standing, and know what makes for a fun and fulfilling holiday.

Birds? Well, the holiday may be titled Butterflies of Tenerife (because they ARE brilliant, after all!) but the birds on this lovely island are special too - once you've seen the improbable wonder that's Blue Chaffinch there's no going back to the regular Chaffinches in your garden! And there are more birding highlights besides here on Tenerife.

As with all of our butterfly holidays, this tour will generate a donation to Butterfly Conservation’s European Butterflies Group and, if booked before 30 November 2024, it qualifies for our early bird booking discount of £125 off the listed price of the holiday. Prior Mariposa guests also enjoy a £50 loyalty discount, of course.

Running on 26 March - 1 April 2025, this is the perfect way to mark the end of winter and step into the butterfly promise of the spring and summer that lies ahead.

https://www.mariposanature.com/tours/butterflies/butterflies-of-tenerife-25

Images kindly reproduced with permission and © Clive Burrows, Stephen Culley & David Moore

27/07/2024

Just three places now remain available on this wonderful tour! It's filling up fast, and no wonder - a late winter break to a warm Macaronesian island abounding with birds, butterflies and some brilliant wildflowers too. Fuerteventura really is fabulous!

27/07/2024

Concerns have been expressed over the current status of Southern Hermit (Chazara prieuri) which seems to have been in decline over recent years, and will be classified as Endangered in the forthcoming Red List of European Butterflies.

We have secured the services of two Spanish MSc students who have finished their studies for the year to survey for the species in the coming weeks.

The students will be visiting 46 localities between Madrid and Zaragoza which have been identified by Enrique García-Barros, Spain’s leading satyrid expert. Each site will be visited twice to try to ensure that, whether the flight period this year is early or late, there is a chance to find the butterfly.

Image kindly reproduced and © Jon Dunn

22/07/2024

Good morning and welcome to the new week!

Our featured tour this week is one of several new tours we're delighted to be offering in 2025. Fabulous Fuerteventura - Birds, Butterflies & Botany runs on 23 February - 1st March, is already proving popular, and is a guaranteed departure.

A week on a warm Macaronesian island is an enticing prospect in the late winter, especially one that's home to such a varied blend of wildlife - famous for not only a suite of breeding North African bird species, but also some special butterflies that exist on the very edge of their African range, and a rich and varied flowering plant life too. The island even has its very own endemic butterfly, the Fuerteventura Green-striped White - found here and nowhere else in the world.

Your tour leaders for your visit to this special island are a dream team of professional ecologist David Gibbs, and renowned birder and vastly experienced tour leader David Fairhurst - between these two, everything on the island will be grist to our mill!

We're not surprised the tour's filling fast and, like all of our week-long tours for 2025, it qualifies for our early bird booking discount if booked before 30 November 2024 - £125 will automatically be subtracted from the listed cost of the tour. Of course, prior customers also enjoy an additional £50 loyalty discount.

More information about this new tour, and online booking, is available on the tour's dedicated page on our website. We hope to see you in Fuerteventura!

https://www.mariposanature.com/tours/wildlife/fabulous-fuerteventura

Images © Chris Lodge

20/07/2024

With both of our 2025 Orchids of Cyprus & Orchids of Rhodes tours already fully booked, we've opened up their 2026 counterparts for early booking too.

(Both qualify for our £125 early-bird booking discount and, for our prior guests, an automatic additional £50 loyalty discount. Both also will generate donations to our good friends Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland to support their vital botanical conservation work).

Full details of both these 2026 orchid tours, and online booking, are available on our website - https://www.mariposanature.com/calendar

Meanwhile, if you fancy an Italian orchid holiday in 2025, we still have some spaces available on both our Orchids of Sicily tour (led by Sicilian native & Italian naturalist legend Andrea Corso & UK ecologist Esther Pawley), and our Orchids of the Gargano Peninsula tour (led by UK ecologist and Gargano-lover Dave Gibbs, and Orchid Summer author and European orchid addict Jon Dunn).

Again, full details on the website!

(Ophrys kotschyi image reproduced with kind permission of and © www.orchidsofbritainandeurope.co.uk )

15/07/2024

Good morning, and welcome to a new week! Our featured tour of the week is Orchids of Sicily, a two-centre tour that ensures we cover this beautiful island's best orchid sites in the space of a glorious week of orchid-hunting next April.

We anticipate seeing 40+ species during the week, and a great many other wildflowers besides. Your experienced, friendly leaders will be renowned Sicilian naturalist Andrea Corso, and professional ecologist Esther Pawley. Andrea brings an unrivalled insight into not only the island's natural history, but also its culture and history. If you've very lucky he may even treat you to a burst of song - his singing voice is at least as wonderful as his orchid-hunting and birding skills!

You'll stay in delightful rural retreats, surrounded by nature, and the evening meals will be a particular delight to behold as we reflect upon a successful day immersed in orchids.

Running 10-17 April 2025, in the heart of the orchid season, this tour will, like all of our botanical holidays, generate a donation to our good friends at Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland, to help fund their wildflower conservation research and work.

As with all of our week-long tours, this qualifies for our £125 early bird booking discount off the listed price of the holiday if booked before 30 November 2024.

Amuninni!

https://www.mariposanature.com/tours/botanical/orchids-of-sicily

13/07/2024

Did you know there are several claims of the immense Apollo having been seen at large in Britain?

(No, we are pretty doubtful about their provenance too! But all the same, just imagine how exciting seeing one of these beautiful creatures is - always a thrill!)

If rarities give you butterflies, you could join us on holidays next year to see Apollo and a great many other species in their natural European homes. Why wait for a vagrant British example of Queen of Spain Fritillary when you might encounter them in their hundreds in North Greece?! And so much more besides.

We've butterfly holidays in 2025 all over Europe, some close to home, and others spreading their wings a little further afield. Tours in France, Spain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Serbia, the Canaries & Madeira all offer the chance to see beautiful delights and surprises.

All our week-long tours qualify for a £125 early bird booking discount off the listed price if booked before 30 November 2024. Better still, all our butterfly tours generate a donation to our good friends Butterfly Conservation’s European Butterflies Group, supporting their vital butterfly conservation work. Win, win!

Details of all our tours can be found on our website:

https://mariposanature.com/calendar

08/07/2024

Good morning!

Our featured tour this week is our extremely popular Orchids of Rhodes - an opportunity to join us next April in Ophrys bee orchid heaven, home to dozens of species, and their beautiful hybrids and variations.

But that's not all...

Rhodes is also home to many other orchid species, and we'll be searching for everything in flower. In 2024, we found over 50 species in the course of one marvellous week! We know the island intimately well, and benefit from a network of European orchid-hunting friends who kindly share their finds with us. We're firm believers in building strong friendships that prove mutually beneficial for guests, guides, and our orchid-hunting colleagues alike.

Speaking of friendships, the family in whose lovely rural hotel we base ourselves have become firm friends. We visit them out of orchid season, returning for the warm welcome, stories shared over a drink in the evening and, of course, Mama's legendary cooking. Every meal is a delicious feast here.

But back to next year's Orchids of Rhodes tour! With 'Orchid Summer' author Jon Dunn and renowned European orchid fanatic
Richard James as your guides, you're in for an orchid extravaganza, with plenty of opportunities to just take your time and explore at your own pace - we ensure we devote ample time at each site for everyone to find their own flowers. Our orchid tours are a team effort - everyone contributes finds that add to the collective enjoyment!

Already a guaranteed departure (with just four places remaining available on it) the tour will generate a donation to our good friends at Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland to help fund their vital botanical conservation research work.

Hopefully we'll see you in Rhodes!

https://mariposanature.com/tours/botanical/orchids-of-rhodes-25

08/07/2024

01/07/2024

Good morning, and welcome to July!

This year's tours are running smoothly, and our guests are already making plans for 2025 - tours for next year are all available for booking, and some are starting to fill up fast.

Our Romania in Spring tour was a resounding success in May this year, and that one is already sold out for 2025! We're not surprised - the chance to see butterflies as choice and rare as Danube Clouded Yellow, or to experience the unforgettable thrill of watching a mother Brown Bear and her two playful cubs from the proximity of a dedicated hide deep in the Transylvanian forest, is always going to be popular.

Also in eastern Europe, we've a couple of new tours launching in 2025 - a fabulous Hungarian adventure for Pallas's Fritillary and FOUR(!) species of Phengaris large blue, and what promises to be a superb visit to Serbia for the mythical False Comma, and some equally exciting and enticing further butterfly species besides.

Our new False Comma & Summer Butterflies of Serbia tour is filling fast, with just three places now available - running from 24 June - 1 July 2025, this one will be very special indeed. Led by our popular butterfly leader Paul Selby, our guests will be stepping back in butterfly time to a region of Europe that's largely spared the ravages of decades of intensifying agriculture. The butterflies, in their abundance and diversity, will reflect that lighter touch.

Of course, as with ALL of our butterfly tours, this will generate a donation to Butterfly Conservation’s European Butterflies Group - your holidays today providing funding that will directly help to conserve the butterflies of tomorrow.

Full details of False Comma & Summer Butterflies of Serbia, and all the rest of our 2025 tours, are to be seen on our website. As usual, if you've any questions please don't hesitate to drop us a line by email or phone - we're always very happy indeed to talk butterflies.

After all, as a company set up by active and experienced wildlife tour leaders who enjoy going on wildlife holidays ourselves, we know what does and doesn't work in a wildlife holiday, from the point of enquiry to the days of the tour itself, so we strive to give our guests the holidays we'd enjoy were we travelling in their shoes!

https://www.mariposanature.com/tours/butterflies/false-comma-and-summer-butterflies-of-serbia

[All photos here kindly supplied by and © János Oláh]

03/06/2024

29/05/2024

Our first* collaboration with Sakertour was a resounding success! Some of Europe’s rarest butterflies seen brilliantly well in Romania last week - and some spectacular birds and bears too!

We’ll be returning to Romania next May, and we’re also running tours with the Sakertour team to Hungary & Serbia next summer, tracking down some more of Europe’s scarcest and most sought after butterfly species. We’d love you to join us there - and if you book your 2025 holiday with us before 30 November 2024, you’ll automatically qualify for our £125 early bird discount. Of course, our prior customers also get a loyalty discount too… and every one of our butterfly tours will always generate a donation to Butterfly Conservation’s European Butterflies Group - so everyone’s a winner! Full details of all our tours are on our website.

*this year’s Romania in Spring tour may have been the first of many Mariposa Nature Tours collaborations with the team at Sakertour, but we go back much further than that - one of the Mariposa founders, Jon, first worked with Sakertour back in 2009, and since then he’s helped edit one of their core team’s LIFE conservation project books. We’re firm believers in building strong, long-lasting friendships and relationships with our team members - these translate into the best experiences for our guests.

03/05/2024

Hey everyone!

I still have places available for my next "Macro photography" workshop if you would like to join me? 📷🐛🐞🦗🕷🦟🪳

https://www.mariposanature.com/tours/wildlife/lee-frost-may-12

Mariposa Nature Tours

22/04/2024

Good morning, and welcome to a new week! Our orchid tours to Rhodes and Sicily are finished, and we're delighted to confirm we've made our first donations to our friends at Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland, to support the important conservation research work they undertake.

We know it's more important now than ever for conservation charities to raise money to fund their activities, so it matters to us that we honour our commitment to them promptly after tours conclude.

We're adding more tours to our portfolio this year, so please keep an eye peeled for those. Maybe you'd like to join us orchid-hunting next year? Our tours benefit not only from our tour leaders' experience and site knowledge of the locations we visit, and the recces we make before each tour begins, but also from our extensive network of fellow European orchid-hunters who kindly share their finds with us live from the field - ensuring we maximise the species, hybrids, and one-of-a-kind varieties we share with our guests. We, of course, share our finds with them - this collaborative and friendly approach means everyone wins.

Most importantly though, conservation wins, as your tours today help to fund the conservation of the orchids of tomorrow.

You'll find details of all of our 2025 week-long tours on our website. Bookings made before 30 November 2024 will automatically qualify for a £125 early bird discount and, of course, our prior customers will always get an additional £50 loyalty discount over and above that.

https://www.mariposanature.com/calendar

09/04/2024

Wonderful to see Paul’s beautiful images from our recently completed Orchids of Rhodes tour, and to hear how much he enjoyed it.

If you’d like to travel to see the Orchids of Rhodes with the orchid-hunting team who know the island’s orchids the best, our 2025 tour is open for bookings, and already filling fast! Anyone booking before 30 November 2024 automatically qualifies for our early bird booking deal, a discount of £125 off the listed price.

https://www.mariposanature.com/tours/botanical/orchids-of-rhodes-25

11/03/2024

Good morning - a bright and shiny new week is here and, with it, a fresh featured tour! This week, Butterflies of the Picos de Europa. A holiday in the butterfly-rich north of Spain, exploring spectacular scenery, 12-19 July 2024, in the best of company.

We love mountain ranges here at Mariposa Nature Tours - they're particular havens for butterflies, and offer visitors a great variety of species in a relatively compact area, as different butterflies favour different elevations and micro habitats. The Picos de Europa are no exception and, of course, they're a dramatically beautiful setting in which to wander at leisure and enjoy seeing what we can find.

And what a variety of species we may encounter! We should see a large number of different butterfly species, comfortably in excess of 100 in total, including desirable targets such as Apollo, Gavarnie Blue, Dusky Large Blue, Chapman’s & Lefebvre’s Ringlet, False Ilex Hairstreak, Cardinal, Esper’s Marbled White and Lesser Marbled Fritillary.

Over 150 butterfly species reside among the spectacular and rugged range of limestone mountains. Our daily excursions from the attractive and unspoilt village in which we're based will take in a variety of habitats and scenery, including flower rich meadows fizzing with a range of fritillaries and other goodies, woodlands and sunlit glades, and then up into the mountains themselves for alpine treasures hidden among rocky pastures and pristine limestone pavement.

The Picos are one of Europe's premier butterfly-watching locations, and this opportunity to spend time enjoying such a large range of species in such beautiful surroundings is one not to be missed.

As always with our butterfly tours, when it runs this holiday will generate a donation to Butterfly Conservation’s European Butterflies Group, specifically to help fund their valuable research work on some of Europe's most threatened butterflies. Your holidays today will help contribute towards the proactive conservation of the butterflies of tomorrow.

https://www.mariposanature.com/tours/butterflies/butterflies-of-the-picos-de-europa

04/03/2024

Some of the most spectacular butterflies of southern France will be seen during our featured tour of the week, Spring Butterflies of the French Pyrenees.

From start to finish, this is a tour that immerses our guests in a wildlife-watching wonderland, at a time of year when the Pyrenees burst into colourful life - wildflowers abound, with drifts of narcissus, and montane meadows and roadsides studded with orchids... and at every turn, there are butterflies to be found.

We stay in a small, pretty thermal spa town on the slopes of the mountain at a comfortable hotel, and enjoy returning to the town square for a refreshing drink or ice cream in the late afternoon when the day's butterfly-watching is done.

As with all of our butterfly holidays, a donation will be generated by this tour to Butterfly Conservation’s European Butterflies Group - funding provided specifically to assist with research into some of Europe's most endangered butterflies, practical research that helps to inform their conservation. Your holidays today help to conserve the butterflies of tomorrow.

Set to run this year on 29 May - 5 June, the tour's a guaranteed departure and has some spaces remaining. We hope you'll consider joining us there.

https://www.mariposanature.com/tours/butterflies/spring-butterflies-of-the-french-pyrenees

29/02/2024

Please help to save one of Europe's rarest and most beautiful butterflies 🦋

Butterfly Conservation’s European Butterflies Group and Butterfly Conservation Europe have been working for over a decade with colleagues in Spain monitoring the Spanish Greenish Black-tip Euchloe bazae - a threatened species which lives in two remote areas of Spain. It is an interesting and beautiful butterfly which was only given species status in 1993.

The butterfly has two distinct populations one in northern Spain in Aragon and one near Baza in Andalusia. It is this southern population which is now threatened by the construction of a power line which is being proposed across the butterfly’s range. Although the species itself is protected by a law introduced in 2019 the landscape it lives in is not protected and these proposals threaten the butterfly’s existence.

Please sign this petition to help save one of Europe’s rarest and most beautiful butterflies 👉 https://chng.it/zc5d8NXRmK

26/02/2024

We promise the special butterflies of North Greece aren't all orange! But several we hope to see during our featured tour of the week, Butterflies of North Greece, certainly are flaming bright.🧡

The likes of Freyer's Purple Emperor and Balkan Copper are particular superstars, but what a supporting cast! Other coppers including Lesser Fiery, Large and Purple-shot... and Southern Comma... and that's before we even get on to the fritillaries!

The countryside around Lake Kerkini is a butterfly hotspot, and we've enjoyed exploring it over the years, adding to the list of 'known' sites. We stay at a truly stupendous location, at a hotel surrounded by flower and butterfly (and tortoise!) rich meadows, overlooking the lake, with a chorus of Nightingales and shy Golden Jackals swelling the darkness at night. The food is superb too. It's a tour not to be missed!

And, of course, as with all of our butterfly tours, this tour generates a donation to Butterfly Conservation’s European Butterflies Group straight after it's run - your holidays today helping to fund the conservation of the butterflies of tomorrow. We're proud to be corporate members of Butterfly Conservation.

Guaranteed departure, 6-13 June 2024, some spaces remain.

https://mariposanature.com/tours/butterflies/butterflies-of-north-greece

12/02/2024

Our featured tour this week is the very brilliant Butterflies of the Italian Alps & French Mercantour, a tour guaranteed to run this summer that promises opportunities to see the best butterflies of both sides of the Alps.

Targets include the gorgeous Southern Swallowtail, Poplar Admiral, Titania's Fritillary, Clouded Apollo, Alcon & Reverdin's Blue, and a host of fritillaries, chief among them the delightful Scarce Fritillary.

https://www.mariposanature.com/tours/butterflies/butterflies-of-the-italian-alps-and-french-mercantour

We stay in two lovely rural hotels, one in Italy, the other in France, so not only do our guests get to sample the best butterflies of both countries, but also two world-famous cuisines!

The tour will be running on 11-18 June 2024, and has just three places left available on it. It's a popular one, and understandably so.

And, just like every single one of our butterfly tours, a donation will be generated from it to help fund the conservation research work of the Butterfly Conservation’s European Butterflies Group branch of Butterfly Conservation. Travelling with us, your holidays today will help the conservation of the European butterflies of tomorrow.