Siberia

Entomology is still not enough in the report, as I wrote this part also for publication in LiveJournal, where people like other topics. Everything will be in the following parts… I'll publish the second one today.

YAKUTIA, MOMSKY RIDGE

Part Two


I stayed in Chochur Muran for only two days, and on June 7 I flew to Honuu. No, at first I accidentally met another outstanding person at the Yakutsk airport – the traveler Sergey Karpukhin. More than once he wandered with a backpack, rode horses and went kayaking in Yakutia, and here you can see his wonderful reports: https://karpukhins.livejournal.com/. It was he who recently revealed to the world with his photo essays the unique Ulakhan-Sis remnant complex: comparable to Cappadocia, or even surpassing it – one of the last geographical discoveries on our planet. However, Yakutia can still give them!.. In the photo-Sergey Karpukhin.


And this is a photo of Honuu, taken with Sergey's permission from his report about a hike in the Mom Mountains ( https://karpukhins.livejournal.com/37591.html ), since my photos of the village did not turn out very well – I immediately ran away to catch butterflies! The village itself is Yakut, there are practically no Russians in it, sometimes there are Evens.


Well, here is my photo: the house (on the left) where I lived. One of the few new ones in the village. The director of the Momsky Nature Park, Mikhail Nikolaevich Ivanov, gave me an apartment in it for free and instructed his relative Nadezhda Vasilyevna Ivanova to patronize me. Thank you very much to them! I worked under a contract with Altai State University, its employee, another very good person Roman Yakovlev (on the forum: Yakovlev) – committing to provide him with part of the fees, and was accepted to Honuu on an official, but still very friendly level!


And this is a stele near the airport. Beautifully made!


A small church on the outskirts of Honuu.


At the request of local teachers, he conducted an entomological tour for fifth-graders of the secondary school in the village of Honuu. I showed them butterflies that were caught together with a net, told them about them, and looked for caterpillars… At a lecture at the school, he explained to the children how to grow butterflies and assigned a prize in the form of a tropical butterfly in a frame, brought with him, to the one who will grow them the most. Scientific work here – after all, the preimaginal stages of most Yakut butterfly species are unknown, and I promised the young assistants that I would indicate them in a future publication. The bred butterflies were supposed to be released rather than marred: photos are enough, because children are not professional entomologists, and they do not need to be traumatized by "field methods". In the photo – my tourists and their biology teacher from the local school Aitalina Petrovna Everstova.


Honuu is surrounded by swamps and marys, adored by mosquitoes but shunned by butterflies, and the main destination of my entomological excursions was the dirt road along the airport tarmac. It was once filled in, and astragalus, umbrella plants, and other forage and nectar-bearing butterfly plants grew on it, and they fluttered here in many and no small variety. And they say that anthropogenic factors kill insects… In Europe, but not in Yakutia! Discoidalis blackheads and tyche yellowheads were not uncommon here, naina white whites and bryonia white whites were common, embla black whites and hyperborea yellow whites fluttered about, and small very dark swallowtails flew past-more often, for some reason, behind the barbed wire of the airfield…


I also fished 5 kilometers from Honuu in dry clearings along the coast of Indigirka. River view.


And "grazed" a little to the side on not very old bulldozer cuts near the tank farm. Of course Tenedius was there, loving them so much. I flew in a considerable number. Here he is, handsome. A subspecies of the skeptic.


The director of the park strongly advised me not to go alone to the Moma Mountains, citing their bear-like overcrowding, and asked me to wait for a former gamekeeper who was away – he would equip me as a traveling companion, and who would have a gun. I agreed. In the evening of June 12, the huntsman arrived in the village, and the next day at lunch we started. See map, item 1. The huntsman's name was Innokentiy Fedorov, he was a Yakut by nationality, two years older than me, but, according to the locals, he walked in the mountains like a chubuku (Yakut mountain sheep). Well, let's see…


An acquaintance of Innokenty drove us on an ancient UAZ to the middle course of the Arga-Tirekhtyakh River (point 2) - jumping halfway along the stones of the riverbed, but eventually overcoming 45 kilometers. Quite a lot! We would have had to spend two days traveling, carrying 40-kilogram backpacks. By the way, some of the Cache products (I'll call it that now, because we quickly became friends with it) back in the spring, I took a snowmobile to the barn of one of the far points of the route, otherwise we would have had to drag a lot more! In the photo, Keshin's friend and his car.


And this is your still well-fed author.


And the Cache.


"We'll definitely get bears," Kesha told me, and he loaded the rifle and carried it all the way, barrel first, cocked. He was right! The bear came across us after half an hour of hiking. Three deep growls came from the bushes. "Warns..." said Kesha. I quickened my pace a little. Surprisingly, it was the only bear for our entire trip! There were a lot of their tracks, once they were even wet – the animal had just run away, hearing us (or was it hiding?!..), but the bears did not show themselves in any way. After two hours of hiking, we came to the hut (point 3). Ugh, not bad! I didn't feel like spending the night in a tent. The hut was left over from the Evens who once grazed deer in this area. They had something like a collective farm, but during Perestroika they stopped paying wages, they waited for three years, crossed themselves and cut up the herd. Who bought a snowmobile, who put a house in the village, and now there is this hut and others somewhere along the route. Shelters for rare hunters and one" lost " entomologist.


June 14. We continue the hike. We go in our boots, for swamps are frequent, Marie. I carry mountain boots in my backpack. Kesha has all his shoes – boots, he doesn't like to walk in boots on the local mountains. On the old deer trail, through the forest and along the Maryam mountains, we came to the pass (4). Not very tall, but we were sweating profusely and tired. We sat on big rocks on the crest of the ridge, looking at the two lakes ahead. Beautiful! I finally started catching butterflies after taking a dozen steps. I caught a callidice whitefly (I took a picture of one of them – above), a tyche yolk, and something like aeneis magna.


Again we walked along the long marys, "knitting" our legs, I breathed fiercely and felt how fat and weight were rapidly decreasing. Kesha walked calmly. He was as wiry as a yew tree. In addition to the shotgun, he carried a three-kilogram Nikon camera and lenses in his backpack. He is passionate about nature photography, and has shot a lot of things on his rounds and personal trips, and here I put a squirrel he once met – one of which was also seen today, about the same color. Maybe that one…


Another picture of him. Well, we don't need such objects along the route. Don't!

To be continued.

This post was edited by Wild Yuri - 04.11.2021 22: 40

Entomology is still not enough in the report, as I wrote this part also for publication in LiveJournal, where people like other topics. Everything will be in the following parts… I'll publish the second one today.

Who are you on LJ?

I will be leaving, and I will publish the continuation in a week.

And who are you in LiveJournal?

http://ussuri555.livejournal.com/. A long-standing "starter" material, after which nothing followed... Here I want to continue. Before that, I posted a lot of reports on Facebook, but I got tired of its interface, which completely kills the coherent narrative - photos do not follow one another, as here and in LiveJournal. I will be loyal to these two sites.

This post was edited by Wild Yuri - 04.11.2019 23: 35

YAKUTIA, MOMSKY RIDGE

Part Three


June 14 (continued). We came to an unnamed tributary of the Khasan-Tirekhtyakh River, crossed a large ice sheet, with a stream in an ice canyon.


We walked through the forest again. The hut! (Item 5). Exactly the same as the first one. Empty window openings ... frames lie, as in all the huts here, on shelves and covered with film. You put it in the openings – so much for the windows! This is so that the bear does not break, but the glass can squeeze out. Glasses are contraindicated in these places. There were a lot of mosquitoes in the hut, but I lit the anti-mosquito coil, and soon they were gone. They cooked dinner on the campfire in front of the hut. I slept well on the floor.


June 15. In the morning I found a tube of anti-mosquito ointment near the hut. My Deet spray was ineffective against local mosquitoes – they attacked me within an hour (see photo-beginning...), and two of its cans would not have been enough for me to go on a hike, but this ointment turned out to be much more effective, and, you can say, saved me from losing liters of blood. Gift Bayan! It was not for nothing that I fed him on the first day of the hike, as I was advised in the village – I put pancakes on a rock. In general, I was always lucky on this trip: with my strong, easy-going fellow traveler Kesha, and with the weather, mostly good, and with the season in which butterflies, according to Kesha, were much more than usual, and with low water in the rivers that had to be crossed… I was lucky in everything. Oh, I would always have such trips!


We walked from the hut along an old all-terrain road, then along a path, and had lunch on the rocky bed of a large tributary of the Khasan-Tirekhtyakha, wearing raincoats for five minutes from the rain that had fallen.


At the rest stop, Keshin Sock did not leave the swallowtail for a long time. I didn't catch it – I don't usually catch models!


Then they went up the valley of an unnamed stream. At first it was wooded and hazy, then more sparsely wooded and rocky, with a steeper and steeper ascent. Oh, it wasn't easy! Even Kesha began to get tired, stopping more and more often. In the evening, we finally reached the pass – where there were snowfields and the wind blew in winter. We walked about a kilometer beyond it and stopped for the night in tents in stony ruins near another stream (6).


June 16. Sun, fresh mountain air, butterflies flutter… What else is needed for happiness! I fished a little near our camp (pictured). I came across Eugene's mother-of-pearl, which I have never met in Yakutia (a new subspecies?), Eversmann's sailboat (oh, the Japanese love to describe its subspecies, but no one caught Eversmann in these mountains, and there will probably be a description too!..), black diz, white naina and bryonia... They packed up and walked down the stream, and I swung the net as I went, catching these and other species. The stream was endless, and the lower part of it was overgrown with willows – we made our way through clearings, crossing now and then a not so shallow stream. Ugh, we're in the Ystyannach riverbed! Water gurgles on the rocks, trees washed away in a cyclone lie on a wide river bed... a bonfire has been lit for lunch. It was a hot day here in the lowlands. Even the butterflies were still hidden. We dined naked to the waist. I even wanted to go for a swim, but the water in the river was icy – I changed my mind… Then we followed the old olenegon trail along the river terrace, cutting through fields of dwarf birch. Another hut! There is no door… Next to it, they pokhayevnichali-boiling water on gas, to save time. They were carrying some of his 400-gram cans, and I was carrying a burner. I don't go on such hikes without gas. Torrential rains can start, and it is very difficult to build a fire from wet wood, and the gas in the tent will warm up quickly if you get very cold... No, you can't do without it!


In the evening, we ascended another pass: low and easy, where bear " cakes "came across almost at every step (7). Animals know where to cross the mountains! Beyond the pass, the valley widened, and a very beautiful landscape appeared, in the form of a separate highland: it was like some kind of magical country, so impressive and somehow even mysterious these mountains looked. The photo, alas, does not convey their charms. The soul sang! It was here that the area began, where I so wanted to get, looking at satellite maps in the winter.


And again the hut was waiting for us! It was located two kilometers away from this highland on a large tundra island between the channels of the Khakyndi River (8). The door is laid with barrels... "This is so that the bear does not understand that there is a door here," Kesha explained. I wouldn't understand it either, but bears don't know that there are no huts without doors… In place of the window – a rusty iron sheet. With difficulty, they removed it, bending the thick nails. A tiny window with several layers of polythene appeared. They rolled away the barrels and entered the hut. Bah, it's "elite"! It is insulated with mineral wool with a paper coating, dishes are different, boxes with magazines under the common huge shelf stand... "Hunters come here in winter," Kesha said – " they come on snowmobiles to chubuka." It was cool in the hut, but they had kindled the stove, and it was as hot as a bathhouse. Firewood – the entire riverbed! You can live here…


June 17. Kesha decided to go to the barn for groceries, which is about 8 km away (point 12). We don't have enough condensed milk, he'll bring us some flour and bake some tortillas, he says. He left, and I went to the" magic " highlands. I came across such rather large eggs near Hakyndi… I overcame it by taking off my shoes and putting on the beach flip-flops I'd also taken on a camping trip. Water – ice! I could have gone on a field trip in my boots, but I thought it would be easier to walk in my boots. I was wrong! During this hike, I finally realized that it is better to walk on mountains and especially scree in boots: the leg is "held" thanks to a high hard bed, it protects it more reliably from side impacts on rocks. I'm not even talking about crossing the marys, when the foot falls through the hummocks and can turn in the shoe, as happened once with one of my friends. I tore my ligaments! And it's not very pleasant to walk with wet feet… In the mountains of Yakutia – boots!


I climbed up on the terrace and ran into the swamp with fluff. Forage plant of black Magdalena (sahaensis, erinnin... - the devil will break his leg here in taxonomy): she likes places like this. Exactly-it's flying! Then another one... caught a dozen. The weather frowned and the butterflies hid. I decided to go to one of the ravines of the highlands. I shot rare "flag" larches along the way, in the area of…


I went up the mountainside. Elk cones photographed. Wind, overcast… He returned to the hut.


Kesha came in late at night. I also brought extra sugar and macaroni. We were afraid that a bear would get into the barn and eat our food. The door is locked with a ladder, but it can break the roof… It worked out fine. Immediately Kesha kneaded the dough, baked tortillas on the oven. Flour, water, salt – the whole recipe, and the tortillas are delicious, and it's not shameful to eat them at home. We still had bread, but then we got too busy with the tortillas, and each of us ate one and a half, washing it down with tea. In the photo – our chef.


June 18. The sun has gone dark – pictured) - forest fires... are common here in the summer. There was still enough light for the butterflies: bryonias and jaundice flew quietly near the hut. We decided to go with Kesha to one of the mountains from the side of the "arrival" pass. We were walking through a sparse floodplain forest. Poplars were quite high here, often with dry tops, dense chozenia (a kind of willow), clumps of willows and everywhere-bear tracks on the sand. Uncomfortable terrain... Once it even seemed that someone was looking at me from the forest, and he was not a person. And near the mountain circled all the same bryony with tyche, flashed white callidice, fluttered often black dizy... The smoke in the sky soon almost cleared, but then it was covered by clouds, and the butterflies landed. Sat with Kesha on the rocks, contemplating the surroundings, climbed with him "just like that" on the slope.


I saw a bug like this on a juniper tree… Interesting view? It got colder, the wind picked up, and we decided to go home. Magazines, crosswords-lying on the floor... it's good here.


June 19. We went to the slopes of the highlands where we were the day before yesterday. The Magdalenes were flying again. One of them, still warm, fluttered in the grass, and I lured it to my finger. Magdalena? Erinnin?.. What do you say?


Erda's mother-of-pearl flowers were running around the rocky slopes (Kesha took one - in the photo), freya and frigga "jumped out" from low bushes, diza's blackies were fluttering… But the weather turned bad again: mga, windmill, and-more likely to the hut, to the magazines. I read in one that in remote areas of Yakutia there is a primitive man: Chuchuna. Long hair, a face covered in wool... Keshe recounted the note. Laughs: "Yes, there is a chuchun... aha! A friend saw on the shore of Indigirka about 8 years ago, when he sailed on a motorboat. Here, too, they say, they met. It's been a long time..." It seemed to me that the tracks of one of the bears observed yesterday were too long and resembled a human foot. But they say bears have them, don't they…


June 20. It's time to go further-to the very center of the black mountains, the upper reaches of the Khulurin River. This is about 20 kilometers. The path on the map is between points 8, 9, and 10. Kesha says that it will be easy: on a rocky and flat tundra, sometimes passing low ridges. We close the window with iron, and the door with barrels.


To Khulurin!

To be continued.

This post was edited by Wild Yuri-30.01.2021 01: 17

There was an error in the text in the penultimate paragraph. Correct: "The path on the map is between points 8, 9 and 10".

Yeah, I'm leaving again. Continuation - in 5-6 days.

Yura, At the expense of the bear's paws similar to human footprints, the hind footprints will be the same as human ones, with a heel, but the front ones are just a pillow))

YAKUTIA, MOMSKY RIDGE
On a juniper tree I saw such a bug… Interesting view?

Chlorochroa juniperina.

According to erebia, most likely sahensis, the ones we caught on Oganye, the females have the same underparts, but it is very similar from the underparts to the fasciata. Erinine with a uniform underparts without a pattern and males and females, and they are more rounded than sahensis.

YAKUTIA, MOMSKY RIDGE

Part Three

I saw a bug like this on a juniper tree… Interesting view? It got colder, the wind picked up, and we decided to head home. Magazines, crosswords-lying on the floor... it's good here.

Juniper shield-Chlorochroa (Rhytidolomia) juniperina (Linnaeus, 1758)

I stayed here on a business trip... Tonight I'll post the fourth part.

Yura, At the expense of the bear's paws similar to human footprints, the hind footprints will be the same as human ones, with a heel, but the front ones are just a pillow))

Hey... And I didn't even know! Thanks!

YAKUTIA, MOMSKY RIDGE

Part Four


June 20 (continued). Walking on the tundra (9), the sky frowned again, and soon it started to rain. We continue on our way, wearing raincoats. Oh, bad luck with the weather – I don't know what kind of butterflies are found in this vast tundra. Ridges take a lot of strength by climbing. Sometimes we traverse it…


After about three hours we reach the Khulurin River. Here, too, the poplar-chozen forest stands in some places in the floodplain, but it is very sparse – "not scary". The weather is getting better. We have lunch near the river. A bumblebee lands on my backpack, mistaking the pattern on it for a flower. In the evening, we reach the upper reaches of the Khulurin River and stop for the night on the lawn near its large tributary (point 10). Nearby, a rare willow tree with dry bushes and branches "sticks out", we break them and cook dinner on the fire.


June 21. We head along the same tributary above. Plan: go to the source of the Badyarikhi River and live there for a few days and walk around with a net… Stand in tents – huts in those places are no longer there. We walk along the rocky bed of the tributary, past the islands of the tundra. The woods and willows don't come here anymore. The sun is warm, but there are no butterflies, except for the rare callidice whiteflies and a couple of fluttering occult blackies. Soon I realize that we have climbed too high for the living: the subnival zone! And in the sources of Badyarikha it will be the same… Do I need to go there? On the map, the mountains here are as black as on Badyarikh. It seems that there are more scree there… But the path is long and difficult. I suggest that Kesha go back a bit and camp in this area. He agreed. We go out to the first large lawn that comes across and drop our backpacks on it. There will be a camp here. Butterflies flutter! I caught a few Eversmann sailboats, ran after tyche's egg yolks, and took Occult's tennis ace. The rain came down, a strong wind-I sat in the tent, afraid that I would break the old woman. Withstood! She is already 12 years old, bought for 400 rubles. (!) in the "Pyaterochka", delighted with the weight: a kilogram and a hundred grams! Without an awning, but I cover it with a "blanket" made of garbage bags-weightless at all, I cover it with stones. So I go... The photo shows our new camp.


In the late afternoon I went to a small black scree on the other side of the river. Something white fluttered at its base... catching it. Arcticus! But – much larger than the nominative one, the drawing is different… Maybe a similar new species? I kept the butterfly in the cold for five minutes, put it in a container and lowered it into the stream, and took it off on a flower.


The flower, by the way, is not easy: gorodkovia, an endemic Yakut plant. That's the view?.. The Yakut Gorodkovia (Gorodkovia jacutica) is known from the mountains of Eastern Siberia – with small white flowers, I met it on Suntar-Khayata, but this flower is one and a half times larger and often pinkish, lilac. Subspecies? And is it known? I dug up one plant and placed it between the sheets of Whatman paper – I'll send the herbarium to the botanists. By the way, gorodkovia is the only nectaros that feeds on arcticus. In other flowers, apparently, the peduncles are long, he can not take nectar from them. And the "arcticus" I caught (I'll put the same quotation marks) was on this gorodkovia… What if you discovered a new type of plant and butterfly? Good day!


June 22. Well, a very cheerful morning: Eversmann's sailboats are flying everywhere in the clearing and mating, mating...  I've never seen anything like this before. I took out two of them.


I decided to go to the big black scree, about three kilometers down the stream, and look for these "arcticus" on it. I crossed the stream, climbed a steep rocky cliff, and found Phoebe's caterpillar halfway down a fairly steep incline. I was sitting on a golden root shoot, eating it. I took it with me, put it in a container and collected more food shoots, decided to grow it, but after two days I didn't press the lid down enough after cleaning it, and it ran away.


In the wide valley of the stream, on the approach to the scree, I saw large wolf tracks. Here it is found a polar subspecies – up to 80 kg in weight. In the summer, wolves in Yakutia, they say, do not attack a person, but I still took out the Hunter's Signal from my backpack and put it in my pocket – a kind of firecracker that I take with me on hikes in such places. I climbed the scree, and the sun disappeared! Again the clouds are creeping ... Damn, the weather is needed! "Arcticus" these, like all parnassius, fly only in good sun. I sat and waited for him… No. Forage plants of common arcticus, Gorodkov's crested beetle (or maybe magadanica similar to it? Who knows...), grew in some places on the scree, began to look for eggs on them and near them. Found it! As many as five pieces at once, on a stone near the plant… Photographed it. We could have taken them and tried to feed them, but we didn't have enough time: we planned to be in the area for a week, no more.


The weather did not improve, and after sitting for another two hours on the scree (pictured), I came to the camp. I wrote above that on this tour I was very lucky with the weather, but I constantly mention the heavenly haze ... Oh, if you only knew what the weather is like in the mountains of Yakutia! Heavy rain and snow... Which can last for a week or more. I've seen enough... On the same tour, the sky only frowned, well, sometimes it didn't rain for long, it was warm, and I caught butterflies almost every day.


The usual type of flowers in these mountains was removed along the way.


Another photo… Nowhere have I seen so many flowers as in these mountains!


And here's another one…


Kesha that day went to look for chubuka, for accounting and photography-did not see… The wolves, he says, scared me, it seems. Lots of footprints… Well, I was filming some stuff along the way. Here is one photo... The black – capped groundhog is a Siberian endemic and rare species. When Phoebe saw my caterpillar, he said that this species is common here (Kesha knows individual butterflies). It flies in July. Wow! Phoebus has been flying everywhere since mid-June... I asked him to describe this Phoebus. It turned out that half of the individuals do not have red spots on the lower wings! Wow... another definitely new subspecies of parnassius! Maybe a view too?.. Phoebe. Tomorrow. The day after tomorrow... I really want to see you!


June 23. We go down the creek. It is better to set up a camp there, about five kilometers away: where it is warmer, the vegetation is thicker – there will be more butterflies. What if Phoebes?.. Yes, and the scree is good there-there is a place to walk "in the Arctic". On the way, I climb yesterday's, dropping my backpack at the bottom. There, it's flying!.. A white butterfly zig-zags down the slope, and I follow it, riding along the scree. Swing the net!.. Took. Another male arcticus. Again very large, with a different pattern… I sat on the scree for about forty minutes. Not anymore. And Kesha "caught" me in the photo...


We went on and set up camp near a large black kurumnik, on the widest short-grass field (11). A luxurious place! The place was full of butterflies, too. Eversmann's sailboats flew by every now and then, Pavlovsky's blackheads fluttered, just passing along the slope, I found a place for polaris blackheads (I haven't caught them yet in Yakutia – or maybe a new species is also similar?!), Yevgenia's mother-of-pearl perched on rocks (look above...), there were their relatives similar to angarensis, and others "selenis, a lot of other things have flown here. I also caught the first pigeon: ligdamus.


And this is the local draughtsman Iduna.


June 24. Went into decay near kurumnik, on the scree climbed… The weather has turned sour again. I climbed even higher, sat in a meadow, admired some unearthly local mountains.


At lunchtime, I passed into another decay, the sun came out. Polovil large mother-of-pearl type erda (we will understand...). The decay was all black rocks, almost no plants, and it warmed up quickly, and it was already hot. I decided to go for a swim in the stream. It's time! I haven't bathed in a few days, in the past times I warmed water for this purpose on a fire... And here it's ice-cold-on myself from a mug! Ugh, good… He sat on a hot rock, drying himself. Sochi! Suddenly, something flashed, gray-black, 20 meters up the stream… I know the flight of Parnassius. It was him! While I put on my boots, went up, "it" disappeared somewhere. Waved a long net along the stones, trying to scare away, waited... No. I went down. Already at the exit from raspadka again something gray-black-to the flower. I run, swing the net... the female of this "arcticus"! Black, like the surrounding stones, with a white border around the edge. God, a really new look!!

To be continued.

This post was edited by Wild Yuri - 04.11.2021 22: 50

I pulled something up... There will be no more business trips, and I will try to publish the remaining parts faster - within a week.

YAKUTIA, MOMSKY RIDGE

Part Five


June 25. The weather is ringing. I decided to go back to this decay, to guard other "arcticus". I spent about an hour at the bottom and in the bathing area. No ... climbed up on the scree. There are a lot of them here.... It's flying! Myself literally flying on the scree, "cling" another male… It is also larger than the nominative one and also has a different drawing. I wander for two hours on the scree, skidding in her "dress", but I catch two more males… I climb up to the saddle and shoot the surrounding area (above), then I descend from it to another scree. The female literally flutters out from under her feet! Catching it. The same black, with the same pattern ... fantastic. By evening, I catch three more males and a female. Same as the previous two… I come to the camp as a hero. I would have drunk it, noted my luck, but they didn't take alcohol – I decided that I was overweight...


June 26. I would have liked to climb in this area, but powerful feathers began to spread across the sky – a harbinger of a cyclone. I suggest Kesha leave… Yes, and I caught a series of these "arcticus" - enough for science, but I don't want to sit in these mountains. The return ticket is purchased, and if it disappears, I won't get on the tour in the Khabarovsk Territory... Work. By the way, you can only get out of Honuu by air in the summer. There is a winter pass, but it is valid until April, and the rapids do not allow water transport to swim along the Indigirka River from the only year-round road leading to it in the Ust-Nera region. Kesha, looking up at the sky, supported my suggestion. And now we've packed up, let's go... We decided to go the other way: past the barn (12) to pick up the rest of the food. They were already running out... On the way, I climbed for about an hour on a similar and, it seemed, even better scree, with an abundance of crested "arcticus", but – naked... Did they fly away here? We crossed Khulurin, walked for a long time on the smoothest tundra – at least play football here! Shikshi berries were everywhere( pictured), we stopped and ate a little of them. Small, watery, but pleasant taste. Once again, there was no sun, and the rain was falling… Again, I didn't see any butterflies in the tundra. Oh, I'd like to come here again sometime!


The forest began. I took a picture of Kesha in it.


They crossed Khulurin again. The forest is dense… How can Kesha find the direction to the barn?! We went straight to him! Lesina "crosses out" the door... my guide pushed it back. They went inside. In an iron barrel under the lid of the same lay our products. All right! We live.


This is the window by the barn. All around – scratches from bears ' claws!


And this is inside. Moss was once there, but it was privatized by chipmunks and birds. Mosquitoes "poured" through the cracks into the barn, and again the spiral I lit helped me out… How nice of you to take her camping! - without thinking, by the way, about fasting in huts.


On the street, dinner was prepared in such an "innovative" oven.


I took this one on a nearby branch… Is the butterfly interesting?


June 27. In the morning I fished for butterflies in the big clearing in front of the barn. There were triphyses of nervosa, peat bogs, mother-of-pearl selenis, caught yolk vilyuensis and golubyanka likormas. We shouldered our backpacks and moved on… We took an old all-terrain vehicle up a gentle "hill". Two trailers were standing on it – abandoned too, Even.


Inside one of them was such an "art gallery"! High art is not alien to reindeer herders ... Oh, and how did everything die here-why? I was sad at heart when I left these trailers, with their reminder of the past life, people…


We went down the path from the hill, crossed the stream and walked for a long time through the bushy tundra. Horseflies flew in from somewhere, riding on Keshin's backpack. From behind, a pall of smoke suddenly appeared, grew stronger. Back where they left from! "A dry thunderstorm before us, apparently, was, and now the fire in the forest is breaking out..." - said Kesha. How lucky we were to get away from the barn in time! Yes, the Mom Mountains are dangerous: it doesn't seem to be a very dry season, but this isn't the first fire here... At lunchtime, we came to our main hut with the press – having made a circle from point 8 during these days and rounded all this "magical" highland.


The sky darkened again.... The forest fire was also found on the other side. Yeah, how do we go from here tomorrow? I felt uneasy.


June 28. We leave... "Battened down" the door with barrels. Goodbye, izba! I had a good life in you: I read so many magazines, ate Kesha's cakes! I felt very close to her, and a kind of melancholy came over me as I looked back at her as I walked farther and farther across the dry riverbed... And so we climbed that "bear" pass. The Aeneis were fluttering here, in the shape of Melissa and Bor. I fished a little… Removed chernushka occult (above). Then-again clouds, specks of rain... The smoke, thank God, was almost gone: the wind blew it away. We stopped again at a hut without doors, lit a fire near it, and had lunch there. Plank table, benches… Who stole the door and why, eh? Then-olenegonnaya trail again and a long walk along the stream to the second pass. It seemed endless, took all our strength, but at nine o'clock in the evening we reached the stony nickel where we were standing. Rather have dinner, set up tents… They fell asleep on their hind legs.


June 29. Morning met the sun. I decided to take a chance, and catch all day butterflies in this decay, and tomorrow-we go further. Kesha was in favor. He decided to walk along a large tributary stream, and I went to the second pass, which was very close. There were only rocks and almost no grass around, but sometimes aeneis bor and chernushka occulta flew. I reached the pass in half an hour. On the other side, immediately below it, there was still a snowball "holding on". The smoke stretched… I turned back and walked down from the camp. There were already many flowers and various butterflies flying around. Golubyanok glandon caught, mother-of-pearl Eugene, chernushek dabanensis, large Klossian shape of Erda or distincty, eneis bor… I took off such a colorful moss near the stream.


And such a bear!.. I think it was Quenzeli. I decided to catch this model after all, but I raised the net – and it flew up like a candle: goodbye!


June 30. "March-throw" to the second hut. They walked easily, because the path was always down, the backpacks with the departure of food felt much better, and they got into shape. I caught butterflies along the way. There were Eversmann sailboats everywhere, there were viluensis jaundice, I caught a rarity-Ross blackie. We reached the hut in the evening and spent the night there. The photo shows the surrounding area.


And this is another Keshin photo-taken in these places a few years ago on a hike with Yakut biologists. A shaggy-legged owl (if I correctly identified it).


July 1. We are moving to the first hut. Again – the old all-terrain vehicle, Marie, butterflies are few, and already "existential" laziness to catch them… In the afternoon we went to the lakes at the first pass. Kesha went fishing here for about forty minutes, finding a drin he had once saved and tying a fishing line with a float and a hook to it. The bait is a horsefly. I caught two grayling plants. They made soup out of them. After 18 days with stewed meat, they almost swallowed a spoon!.. We passed the pass, and on the trail Kesha picked up an old tin bucket and hung it on a tree. "The bear hit me again… As long as I walk – I hang up this bucket, but the bear knocks it down every time." Taiga games! We came to the Arga-Tirekhtyakh River, and Kesha went fishing again, catching a very large grayling. And finally-the hut! Operational dinner at the campfire… Sleep.


July 2. I wake up in the morning, and outside the window – drops! The cyclone still caught up with us... Or maybe-another" fleeting " rain. But I don't think so, the feathers were too powerful... Trubu Kesha rise. We quickly prepare breakfast on a gas burner. We went out... we were wearing raincoats, but soon we took them off – there is no rain, the sun is shining. We follow the rocky bed of the Arga-Tirekhtyakh River, where there are not many butterflies, but sometimes orange yolks fly by. I got a net and caught two of them. Both are viluensis. And ahead, the smoke from the forest fire thickens, and soon the mountains are no longer visible, my throat is scratching ... " Will we suffocate?" I ask Kesha. "Yes, they shouldn't.… There is a path through the mountains here – at least we will follow it!"

The ending follows.

This post was edited by Wild Yuri - 02/05/2020 00: 46

Jurassic, on a branch of larch - lunar cocoonworm Cosmotriche lunigera (Esper, 1784)

Yuri, thank you so much for the reports! As always, unique locations, stunning photos, rare coveted butterflies, and a compelling narrative. What happened to the new arcticus in the end, and what is its status today?

ЯКУТИЯ, МОМСКИЙ ХРЕБЕТ

Часть шестая. Окончание


2 июля (продолжение). Вскоре опять пошёл дождь, и дальше он только нарастал. Я теперь рад был ему. Потушит лесные пожары! Так и произошло. Дым постепенно начал рассеиваться, и часа через два его уже не было. Через три начала подниматься вода в реке. Мы её то и дело переходили, и без того немалую, обходя прижимы, а что будет дальше?.. Прибавили скорость – шли в стиле «спортивной ходьбы». Удивлялся в очередной раз, какую великолепную физическую форму приобретаешь в таких экспедициях: сердце уже не колотится, пота нет, ноги – «железные», иди хоть ещё 200 км! Под вечер выскочили с русла реки на шедшую в Хонуу гравийную дорогу. Успели! Ещё через полчаса воды в реке было бы по пояс уже… «Бег» по гравийке – и через два с половиной часа мы в Хонуу! Пройдя за день 45 км… Скажи мне кто такое до похода, не поверил бы. Адреналин – лучший допинг!


3-6 июля. Опять жил в новом том доме – глядя в телевизор и иногда в окно на пасмурное небо. Циклон и вправду серьёзный случился. Сутки шёл дождь, потом трое – свинцовая облачность, холод. Горы над посёлком побелил снег... Провёл в местной школе лекцию о нашем походе для учителей и детей, с показом фотографий из похода. Подвёл итог конкурса по выращиванию бабочек. Двое детей вырастили их из найденных гусениц, но всего по одной, и обе – медведицы Кайи. Скромный итог… Ну в общем я и предполагал такое. Дети, как это обычно бывает, увлеклись интересной, новой для них темой, ну а потом – разные дела свои, игры, и забыли о ней. И всё-таки вырастили! Вот одна из медведиц.


А вот – чемпион. Он лучше сохранил бабочку, ну и ещё у него таких же три гусеницы было, по его словам, но они сбежали. Витя Старков. И мой приз.


7 июня. Распогодилось. Прогулялся «по бабочкам» возле Хонуу. Опять – дорога за лётным полем, а потом шёл по лесной, «проверяя» поляны. Из интересных видов были голубянки камчадалус и перламутровки аляскенсис. Вот снял парочку...


А Кеша нашёл в своём компьютере фотографию местного феба! Снял в Момских горах несколько лет назад. Полюбуйтесь… Красного цвета практически нет, – всё как описывал! Новый подвид? Да, надо будет мне опять в эти горы идти… Может, и не один раз. Попробую.


8 июля старый Ан-24 «Полярных авиалиний» поднимает меня, покачиваясь, мощно гудя, над Хонуу. Делает полукруг… Я вижу Момские горы. Прощайте, родные! Вернусь ли? На душе радость и грусть...

Сообщение было отредактировано Wild Yuri - 14.12.2020 13:16

  Юрий, спасибо огромное за отчеты! Как всегда уникальные места, потрясающие фотографии, редкие желанные бабочки и захватывающее повествование. Что в итоге вышло с новым "арктикусом", каков статус на сегодня?

Спасибо за добрые слова! Считаю, что надо описывать экспедиции... Ну останется это только с тобой - скучно же! А статус этого "арктикуса" на сегодня - изучение. В Оксфорде... Что-то вроде электрофореза белков будет сделано. Может, и вид... Очень много ныне выделено видов молекулярными методами, что внешне слабо отличаются от "номинативов". Посмотрим...

Концовка выглядит несколько странной: радость и грусть... Но именно такое ощущение у меня было тогда в самолёте. Радость - потому, что экспедиция удалась, грусть: а когда ещё попаду в эти горы? На следующий сезон задуман другой маршрут, а после могут измениться обстоятельства... Да мало ли чего может быть! И всё-таки верю, что вернусь ещё в эти горы. Баянай, жди меня!

Сообщение было отредактировано Wild Yuri - 07.12.2019 17:16

I will add that the kaya grown by Vitya Starkov was solemnly released into the wild-in the presence of children and teachers. As agreed in advance. In the first part, I wrote about this...

After a long, long pause, inspired by the descriptions of the expeditions, I decided to write about my two hikes in the summer of 2019. As a geographical object of research, I chose the Kurai range. Despite the fact that I have visited various places in the Altai, I have not touched on such a place that seems to be visited by entomologists.
For various reasons, the first trip was not planned to be very long. And I wanted to touch on the most interesting and least visited eastern part of Kurai. As a companion, I persuaded my friend, a non-entomologist, Roma. This was his first trip, and I seemed to have beaten off any further desire to venture into the wild mountains)
All the way there, the weather was terrible, in the area of Ongudai, snow began to fall with a clear December snowfall, and in just 15 minutes, the opening summer views of the mountains from the Chui tract became such as they are now in January. This was a "good" representation of the weather for the next expedition.
Access to the ridge was planned from the first village that opens the Chui steppe – Chagan-Uzun. After passing it in the late afternoon, we left the Chui highway, said goodbye (at that time, so we thought) to civilization and went along some road to the mountains.


This is the view we saw with a ray of sunlight coming out.


I was lucky to have a working repeater nearby, and the connection was excellent during my entire stay here.


After crossing a couple of hills, we saw tomorrow's planned route through the mountain - all in clouds, in snow... not very optimistic.


After spending the night on the site of the dried-up Tydtuyaryk riverbed, we woke up at 6 o'clock to the screams of cows and sheep from the neighboring slope. The weather was excellent. We moved on.



Coming close to the main mountains, we realized that on such snowy peaks (if not for such snowfalls, they would not have been) we would not cross this mountain range, and, therefore, the entire route should be adjusted. We chose a place in the riverbed again. Somehow they found a small stream coming out from under the rocks and set up camp. I spent the rest of the day fishing – the only fishing in the area.




Such beautiful landscapes open up at sunset.



And where to go without a cozy campfire.


The next day, in the morning, the weather was much worse than the previous day. Together with her, we were met by a local shepherd who does not know Russian at all. So, not fully understanding his approval/disapproval and looking at the sky, we decided to go down from this place, spending the night, fortunately, at the nearby tourist base "Tydtuyaryk". Almost all the employees turned out to be Russian, and one of the receptionists, who knows almost perfectly all the places in the area (an active tourist), agreed to arrange in the morning with the driver to take us to the second location (where we originally wanted to finish the route) - the valley of the Tobozhok river.
This is what this campsite looks like, located near the famous "Martian Fields".


The next day, the driver took us through Kosh-Agach to the valley of the Tobozhok river. Dropped us off. He pointed out the approximate location of the streams. I gave you my blessing. And left.
I had Napoleonic plans for this valley. But before starting to work with a net, it was necessary to set up a camp, and to do this, find a water source. After three hours of traveling with heavy backpacks in this valley, not even the slightest hint of a stream could be found.


Gradually, the water reserves collected at the campsite were running out. I decided on a desperate step to get out of this river valley along its tributary to the pass, where the water was one hundred percent. The climb was just crazy, and this is with heavy backpacks, with the scorching sun (just when it's necessary...), and with a liter bottle of water for two. This was probably the biggest physical challenge for my body in my entire life. And all this was spurred on by some imaginary doubts about whether there is water at the end point. I remembered that Kurai from the Mongolian huurai means dry land. Good thing she wasn't dead.



An hour later, as the water completely ran out, we came across, as if on some kind of mirage, a fairly large lake. Satellites showed this part of the area in poor quality and we didn't know about it beforehand. As a component of the mirage, a minute later we heard the roar of the engine and two motorcyclists from Kosh-Agach left to meet us. In general, they are quite friendly. And most importantly, we were happy that in a couple of hundred meters there will be a clear stream.


Only when we reached the stream did we throw off our hated backpacks and drink the most delicious water of our entire lives. With the last of our strength, we set up camp, cooked dinner, and went to bed.



To be continued.

The next day, surprisingly, we woke up full of energy and vigor to move on. I decided to spend a few hours fishing at the site of the forced camp, since it was such a sunny morning. P. eversmanni and P. stubendorffii flew in, and several species of draughtsmen and pigeons were also found.


The same stream that saved us. On the labels, an unnamed brook signed " brook of Good Hope."


As soon as we packed our backpacks and set off, a downpour with a thunderstorm began. We stayed in tents for a couple of hours and went towards the pass. When we crossed the watershed, a picturesque valley with powerful streams and waterfalls opened up before us. It was decided to spend the rest of the hike here.




After setting up camp, a local man rode up to us on horseback. As it turned out, his house was located in the valley of the Tobozhok river. And once a week he rode up into the valley on horseback to count the cows. I was surprised at our ability to come here on foot without horses. He said that a snow leopard often wanders to the top of these mountains, and therefore all of them are equipped with camera traps. And so Alexey (that was his name) was very friendly, and said that we can continue to be here without any problems.


The weather was bad. A fog descended, which did not go away until nightfall.
However, the next day we were greeted by a clear and windless sky. After breakfast and taking a net, jars of ethyl acetate and test tubes of alcohol, I immediately went around the valley. The daily catch could not be called rich, basically everything is the same as at the previous point, except that eversmanni was more. Using my group of geometrids, I managed to catch a series of Stamnodes pauperaria, several Autotrichia specimens on the scree, several eupetecia, and see the Glacies coracina I missed. At the request of my fellow arachnologist, I also collected spiders. I managed to catch some eight-legged interesting thing, possibly a new species.




At this time, Roma was standing guard at the camp, and being an artist, he tried to capture the local beauty.


After lunch, the weather turned bad again, and the rest of the day was spent in camp.
The next morning I woke up to the bitter cold, but it was still light in the tent. Hoping for a crisp, clear morning, I opened my tent and saw January back. For half a day, we warmed up with a gas burner in the tent, periodically digging out one side of the tent from the snow brought in by a blizzard.




After lunch, the first patches of clear sky appeared.



Then the sun came out completely. So, tired of lying in the tent all day, I decided to take a walk to the valley of the Uzonoyuk river, where I wanted to go that day. Having got there light, I saw, perhaps, the most beautiful places in the Altai, and in principle in my life.






Unfortunately, the clouds immediately descended and forced us to go back to the tent. The next day followed the same gloomy snow scenario. At the end of the day, we decided to go back in the morning, collect water, spend the night on the Tobozhok River and reach Kosh-Agach.
It was true that the weather had improved in the morning, but the wild wind was blowing away any chance of flying insects. We decided to leave this scenic spot and start going downhill.


On the way down, they were surprised at their ability to climb the pass. Having descended to the valley of Tobozhka and found a place to spend the night, immediately, as luck would have it, the whole sky was covered with clouds and rain began to fall. I managed to catch one pigeon in the grass. Doubts were creeping in, and not to give up this idea of spending the night and not go to Kosh-Agach now. Suddenly listening, we noticed the distinct sound of a drum. As we climbed a nearby hill, we saw a man walking up this valley without any belongings with only one drum. Not knowing how to interpret this, we looked at each other, looked at the sky and decided to move to Kosh-Agach, and in the morning to Barnaul.


Farewell view from the Chui steppe.


So the first trip to the Kurai Ridge ended. In total, about 200 specimens of butterflies were caught – extremely few. Well, in principle, only one working day was obtained in total. What can you say, very lucky with the weather... But the impressions will remain for a long time. A second trip, a longer one to a completely different Kurai, was already ready.

Perfectly! And at what time did this trip take place? I didn't find it anywhere.

Perfectly! And at what time did this trip take place? I didn't find it anywhere.

Judging by the set of views and the weather, I will assume that in jun

Judging by the set of views and the weather, I assume that in June

I would even say somewhere on June 17-27!

Perfectly! And at what time did this trip take place? I didn't find it anywhere.

Late June, early July. The day of snowfall symbolically fell on the first of July)

On my second trip to the Kurai Range, I chose to visit the more western part of the mountain range. However, for myself, I immediately excluded the area of Aktash (although the place is rich, well, I really wanted to set foot on a more uncharted land). The choice fell on the valley of the Kurayka River and the high-altitude plateau near the Upper Ortolyk-the top of the Kuray ridge.



On July 24, at 5 o'clock in the morning, we left Barnaul for the village of Kurai and hitchhiked in Gorno-Altaisk. The team (this time a little wider) consists of three people: my young wife, Kristina, my friend who studies hemiptera, Valentin,and myself. And now, after 12 hours of common travel, we get off the highway right after Kurai, throw on heavy backpacks and move to the cherished green hills on the lifeless (at first glance) grayish-yellow Kurai steppe. On the way, we went around a couple of local parking lots, from which dogs flew out in a bunch and followed us with a bark for another couple of hundred meters. And finally, picturesque green meadows dotted with strawberries, larch woodlands, the noise of Dried apricots and fingerflies and moth flying massively from under their feet appeared. The location of the first camp has identified itself.



After setting up the camp, setting up a campfire, and collecting firewood, we sat down to a cozy fire and waited for dinner to be prepared. Suddenly, night birds flew in from all sides – getting excited, we took up lanterns and nets and (in between stirring soup in a pot) began such an active night fishing. Mostly moths flew (fortunately for me) – we managed to catch 20 species that night. There wasn't much and a scoop. Moving a little with a net from the camp and the campfire, you can see the glimmer of stars between the clouds in places, and somewhere in the distance small moving lights along the Chui highway. At such moments, you understand the full value of such trips. There is some real peace coming.

The next day, the sky was still overcast, but with small breaks in the sun, in which it was possible to collect at least a little of the day's flying up from the wet grass. And so the whole day passed. As everywhere else this summer, a lot of thistles flew, also the background species were Coenonympha glycerion, Erebia theano, Neptis rivularis, Boloria altaica, Plebejus argus. There were also Issoria eugenia, Argynnis paphia, niobe, adippe, Clossiana titania, Melitaea latonigena, Polyommatus orbitulus, etc. From the day moth Idaea aureolaria, Idaea serpentata, Scopula virgulata, Aspitates gilvaria, Macaria brunneata and a lot more.




The top of the opposite North Chui ridge-Aktru-was never discovered for us during our stay here.



The next morning, the weather was strange – it seemed clear, but nothing could be seen in the distance – neither the sun nor the sun. Apparently, the smoke from the Siberian forest fires (raging at that time) that day was driven by the wind to the Altai. We packed our backpacks and started up the Kuraika. Ahead of us is a healthy climb with almost a whole supply of food.
Before fully entering the taiga trail, we accidentally stumbled upon a happy clearing with plentifully flying apollo.



Here are the first traces of the beast on our way.




The path was normal, obviously a horse-drawn one. However, at the end of the day, crossing the rocks over another tributary of the Kurayka River, in our absent-mindedness, we left the path. I didn't want to wander around late at night in search of this road and decided to set up camp as it seemed from a distance in a very picturesque and beautiful clearing. Only when we got to it did we realize that there was almost no grass there, except for a dwarf birch. Well, what can you do, but I slept very gently, although sometimes I woke up from the barking of roe deer on the next slope.




The next day, we set out early to meet up with the proposed trail. After going around the entire right bank, we found that the path goes on the left, and it is not possible to get to it. We spent the whole day walking like this-sometimes through the thickets of dwarf birch, sometimes jumping on kurums, looking enviously at the opposite bank. A couple of times we were overtaken by a downpour with thunderstorms, and the falling scree on the neighboring slopes scared us a little. But all this was overlaid with incredible "Icelandic" landscapes on our way.





At about 6 o'clock we finally met the trail. A little annoyed that I had not been able to reach the watershed-the pass-I suggested that we stand on a small tributary nearby. Although the place initially did not please me, but by nightfall I had big plans for the next day to go around the nearby slopes in search of something interesting.
The next morning we were greeted by the sun – the smoke cleared, and we all ran out with a great mood and nets to hunt. Parnassius phoebus, stubbendorfii, Coenonympha tullia, Erebia callias, theano, kefersteinii flew a lot of the same Boloria altaica From moth modestly a couple of species, but I was pleased with the series of Aspitates (Napuca) obscurata, which I first caught.
In the afternoon, the sky was covered with rain clouds, but the desire to explore everything around me did not leave. Contrary to common sense, I went to the mountain to catch at least spiders. On the stone I accidentally found some incomprehensible gnophos. Although the spiders (as my fellow arachnologist would later tell me) were juvenile, I was satisfied with the scenery around me.






The next day, the goal was to cross the watershed and reach the high plateau. And surprisingly, we reached it in a couple of hours of easy walking. And now a majestic mountain opened up in front of us, which was right next to the Upper Reaches of Ortolyk.



And here is a view of the Right Kubadra River valley.



While Valentine and I were running back and forth, wondering where we should set up camp for a few days, Kristina wasted no time-she caught the only Glacies coracina for the entire trip.
There were two herds of horses and one herd of cows grazing on the entire plateau-like area. The choice fell (as it seemed to us) on the least visited place by these herds on the Terenjik River directly opposite this mountain.




By the evening, however, all the disadvantages of this place were revealed. The Terenjik River was not so clear and flowing, because herds of horses grazed upstream. And the cows almost came right up to our camp. However, it all seemed like nothing to us. There were still many days to explore absolutely everything in the area. And above us, for the first time during the entire trip, the starry sky was fully revealed-perhaps the brightest of all seen at that time.



To be continued.

The post was edited by A Naydenov - 20.01.2020 05: 51

Artem, thank you for an interesting story! I hope the continuation will be soon. I also managed to get out to the Altai this year, I was at the end of June from Shebalino to Kokori. Have you ever seen P. ariadne and P. nomion? Also, on the first trip you were not so far from the Glaucopsyche argali habitats, and on the second trip you were not far from Clossiana matveevi, well, Oeneis was also interesting.

On my second trip to the Kurai Range, I chose to visit the more western part of the mountain range. However, for myself, I immediately excluded the area of Aktash (although the place is rich, well, I really wanted to set foot on a more uncharted land). The choice fell on the valley of the Kurayka River and the high-altitude plateau near the Upper Ortolyk-the top of the Kuray ridge.



To be continued.

finally, not standard Altai places!! Artyom - well done!

finally, not standard Altai places!! Artyom - well done!

Well done, great!
But the places are quite standard for me)
I was there in 2001!
How familiar everything is...But then we were lucky with the weather, we were there for 10 days.
By the way, at the top, we also found Evers (2400 m), and most importantly Matveev's mother-of-pearl (2800 m)!
I did the opposite, I first visited this place, and ten years later in 2011, the standard Aktash)))

The post was edited by Alexanor - 23.01.2020 20: 50

Artem, thank you for an interesting story! I hope the continuation will be soon. I also managed to get out to the Altai this year, I was at the end of June from Shebalino to Kokori. Have you ever seen P. ariadne and P. nomion? Also, on the first trip you were not so far from the Glaucopsyche argali habitats, and on the second trip you were not far from Clossiana matveevi, well, Oeneis was also interesting.

Unfortunately.... I would have gone two weeks earlier, most likely I would have captured the argali, and even with the weather I would have guessed right.

According to Oeneis (only from the first trip), I would venture to assume that Oeneis norna altaica and Oeneis ammon.

The next morning, at six o'clock sharp, I was awakened by a heavy blow to the tent. Still not thinking straight, I picked up a can of pepper spray and ran outside. As it turned out, our camp was surrounded by a herd of intrepid cows, one of them keeping up with the garbage bag, the other sniffing around Valentine's tent, and a calf exploring our tent with interest. I spent ten minutes clapping and shouting to drive them away from our camp, even though my companions were fast asleep, and the cows were gone. As it turns out later,such an alarm went off here every morning at exactly 6 o'clock.

The weather that day was not the sunniest, with intermittent rains. It was pointless to go somewhere far, we decided to fish near the camp, except for mass repenits, Boloria altaica, P. stubbendorfi and Zygaena exulans there was nothing special.

The next day, Valentine stayed to guard the camp, and Kristina and I went to that very mountain. Along the way, we met Clossiana frigga, Issoria eugenia, Erebia callias, pandrose, Euphydryas iduna, Coenonympha tullia, Lycaena phlaeas, Stamnodes pauperaria, etc.




Near this mountain, we found a number of clean lakes and once again regretted that we did not choose this place for the camp.



Finally, I managed to capture mountain goats jumping on the tops.



The sun, however, quickly sank behind the clouds, and the rain began to fall, and we set off at a brisk pace towards the camp.





The next day, Valentin decided to make a trip to the Right Kubadra River Valley. And again, we caught him at the camp and guarded him in case of a sudden arrival of the shepherd. Two hours after his departure, the sky abruptly overcast, an incredible downpour with hail and a powerful thunderstorm began. All sorts of bad thoughts crept into my head, because Valentine was still not there. A couple of hours later, Valentine appeared, drenched all over, with a haggard expression on his face. I took out a wad of wet entomology bags with water dripping from them and went to warm up in the tent. The road down to Kubadr, as it turned out, goes almost through a swamp, and the lower he descended, the more fiercely he was attacked by a midge. But to his delight, he still managed to catch the first shield bear for the entire trip.

The next day we were not happy with the weather again, but in the evening I decided to take a walk to an unnamed mountain in the Terenjika Valley. I didn't catch any butterflies, and three full test tubes of hefty spiders turned out to be juvenile. However, I was morally satisfied with the resulting images.










The same cows that came to us at sunset.




The next day we decided to go down from this place and stop at some clearing near the upper border of the forest. However, before completing the backpacks and moving to us, a shepherd on a horse arrived with a rather cute dog accompanying him. He was very friendly, told all sorts of stories, for example, about how on the way here in the spring three of his cows were killed by a ball lightning, about how he found a piece of rocket stage near those very lakes (this, by the way, is very real) and for some reason took it on a horse to his Ulagan, etc.

So off we went. On the way, we met tourists-a husband with his wife and child, who, on the contrary, were going up. On the border of the forest zone, we discovered the most picturesque place right on the trail, which we bypassed when climbing.





Going down, after 300 meters, we found a perfect clearing on the bank of the Kurayka River, surrounded by larch and cedar trees. It was decided to stay here for two nights.



We gathered all the tents and immediately started fishing while the weather was still normal. Parnassius phoebus, Erebia kefersteinii, callias, theano, Clossiana selenis Polyommatus semiargus, glandon, etc. flew.
In addition to butterflies, there were a lot of leaf eaters. Kristina managed to catch randomly some interesting bug in a single copy. During this and the next day, in search of more of the same interesting things, Valentin skewed everything within a radius of 500 meters with a net - nothing. Later it turned out that the only bedbug was a new species for the fauna of Russia.




In the late afternoon, we broke some dry wood, lit a bright fire, set up a pot of badan leaves, and sat down to wait for summer. Although the nights were cold here, the butterflies that appeared after sunset didn't care. The night experience was excellent. Here would be a generator, but DRLku ... eh.

And so, two nights later, we left this place. In 4 hours we reached our very first point and stayed there for a couple of days. The point was very successful, the weather returned to normal and it became possible to make longer sorties.
Valentin was able to find a new species again (although this time in Siberia).





Finally, Aktru opened.



Three days later, we finally leave our last point and walk to Kurai, rent a house at the campsite for a day and a half and plunge into all the benefits of civilization (well, almost) that we have been dreaming about all these days.

The next day we make our last trip to the foothills of the Kurai range (in fact, the same Kurai steppe). We flew: Chazara briseis, Hipparchia autonoe,
Hyponephele lycaon, Melitaea latonigena, Colias hyale, thisoa, Muschampia tessellum, Thymelicus lineola, Hesperia comma, Pyrgus alveus, Aspitates (Megaspilates) mundataria, Scopula rubiginata, Arichanna melanaria и т.д.




A joint photo of the three of us against the backdrop of the majestic North Chui Ridge.



When we got back to the campsite in Kurai, we started packing up a little bit. Called the car to BlaBlaCare for 7 hours cheers. And with hot tea and a view from the cottage to the Kurai ridge, we said goodbye to these places that sheltered us for more than 2 weeks.



And so this expedition ended. Unlike the first trip, this one turned out to be more successful – more than 1000 specimens of butterflies were collected (taking into account the fact that they were not caught at night with a powerful light source). Although there was no novelty among the lepidoptera (although some moths still need to be tested genitally), I was quite satisfied with this trip.

The post was edited by A Naydenov - 24.01.2020 09: 04

Very beautiful places!

Greetings! I'm a newbie, and my daughter and I suddenly became interested in catching butterflies. It started with the fact that a woman sent her daughter to catch "cabbage plants" as pests of cabbage with a children's net.
She caught 5 of them and brought them home alive. I decided to keep up the interest, saying: "I found some old Soviet books about insects at an auction there, do you want to buy them?" - "Dad,
I'm just catching butterflies!". And he sat down to read how they are dried, how they are straightened, he attacked this forum. We sewed the right net, bought ethyl acetate, learned how to straighten it,
parchment envelopes, a bag with a notebook over your shoulder, studying atlas-determinant until one in the morning. And all this in just one week. I really wanted to share, but I didn't
find a suitable "beginner" topic.




Our first straightened butterflies were tested on "veterans" with damaged wings. Shock content - those same "cabbage plants" turned out to be hawthorns!


Yesterday, for the first time, we tried night fishing in the light.
At 10 pm lit up. Gradually, all sorts of moths began to fly, then suddenly a huge sausage flashed-and to the ground. We look - this is a HAWK MOTH! Hefty, pink hawk moth!
I've only seen them in the picture before. Then some even bigger black butterfly, then furry as a bear, 5 centimeters long, brown! Guys, I'm freaking out, I've
never seen anything like this in my life. And here-at a time 5 pink hawk moth caught. And a completely green butterfly, in appearance - like a daytime butterfly, but with large antennae.
There are also a lot of different scoops. Small moths were not caught, then in the grass of the dead collected a little. We decided that gentle moths are still too cool for us,
we can't do it,so we'll focus on butterflies.

Around midnight, an awkward movement with a net-and broke the flask on the lamp. The internal gas-discharge bulb was not damaged, and the lamp turned into a source of hard ultraviolet light.
People deliberately beat and it doesn't always work out now we have a source of hard ultraviolet light. My daughter went to bed, and I removed the fragments of the ceiling lamp, caught the second green butterfly. Very interesting process.

Oh, and the rhinoceros beetle arrived! Also, I've never seen such hefty beetles, 4-5cm long. So unnoticed, we also started collecting remarkable beetles...

I haven't even tried to determine yet, but I've spread out all the hawk moth and two other mega-large butterflies.