Costa Blanca Butterflies

[NickMorgan]

Hi,
My wife has booked us a week's holiday in Torrevieja in April. We have two kids so I will be spending most of my time doing family holiday things, but I would love to spend some time looking for butterflies.
Any advice for good places to go and what I may see would be gratefully received. I am so looking forward to getting away from this Scottish weather and being back in warm sunny Spain!
Thanks
Nick

[Rosie]

Hi Nick

Not far from Torrevieja is a natural park at La Mata. (Towards Alicante on the N332 from Torrevieja, but there is nor really a gap between Torrevieja and La Mata - you get to the park off a roundabout just as you get near to La Mata.) It encompasses the large salt lake and you can cycle on cycle paths there as well, so if the kids are old enough it would be good for all the family. Not sure about the butterfly population there, but might be worth a look.

Rosie

[NickMorgan]

Thank you Rosie. I will have a look for that. We rented a villa in the Jalon Valley in July two years ago, which was a beautiful area. There were a few butterflies around, but I suspect that the spring will be better. I noticed that in the hot July weather the butterflies rarey settled and when they stopped they shut their wings and faced into the sun to prevent them over-heating. Very different from Scotland where they have their wings opened up towards the sun trying to catch some rays!
Our holiday last year was in Menorca, which was fantastic. The butterfly numbers were amazing - I have never been anywhere with so many butterflies constantly in the air.
We have also had a couple of holidays to the Algarve in the spring when there were a lot of butterflies on the wing.

[lilme]

Thanks for the information about the natural park! I go to the Costa Blanca this year and I want to check it out. 
After I knew what I had to look for, I found some cool information about the natural park at spain-info.co.uk. It's about 3,700 hectares wide - you can see flamingo and eared grebes there for instance.
Another cool thing - they have wild orchids there, I just love these flowers, never saw them in nature until now. That has to change!

If someone sees this and wants to know where exactly La Mata is and what kind of accomodation is around - at lamatainformation.com you'll find a lot of information