Good for hiking, disappointing for butterflying

I hate cold, Iran has sunny shining autumn and winter days but they are cold nevertheless and I can't go for butterflying or investigate mountains in search of interesting flowers. so I'm stuck with my old trips and here is one of them, a gloomy one like these days of autumn.

A Bath white walked me through

This Friday we went to countryside in east of Tehran. there was a dam nearby, people were fishing for leisure and weather was perfect.

It was around 10:30 in the morning and I hadn't found a butterfly when suddenly this shy Bath white emerged from nowhere:

I said Sesame and it opened up

My forth butterflywatching trip happened in July (this July). It located in a valley, a very dry one and it was loaded with butterflies of family Numphalidae.

I went there with my two birder friends (again), they went about their business and I drowned myself in butterflies. 

there was no bird in this valley, not a single one (OK, less than 4 individual not even species, included a Kestrel) but lack of birds had made a heaven for insects and so butterflies. they were hanging here and there, singing and openning bottle after bottle of Champagne.

Large tortoiseshell

among fluttering beauties I'll always choose you

Now I want to picture one of my favorite hiking trek which is located in west of Iran.
I went there twice, both in the end of May which is with its sister June, the most beautiful months in Iran. In this two months we don't know where to go and we are crazy to just go anywhere but for two years in a row we ended up going to this same trek, Arasbaran.

What I talk about when I talk about Shahrud

I love this title and use it a lot :-)

Shahrud is my favorite city. I currently live in Tehran, I'm not born in Shahrud and don't even have any relatives there but simply I love it, why?

Shahrud is a combination of my favorite tastes, you have a flat desert then suddenly it ends to a mountain and then after a while dry weather changes to more humid one, and along with that every thing changes. all of this in a 40 min car-drive from city. I prayed it in this post in my old blog, too (an overwhelming love, huh?)

in this post, I want to show my darling through its nature, birds and butterflies. come with me:

let start with desert

A princess in wuthering height

Just a week ago, I went to Parvar, a protected area in Semnan. I went there with two friends, me for butterfly watching and them for bird watching.

you stole part of my heart

this September I went to Jahan Nama, a protected area around north-east of Iran. Jahan Nama is near Shahrood (my favourite city) and its dominant vegetation is various speicies of Juniper (another favourite of mine):

main vegetation of Jahan Nama (Junipers and onobrychis cornuta)  

start

if you're intrested in Iran's whildlife, I can show you some of that. 

I'm a nature enthusiast and I'm in love specially with whild flowers and butterflies. in this blog I will picture my trekking, hiking, butterfly watching a little bird watching and along with all this I will show you the very amazing flora of Iran. here is some photos of each one:

Corydalis verticillaris