Travelling from 20-29 April and 8-10 June, this two-part trip was designed to sample an assortment of the spring butterflies that exist across this diverse territory, Lebanese Festoon and False Apollo among them, then to return later in the year to concentrate on the mountains of the north, home to many species not possible earlier in the season, including the newly discovered Ascentria's Fritillary and Levantine Silverline.

Though a well-known country for birding, practically zero online information seems to exist on Israeli butterflies, so I simply armed myself with a copy of 'Butterflies of Israel' (in Hebrew, but with understandable distribution maps and flight season data) and then tried to cover a variety of localities and habitats across the country. I also used 'Butterflies of Lebanon', an English language fieldguide that actually covers the entire Arab world from Morocco and Mauritania through to Iraq and all of the Arabian Peninsula.

For practical purposes, I divide this report into three sections:

Part One. Spring Butterflies of Israel & the Golan Heights.

A ten-day tour of the entire country, including the Negev Desert, the Dead Sea, the Golan Heights and localities among the Mediterranean. A rich assortment of spring butterflies seen, including Lebanese Festoon, False Apollo and Mediteranean Tiger Blue.

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Part Two. Return to the Golan Heights.

A short trip focussing only on the uplands of the Golan Heights and Mount Meron areas, enjoying the abundance of mid-summer species that inhabit these highland regions, including Ascentria's Fritillary, various haristreaks and both Tawny and Lebanese Silverline.

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Part Three. Systematic List of Species.

A full summary of all records of the 72 species of butterfly noted during the two trips, this including 41 species on the April trip (ten days) and 55 in June (2.5 days).

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