Sunday’s gift

17 Wednesday Apr 2024

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Anthocharis cardamines, British butterflies, butterfly, Orange-tip, spring butterflies

I was trudging slowly along a muddy path, trying not to slip (it’s happened before), so I wasn’t paying attention when my first Orange-tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) of the year flitted up in front of me, disturbed from feeding on a flower of Herb Robert. Typically, it flew back along the way I had come, meaning I had to retrace my slippery steps while trying to keep an eye on where it landed once, twice, three times. By the time I got to the start of the path, the butterfly had disappeared and, though I lingered a while, it didn’t reappear.

240417 orange-tip

On my way home, I was more lucky and spotted my second Orange-tip of the year. I could easily have missed it, so well camouflaged was it amongst the lush new growth of Cow parsley plants, but the breeze had picked up and it was having to flap its wings just a little to hold on to its perch. The flash of its orange tips gave its location away.

106/366 The ostentatious Orange-tip

15 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, spring

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Anthocharis cardamines, British butterflies, butterfly, Orange-tip, Orange-tip butterfly, spring butterflies

If there is one butterfly whose male makes a truly conspicuous effort to impress the female of the species, then it must surely be the Orange-tip (Anthocharis cardamines). Those vivid orange wing tips are hard to miss, even when the males are speeding past at a hundred miles an hour. Today, at last, I saw my first Orange-tip for 2020 – in fact, I spotted four of these handsome chaps and, after following a couple back and forth along their chosen territories, I finally managed a single photo of one as it was refuelling.

200415 orange-tip

Orange-tips

27 Sunday May 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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Anthocharis cardamines, British butterflies, butterfly, Orange-tip, Orange-tip butterfly

The various white butterflies can be difficult to tell apart but the Orange-tips (Anthocharis cardamines) are a little easier to spot. The male sports the orange tips on its wings that give the species its common name and which are, according to the UK Butterflies website, caused by an accumulation of the mustard oils that were ingested when it was a caterpillar.

180527 Orange-tip male

The female Orange-tip doesn’t have those bright wing tips but she does share with the male the equally characteristic mottled green pattern on her underwings.

180527 Orange-tip female.jpg

The female lays a single egg – the caterpillars will devour other eggs and fellow caterpillars given the chance, hence the single egg – on one of the preferred larval food plants, their favourites being Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis) and Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata). Eggs are white when first laid, changing to orange as they near maturity, a process that takes a week or two.

Newly laid white egg

Maturing orange egg

180527 Orange-tip egg (3)

I haven’t yet found a caterpillar but, in the next week or so, I will be re-checking the places where I found these eggs. If you want to read more about Orange-tips, you can check the Butterfly Conservation website here.

Fluttering butterflies, no.2

24 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

≈ 7 Comments

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Anthocharis cardamines, British butterflies, butterfly, Celastrina argiolus, Common blue butterfly, Holly blue butterfly, Large skipper butterfly, Ochlodes sylvanus, Orange-tip butterfly, Polyommatus icarus

Though summer is well underway here in Britain, I’m not seeing a huge number of butterflies. Here are some I have seen fluttering by in recent weeks.

160624 Common Blue

There are several small blue butterflies in Britain and they can be difficult to tell apart but the Common blue (Polyommatus icarus) is, as its name implies, the most common. As is often the way with wildlife, the males are bright blue, whereas the females can be quite a drab brown.

160624 Holly blue

The Holly blue (Celastrina argiolus) looks quite similar to the Common Blue, especially in flight. The trick to identifying it is in the small black dots on the underwings. It is also the blue butterfly that emerges first from its winter hibernation so look for it near holly plants in early spring, then fluttering about ivy in the summertime.

160624 Orange tip

If this is an Orange-tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines), where’s the orange colour? Turns out this is a female and only the males have bright orange wing tips. Still, she’s a very pretty little thing, even if she did seem a bit shy and hid her head behind a leaf.

160624 Large Skipper

Though it’s called the Large skipper (Ochlodes sylvanus), this butterfly is relatively small, its wingspan just a couple of millimetres more than the Small skipper, so you need to look for the mottled brown markings on its upper wings to tell the two apart.