Red admiral egg

11 Thursday May 2023

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British butterflies, butterfly, butterfly egg, Red Admiral, Red admiral egg

During Sunday’s wander around the boundaries of some local horse fields (minus the nosey horses, this time), the sun wasn’t shining or warm enough for any butterflies to be found on the thick hedges and scrubby edges. This lovely female Red admiral was the one exception, appearing suddenly from behind a large bramble patch.

230511 red admiral

How do I know it was a female? Well, instead of flying off to patrol the bushes, she floated above and around the abundant, fresh Stinging nettles, looking for the best places to lay her eggs. How do I know they were Stinging nettles? Well, despite wrapping my fingers in the layers of my scarf, I still got stung on a couple of fingers while getting my first ever sighting and photographs of one of her eggs, a magnificent little ribbed barrel that should produce a tiny caterpillar in a week or so.

230511 red admiral egg

A hatching

07 Tuesday Jun 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterfly egg, Holly blue, Holly blue egg, Holly blue larva

Remember A Holly blue and her egg, my post on 24 May? Well, the egg has now hatched and I’ve had my first glimpses of the larva, so incredibly tiny that, with my poor eyesight, I had to take some macro photographs and look at those to be sure of what I was seeing – spot the hairy larva in the photo on the right below.

220607 holly blue egg and larva

These images were taken one day apart, so the larva can have been no more than 24 hours old at this stage. In his essential publication Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, author Peter Eeles writes: ‘The larva starts to feed by burying its head deep into the bud on which the egg was laid’. This is the first of four stages the larva goes through before it pupates, so I’ll be checking back regularly to try to monitor its progress.

A Holly blue and her egg

24 Tuesday May 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects

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British butterflies, butterfly egg, Holly blue, Holly blue egg

This Holly blue butterfly was egg-laying as I watched so I was able to get photos of one of her amazing eggs, in this case laid on the flower buds of Dogwood.

220524 holly blue
220524 holly blue egg

A future butterfly

06 Tuesday Jul 2021

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British butterflies, butterfly, butterfly egg, Large skipper, Large skipper egg

Golden Large skippers have been flitting through the tall grasses of my local meadows for about a month now and soon, too soon, they will disappear for another year.

210706 large skipper

But, if they manage to escape the cutting blades of mowers and survive through whatever weather the winter throws at us this year, then the larvae that emerge from their miniscule eggs, like the one below, will guarantee we see these handsome creatures again next year.

210706 large skipper egg

214/366 Butterfly eggs

01 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, plants

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British butterflies, butterfly, butterfly egg, Common blue butterfly, Common blue butterfly egg, Painted Lady, Painted lady egg, thistle

This Painted lady is only the fourth individual I’ve seen this year but she was by far the best, not because of her appearance, which is a little ragged around the edges, but because she was laying eggs … and I’d never seen a Painted lady egg before.

200801 painted lady

At just 0.65mm high, the egg is tiny and, in my reference book, it’s described as green but, to my eye, this one is more of a pale turquoise – the plant stem is green. And the plant is a thistle – Creeping thistle, I think, though it was a young plant with no flowers, which makes it harder for me to identify but probably more nourishing for the teeny tiny caterpillar to munch on when it emerges. Now if I can only find this exact plant again in approximately a week’s time …

And following hot on the heels of finding that Painted lady egg, today I spotted a female Common blue butterfly laying her eggs in a sheltered clearing. You can perhaps see in the photo how she is angling her body to deposit an egg underneath the foliage.

200801 Common blue egg laying

So, once again, I was able to find the newly laid egg and take some photos. According to my book, these eggs are usually 0.5mm in diameter and just 0.25mm high, so really tiny. I have no chance of finding this egg again but I’m really glad I had the chance to see it.

184/366 Eggs-citing!

02 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly egg, Comma, Comma butterfly, Comma egg, Polygonia c-album

Though I set off on yesterday’s walk clad in a rain jacket, the first day of July brightened up and turned into a day full of butterflies, with sightings of my first Gatekeepers of the year, a couple of second-brood Holly blues and more than 20 second-brood Small whites, as well as seven other species. But the highlight for me was watching two Commas egg-laying on nettles, and then taking a look at their tiny eggs, which I’d not seen previously.

200702 commas egglaying (1)

The butterflies were fluttering around, checking out nettle plants growing alongside the footpath I was walking and, when they found a plant to their liking, they would alight briefly on a leaf, lay a single egg, then flutter off again.

At less than 1mm tall, these eggs are tiny, and I would never have spotted them unless I’d seen them being laid. They’re pale green in colour, with 10 or 11 white ribs running vertically up the sides.

Comma egg one

Comma egg two

According to Peter Eeles’s Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, each female Comma will lay about 250 eggs, usually on the upper side of a leaf, in a sheltered, sunny position. The eggs will gradually change colour to yellow and, in two or three weeks, to grey, before the little caterpillars hatch. Eggs-citing!