02 Tuesday Oct 2018
I hadn’t seen any Common blue butterflies at Cosmeston for over two weeks … until yesterday, when I spotted this little chap amongst the dying wildflowers and drying grasses. So, will he be the last Common blue for 2018?
01 Monday Oct 2018
Tags
British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly, Clouded yellow, Lavernock Nature Reserve, Wales coastal path walk
Having enjoyed some wonderful bird sightings on Sully beach, I walked on along the Wales coastal path, through Swanbridge and past St Mary’s Well Bay to Lavernock. This lovely nature reserve, perched high on the cliffs above some of south Wales’s most dramatic coastline, is the best place I know to see butterflies over the spring and summer months.
However, this was late September and there was a cool wind blowing so, although the Devil’s-bit scabious was still flowering, I didn’t really expect to see many butterflies this day. How wrong I was! Not only did I see three Small coppers, a couple of Red admirals, a Painted lady and a Common blue, as well numerous Small whites and Speckled woods, I was absolutely delighted to spot this glorious Clouded yellow, a butterfly we don’t see very often in this neck of the woods.
22 Wednesday Aug 2018
Tags
British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly, Celastrina argiolus, Holly blue, Holly blue butterfly
I blogged about the Holly blue butterfly (Celastrina argiolus) back in May but I’ve since read some really interesting info about this lovely little butterfly and have some new photos to share as well.
My information comes from the book I’m currently reading, which I highly recommend – it’s Wonderland: A year of Britain’s wildlife day by day by Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss. The entry from 13 August is about the Holly blue and answered a query I had about why I’ve recently been seeing so many Holly blues on Ivy plants rather than on Holly.
It turns out the Holly blue has two generations per year: as their name suggests, the females from the first generation lay their eggs on Holly plants and that’s what the first generation of caterpillars munch on. Then, once those caterpillars have pupated, they emerge as butterflies from around mid July, and the females from that second generation lay their eggs on Ivy, as that’s what the second generation caterpillars eat.
I’ve also been wondering why I seem to be seeing so many more Holly blues this year and Wonderland has the answer to that too:
These fluctuations [in population], over a cycle of five or six years or so, are caused by a small parasitic wasp called Listrodomus, which injects the caterpillars with a long sting-like ovipositor. The Listrodomus grub lives inside the caterpillar, but keeps it alive long enough to allow it to pupate, emerging later from the chrysalis. As wasp populations increase, they reduce the Holly blues. Fewer butterflies mean fewer opportunities for the wasps and so, in turn, wasp numbers fall too. This allows the butterflies to build up again, and that’s why over a span of several years our sightings of Holly blues go up and down.
12 Sunday Aug 2018
‘The quickness of the wing deceives the eye.’ So write Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss in their brilliant book Wonderland: A year of Britain’s wildlife day by day (John Murray, London, 2017). They’re describing those butterflies that ‘fly so haphazardly and so fast that they are little more than hallucinations, a flicker of motion at the edge of our vision, making us question whether we’ve seen one at all.’
The Small copper (Lycaena phlaeas) is one such butterfly but, I find, with a pinch of stealth, a sprinkle of luck and a tablespoonful of patience, it will settle and even pose for photos. And the outcome is no hallucination but rather a delicious creation, even a gourmet would admire.
08 Wednesday Aug 2018
Tags
British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly, Clouded yellow, Colias croceus, Lasiommata megera, Wall brown, Wall butterfly
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, last Sunday’s birding didn’t only produce some nice bird sightings, it also featured an abundance of beautiful butterflies, including two newbies for me.
I’ve been keeping an eye out for Clouded yellows (Colias croceus) for a couple of months now, as these immigrants can fly in from the southern parts of Europe and even north Africa as early as June. The occasional sighting has been reported in my area, with one being seen at Lavernock as recently as last Friday, but I hadn’t managed to spot one myself … until last Sunday.
Ace birder Gareth spotted the first as we walked along the coastal path at Rumney Great Wharf, on the eastern side of Cardiff, and then a second was spotted soon afterwards. And then, as we retraced our steps back to the starting point of our walk, I spied two more, obviously a male and female engaged in their pre-mating aerial display. Luckily, their focus on mating meant I was able to get some open-wing photos, which, though not particularly sharp, are quite difficult with this butterfly, as it usually zooms along at quite a rate of knots.
The second butterfly, which was again spotted by Gareth, was a first-ever sighting for me. This is a Wall (Lasiommata megera, until recently called a Wall brown), so named because of its liking for sunning itself on rocks, banks and, you guessed it, walls (though this one was not living up to its name!).
This particular Wall had been in the wars and was missing half of one wing and a third of the other, but was still flying well enough. I’m not sure I would have spotted it myself as, in flight, it looked very much like a small Meadow brown or a Gatekeeper, so I’m particularly grateful for Gareth’s sharp eyes.
I’ve had a fabulous summer of butterfly sightings, with my species total now on 34, but will these two be the final two species I see for 2018? Only time will tell.
06 Monday Aug 2018
A google search on “Painted Ladies” will take you to San Francisco, as this is the name used by Americans to describe the local Victorian and Edwardian buildings, particularly houses, that have been repainted in multiple colours to highlight the details of their architectural style.
Britain’s Painted ladies have also been painted in multiple colours but not by human hands – these are the masterpieces of Mother Nature.
And they are not static – they fly, and not just around our local meadows and gardens – these beauties fly all the way from North Africa and the Middle East to dazzle us with their kaleidoscope of colour.
Some years – 2009 was one – these butterflies arrive in huge numbers – and I do mean huge. That summer, tens of millions of Painted ladies arrived in Britain and the skies were filled with fluttering colour. I hope I live to see such a sight.
29 Sunday Jul 2018
Tags
Big Butterfly Count, British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly, butterfly conservation, count butterflies, help the butterflies
Just before we move away from this week of butterfly blogs, I do want to put in a plug for Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count that is happening right now. It runs from 20 July to 12 August, so there’s still plenty of time to join in, and it’s super easy. Even if you’re not too crash hot on identifying butterflies, I’m sure you can count from one to, say, twenty, and there’s a handy pictorial chart you can easily download to help you work out which flutterby is which. And, for the smartphoners, which is probably most of you, there’s even a handy app you can download to help identify and record your sightings – though I do think you should at least try to work them out for yourselves.
And if you won’t take my word for the fact that it’s a truly wonderful feeling to sit quietly somewhere and watch and count butterflies, then maybe you’ll listen to / watch Sir David Attenborough.
19 Thursday Jul 2018
I know I’ve already posted a lot of Large skipper (Lycaena dispar) butterfly photos over the past couple of months but I just can’t help myself.
They are so adorable, especially the males when they’re posing.
Of course, I do know they’re not actually posing – it’s more likely that they’re holding a territory and are trying to look intimidating to scare me off.
Or perhaps they’re just as curious about me as I am about them?
Well, here’s lookin’ at you back, Skippy!
03 Tuesday Jul 2018
I saw my first Gatekeeper of the year on Saturday and was curious about its name. The consensus seems to be that the common name comes from this butterfly’s tendency to frequent those areas of rough grassland adjacent to hedgerows and field edges, like, for example, the areas around farm gates. Makes sense.
Its scientific name, Pyronia tithonus, is a little less obvious. Pyronia is derived from the Greek πυρ (pyr) meaning fire, presumably a reference to the bright blazing orange on the butterfly’s wings, but the epithet is odd. Tithonus was a figure in Greek mythology, a member of the Trojan royal family who was kidnapped and loved by Eos, the goddess of the dawn. Wanting to keep her lover with her always, Eos asked Zeus to grant him immortality but forgot to ask for eternal youth, so Tithonus was doomed to grow old and remain old forever. Perhaps this tale held some special meaning for Hubner, the man who classified this genus, but I haven’t been able to discover what that was.
27 Sunday May 2018
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.
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.
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.
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.
