17 Thursday Jun 2021
Posted in insects
I’ve seen three Painted lady (Vanessa cardui) butterflies on my local walks so far this summer, two that looked as they usually do …
And one particularly darkly coloured creature. I don’t know what would have caused this variation, though there is some scientific evidence that very cold temperatures when a butterfly is pupating can lead to darker than usual wing colouring.
31 Monday Aug 2020
Tags
aberrant Meadow brown, British butterflies, butterfly, Comma, Green-veined white, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, Small copper, Small tortoiseshell
To celebrate – or, perhaps, to mourn – the last calendar day of summer, here’s a tribute to some of the beautiful butterflies I’ve seen in recent days, just because, when they’re gone, I’m really going to miss their magic.
A Comma doing what they do so well when their wings are closed – blending in.
Most of the white butterflies I’ve seen lately have been Small whites so this Green-veined white stood out from the crowd.
Here’s another that stood out – an aberrant Meadow brown. There always has to be one!
The heat wave a couple of weeks ago seems to have brought in a small influx of Painted ladies, though nothing like the numbers we had last year.
Have you ever noticed how much Red admirals like blackberries? And their colours blend in to this background rather well.
Small tortoiseshells have been having a good year locally, which has been a real treat. I even found two feeding on Red valerian right at the edge of one of the local beaches this morning.
A delightful surprise from Saturday’s walk at Cosmeston, a pristine Small copper.
12 Wednesday Aug 2020
Tags
battered butterflies, bird-pecked butterflies, British butterflies, Brown argus, Comma, Essex skipper, Gatekeeper, Painted Lady, Peacock, Ringlet, Small copper
Though second-brood butterflies are still looking pristine, many of the others are now well past their best, as life is tough for such fragile creatures. Some butterflies are so battered that I’m amazed they’re able to fly at all, yet this Gatekeeper and Ringlet were still moving from plant to plant.
Birds looking for an easy snack often attack butterflies and it’s easy to see the tell-tale signs of bird pecks on butterflies’ wings, like those on these: a Ringlet, Comma, Small copper and Peacock, and another Gatekeeper.
Is it the blazing sun that has caused this Essex skipper’s orange to fade so dramatically or has it lost most of its wing scales?
I’m 99% sure this is the same Brown argus, seen first on 1 August and again on 10 August. It already had some bird pecks when I first saw it but, nine days later, it was looking rather faded and more than a little ragged around the edges.
This Painted lady is looking battered, bird-pecked, faded and jaded, perhaps the affects of a long migration journey, or simply a tough life well survived.
01 Saturday Aug 2020
Tags
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.
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.
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.
25 Thursday Jun 2020
As well as the Great crested grebes I wrote about yesterday (and many other birds, of course), I also found a little treasure on Monday’s Cardiff Bay walk, a Small heath butterfly. These are common butterflies in many parts of Britain but, for some unknown reason, they are now rare in my part of south Wales. In almost five years of looking, this is the first I’ve found, and Monday’s find is only the third confirmed local record in ten years. Sadly, I only managed a couple of not-very-good photos so I’ll need to try to re-find it.
Yesterday’s walk, in the meadows next to a local woodland, also produced a treasure. As well as many other butterflies (Meadow browns and Ringlets, Large and Small skippers, a couple each of Commas and Red admirals, a Speckled wood and a few flyby white species), I saw my first Painted lady of 2020. I love both the top and side markings of this beautiful creature.
03 Tuesday Sep 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, flowers, insects, nature, wildflowers
Tags
bees, Devil's-bit scabious, hoverflies, insects on scabious, Painted Lady, scabious, Small white butterfly
At this time of year, the delicate lilac tinge of Devil’s-bit scabious casts its imperial purple shadow across the meadows at Cosmeston and at Lavernock. I love it, and I’m not the only one.
It’s proving extremely popular as a late-summer early-autumn source of nectar for all manner of bees, butterflies and hoverflies. Here are a few I’ve seen in recent days …
07 Wednesday Aug 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, insects, nature, wildflowers
Tags
British wildflowers, Dingy footman, Gatekeeper, Hemp agrimony, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, Ringlet, Six-spot burnet, Speckled wood, Willow beauty moth
I’ve been spending a lot of time over the past couple of weeks staring at Hemp agrimony flowers. I’ve not yet found what I’ve been searching for – you’ll be the first to know when/if I do – but, in the meantime, here are just a few of the lovely creatures I’ve spotted nectaring on these pretty flowers: a Dingy footman moth, a Six-spot burnet moth and a Gatekeeper, a Painted lady, a Red admiral, a Ringlet, a Speckled wood and what might be a Willow beauty moth, but the jury’s still out on that one.
01 Thursday Aug 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature
Tags
2019 Painted Lady influx, British butterflies, butterfly, butterfly migration, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Painted Lady, Painted Lady migration
I’ve been pondering what the most descriptive collective noun might be for a group of Painted Ladies? Apparently, for butterflies, there are several possibilities including swarm, flutter, flight and kaleidoscope. The latter appeals because it conjures well the vision of a mass of beautiful, ever revolving colours. I thought of a ‘pleasure’ of Painted Ladies but the double entendre is a little tacky.
Then, one of my Twitter acquaintances came up with ‘privilege’, which is just perfect, thank you, Martin. Because it certainly was a privilege to see 27 of these gorgeous creatures as I walked the fields at Cosmeston yesterday (and I’m sure there were a lot more than that). We’re not getting the thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) that have been arriving along England’s east coast in recent days, but it’s still a lot for this area and it was an absolute delight to see so many.
08 Saturday Jun 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature
Tags
#365DaysWild, British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly migration, Cathays Cemetery, Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui
There are two good things about the drenching and battering we’ve just suffered at the hands of the Spanish Storm Miguel: the first is that we really did need the rain, as the ground is already dry and cracked in places, and the second is that the strong winds may well be responsible for this glorious little lady I discovered at Cathays Cemetery today.
She (or, in fact, it may be a he) is a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), a butterfly which, according to the Butterfly Conservation website, ‘Each year … spreads northwards from the desert fringes of North Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia, recolonising mainland Europe and reaching Britain and Ireland.’ And s/he’s still looking quite pristine, despite that long journey.
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.
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