May 2017

Last month I wrote about the small tortoiseshell butterfly which hibernates as an adult.  As spring moves on apace, one of the first butterflies that hibernate as a chrysalis has emerged - the orange-tip butterfly.  The males and females of the orange-tip are different (sexually dimorphic).  The male has the signature orange tips to its wings, whereas the female doesn’t and can easily be mistaken for a small white butterfly.  The female lays her eggs in the flower-heads of lady’s smock (cuckooflower), garlic mustard, or large bittercress amongst several other flower species.  There is a link here in the scientific names – the orange tip is Anthocharis cardamines, lady’s smock is Cardamine pratensis, and large bittercress is Cardamine amara.  It was only when researching this column that I found out that lady’s smock is related to hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta), two very common and very different wild flowers.  The scientific name Cardamine incidentally, comes from its similarity to the cardamom plant, an entirely unrelated species. 

Male Orange-tip

One irritating feature of the orange-tip butterfly is that it rarely settles, at least in our garden, and at rest it is well camouflaged by tucking its forewings into its hindwings which it closes to show the green and white undersides.  This makes photographing them difficult, but last year I managed to photograph a female for the first time, and this year got a photo of the male to complete the set. 

Female Orange-tip

Apparently the caterpillars are well camouflaged as well, so I will be carefully examining our lady’s smock later on to see if I can find any.

Recently while working in the carport, I disturbed a moth.  At first glance it looked like a species I’d not seen before so I dropped my hammer and cable clips and ran for the camera.  Fortunately the moth was still dozy from the hibernation that I’d disturbed, so it was still there when I got back and it posed for several photographs.  Later, comparing the photographs with the moth book, it turned out to be a buttoned snout – a nationally scarce species.  It is called a buttoned snout from the resemblance of markings on its wing to a buttonhole.  It is mainly found in eastern parts of the country and there have been scattered records from along the south coast.  Perhaps the reason for this distribution is the food plant of its caterpillars which feed almost exclusively on hops.  We did have hops growing in the hedge last year so maybe that explains its choice of hibernation site.  This is not a species that turns up in moth traps, so I probably wouldn’t have seen one if I hadn’t been up in the carport sorting out the wiring.

Buttoned Snout - Hypena rostralis

While the spring is racing ahead, it does seem to be an unusually warm and early spring.  Our shed roof was in full flower in mid-April, something that doesn’t normally happen until early May.  (We have a Clematis montana that completely covers the shed roof.)  I also saw workers of both common carder and early bumblebees which shows that their colonies are already in full swing.  I read recently that eleven new species of dragonfly have bred in the UK since 1995, some completely new, some that have previously become extinct in the UK, but all expanding their range northwards from Europe.  All these facts suggest global warming, and all are facts to be ignored by the Trump’s and Cameron’s of this precious world.