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.
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| 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.
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| Female Orange-tip |
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.
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| 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.
