A few years ago I wrote a guide to Britain’s butterflies. Titled WILD Guides Britain’s Butterflies, it’s still in print, and is rather a good book. OK, that sounds somewhat conceited, but the truth is that the book was written on behalf of the charity Butterfly Conservation, and it was expert members of BC’s staff who read through my text, and polished and improved it. Useful snippets of information they added made all the difference to my manuscript, and I can still read through the book today and learn things that I didn’t know, and certainly didn’t write.

As this has been an exceptional summer for painted ladies, I looked up my book to see what it says on the subject. “Britain’s population depends wholly on migration. In an exceptional year, millions of painted ladies can be found in Britain, even extending as far north as Orkney and Shetland. Though an adult has been recorded over-wintering in Cornwall, it is thought that the entire British population effectively dies out each winter, and re-colonisation depends on immigration the following spring.”A mass immigration 

This year’s mass immigration took place at the end of May, with the peak movement on the 24th and 25th. As luck would have it I missed all the excitement, as I was away birdwatching in northern Greece. By the time I came home in early June there were still plenty of painted ladies around. These must have bred locally (the caterpillar’s foodplant is thistle), and by the end of July the first of the new brood started to appear. This butterfly has a remarkably short breeding cycle, with as little as four weeks between egg laying and the adult insect emerging from the chrysalis. For many species, the same cycle takes 10 or 11 months.

As I write this in the first week of August, my buddleia bushes are alive with painted ladies, feasting on the nectar in company of numerous peacocks and smaller numbers of red admirals (scarce this year), small tortoiseshells and commas. They combine together to make a splendid spectacle of colour and movement. Among the painted ladies are several beautiful salmon-pink individuals that have clearly just emerged, along with some extremely tatty and faded butterflies, one of which has lost almost an entire rear wing. Painted ladies are relatively long-lived, and some may survive as adults for as long as three weeks.

Another Migrant 

The last two summers have been abysmally bad for butterflies, both variety and numbers, so this year’s fine butterfly summer comes as a pleasant surprise. Late summer may well prove to be a good one for another migratory species, the beautifully named clouded yellow. This is a fast flying chrome-yellow butterfly with black edges to the forewings, and though individuals will come to buddleia to take nectar, you are more likely to see them in fields of clover. Frustratingly, when they land they always shut their wings. I saw my first clouded yellow of the year on the Essex marshes in mid-July, while the most recent was in our paddock at Bowbeck on 4th August. It was only the second one I have seen here, so was a welcome sighting.   If you’re lucky enough to see any interesting butterflies (or birds) in your garden or around the village, do let me know as local records are always interesting. You can call me on either 01359 269 657 or email me at I work from home, so can usually be contacted during the day.

The Suffolk Argus

If you are interested in butterflies, then consider joining Butterfly Conservation. It has an active and enthusiastic Suffolk branch that organises a number of activities and meetings in the county, while it also publishes an excellent little magazine, The Suffolk Argus, four times a year. For more information, see www.suffolkbutterflies.org.uk.