Mark writes: Ralph Underhill is on holiday and I can’t draw, so here is a stunning image of a butterfly you might see at this time of year in southern England, in some years, on sunny Bank Holiday weekends.
Tim writes:
Clouded Yellow butterflies (Colias croceus) are a migrant from southern Europe and North Africa, but they cannot usually survive a winter in Britain. They are erratic in appearance in Britain and 2013 was the last year they appeared in number. I photographed this one in Sussex in June of that year.Females lay their eggs on plants in the pea family, especially Clover, Lucerne, and Bird’s-foot Trefoil, which is the yellow flower here. You can see the watch-spring tongue or proboscis unfurling so the butterfly can thrust it deep inside the flower to extract the nectar.
The scientific name Colias was a site on the coast of Attica where a temple to Aphrodite (Venus) stood, so the butterfly is associated with the goddess of beauty and sensual love. Croceus is more descriptive, meaning saffron yellow.
Nikon D7000 and Nikkor 105mm macro f 5.6 1/2000 ISO 800
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The light easterly winds have brought a fair few into Eastern and southern England in the last week, along with Painted Ladies and an even bigger prize, the Camberwell Beauty – probably a minimum of 3 of the latter have been recorded in the last week in Sussex, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire and now is the peak time for migration of all three of these magnificent butterflies.
Louise – they are all welcome on my buddleia which is still coming in to flower. But, it’s just started raining here in east Northants.