Paul writes: Orange-tip is a great early spring butterfly. It is one of the first butterflies to emerge that hasn’t over-wintered as an adult, so is always beautifully fresh at this time of year. In Yorkshire, over the last ten years, the first sighting has ranged from 22 March in 2011, to 23 April in 2008 and 2013. There have been no sightings yet this year but a few more warm sunny days should bring them out.
I love to watch butterflies but photographing them can be a bit frustrating. Sometimes they fly around and refuse to settle for more than a few seconds. I was lucky with this one. This is a female, which doesn’t have any orange spots, so is quite plain when seen from the top. However the underside has a beautifully intricate yellow and black pattern, which showed well when she settled here with her wings folded. When close up you can also see the hairy face and lovely green and black eyes. This was in April last year, along the River Derwent at Wheldrake Ings.
[registration_form]
Saw my first Brimstone of the year on Friday 6th April: it was a mild and sunny day in Oxford:-) Still waiting for this year’s first Orange Tip…
Nature’s filigrees, despite their great beauty, often go unseen.
Paul, thanks for your precise word picture highlighting those markings and regaining my attention for a common creature. Stupidly, that fine tracery went initially unnoticed in your crystalline photograph.
Gilbert White appears to write only a very few words about butterflies in his journals spanning 1768 – 1793 (Gilbert White’s Journals, Ed.: Walter Johnson, David and Charles, 1970). There are only four references (OK, no index is perfect and this one has had to be added to occasionally, over the years). And yet he loved to note many harbingers of spring, every spring. So far, for early butterflies, there appears to be only this:
Mar. 14. [1793] Papilio rhamni, the brimstone butterfly, appears in the Holt. Trouts rise & catch at insects.…
Thank you Murray, I’m glad you liked the piece.
Superb photos.