2 minute read

Nature Notebook

Brimstone male © Bob Tunstall

Fly Butterfly

Advertisement

Let’s take a closer look at the most ‘butter’fly of butterflies...

KEEP UP TO DATE

Worcestershire Wildlife Trust @WorcsWT t worcestershirewildlifetrust G worcswildlifetrust.co.uk w As I write it feels that spring has sprung; the sun is shining and the birds are singing. It can’t be spring, though, because I haven’t yet seen my first butterfly. And the most butterley of all the flutterbies is the brimstone. Why? Because it’s thought that the name ‘butterfly’ originates from this colourful species. It is believed that the word butterfly derives from ‘butter-coloured fly’ and that this, in turn, came from the bright yellow colour of the male brimstone.

Brimstone is another name for sulphur, which gives you an indication of just how yellow the males can appear. The females are a paler, almost lemon-green, colour. Both sexes rest with their wings folded up and, despite the strong colouring, this gives them the ability to look just like a leaf and fade away into the surrounding vegetation.

In fact, during winter they’ll have been doing just that. They’re one of few UK butterflies that spend the colder months as an adult – many other species survive as an egg or as a caterpillar tucked up safe from the worst of the weather and predators. If you’ve got a dense stand of ivy or holly in your garden or nearby there’s a good chance that it’s been a winter home for a brimstone as well as other butterflies, moths and more. As persistent warmer temperatures take hold, you can prune back the ivy to allow it plenty of time to produce flowers for autumn and berries and cover for winter. harbinger of spring than the return of cuckoos? Their bright fluttering through our gardens, along our hedgerows and down woodland paths offers a sign of warmth and colour to come. As they wake from their winter slumbers, they’ll seek out nectar-rich flowers to help restore their energy levels. In spring they’ll look for dandelions, primroses and cowslips as well as bluebells and bugles as the weeks slip past. The next generation, which emerge in midsummer, have a preference for purple flowers so think about planting buddleia, teasel, thistle or scabious if you’d like to attract these beauties to your garden.

Once the adults have emerged and fuelled-up they’ll be looking to create the next generation. Males will patrol hedgerows and woodland edges looking for a female to meet. When a pair find each other, they fly high into the air, circling each other before tumbling into vegetation to mate. As with many butterflies and moths, the caterpillars are quite particular about what they eat – in this case the females will hunt down buckthorn and alder buckthorn to lay their eggs on. It takes about two weeks before the caterpillar hatches from the egg and begins to munch on the leaves of the plant. A month or so later and the caterpillar will pupate, undertaking the amazing process that transforms it into one of our most beautiful insects.

If you’ve captured the arrival of spring, why not enter our photo competition; you’ve got until 4th April to do so www.worcswildlifetrust.co.uk/photography-competition n

This article is from: