Hi Keith, I understand that the lifespan of an adult Painted Lady is around 3 weeks. As for the pupae in your garden, if you can post a photo, I should be able to give you an answer. Vince Vince: Photo of salvaged pupae attached (nettles had to go but I picked through them to recover these, plus tw...

I also found a couple of fresh-looking but very dead ones in my garden recently. I don’t know what their natural life span is - I assume it must at least a few months if they are able to migrate from continental Europe and then breed over here. I had over a dozen individuals regularly visiting my ga...

There was a definite apical forewing spot (but didn’t see if it had a double white core) - I had a good ten second look though binoculars before it took off and flew next door. As I say, the colouration and wing/body shape was almost identical to an oversized female Gatekeeper. The underside was als...

Whilst watching the Painted Ladies enjoying the Buddleia in my garden, I became aware of another flash of orange zooming around. Once settled, the interloper could be seen to have markings similar to that of a female Gatekeeper, except that on the rear wings the inner orange zone ran from the broad ...

Painted Lady probably third most common butterfly at Ranscombe reserve in North Kent (after Meadow Brown and Marbled White). The PLs are having a good year around here, in keeping with everywhere else it seems. They seem very pale and this fits in with the likelihood of them being rather tired cross...

My own experiences with bodies such Natural England and Plantlife suggests that the outcome depends upon who you talk to. NE can be pretty reasonable if you can meet someone in the field and talk directly to them before applying for a licence. In this case it seems ridiculous to run the risk of losi...

Is it worth maybe redistributing some of the resultant eggs and larvae from this superabundance to other areas where the food plant can be found but the butterfly is absent?

I thought that it would be nice (and make sense) for any captive breeding of any butterfly species (which can affect Butterfly Conservation (BC) "on the wing sightings and flight times) to be only legal, if one was a member of BC, a bit like one needed an Environment Agency rod licence to go f...

Hi Keith, Nice observations ! Maybe if the supply of food is plentiful there is no reason why the caterpillars would eat one another.... Last year I found caterpillars of the Mullein moth on Verbascum. There was nothing left of the plant and one of the caterpillars was eating the remains of another...

The eggs hatched over five days - two on day one, one the next day and two on day five. I thought the first two larvae would eat the other eggs as they were on adjacent flower calyxes, but I suppose that if they didn’t physically bump into them and had plenty of other food available, there would be ...

This year in my garden, there has been an unusual abundance of Orange Tips and an equally unusual shortage of Garlic Mustard - the wife has been a bit-over enthusiastic with her weeding! This seems to have driven the local female OTs to desperation: some of the remaining garlic mustard heads have ha...

In my own small corner of North Kent, it has been an odd year for the ST, at least by my observations. Despite the late and vicious cold snap at the end of Feb 2018, this merely delayed the sight of larval colonies until mid-May. I found 9 decent-sized larval tents between first and third instar sta...

Last year was a really bad one for Peacocks in my North Kent location. The late, cold snap in March did not help, I'm sure. However, I found a small colony of 24 second instar (I think) Peacock larvae on a rather lonely strand of nettle, and brought them home to rear up safely caged in the hope of b...

The Ringlets around here all seemed to come out in a rush towards the middle of June and had virtually finished by the middle of July. There were lots of them and the hot weather and continuous sunshine kept them on the move. As a result, I didn't get many shots, this was the best of them. From Ston...

Numbers were well down this year thanks to a sudden late bitterly cold spell in March, I think. Saw this fresh-looking bialbata at Bavins Shaw, North Kent on July 13th... https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NEqdVn5IlSE/W1i3F20eV3I/AAAAAAAABBw/QHfHug2CG7wSEdZPx0AxjQPklOWd5Sf_gCLcBGAs/s640/Red%2BAdmiral.jpg

From Bavins Shaw, North Kent on 13th. July. That day, I counted nine males, all patrolling a short stretch of path around one particular Buddleia bush and chasing each other... https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cCjFrWSbyos/W1i4TBukxDI/AAAAAAAABB8/_iL2emCYT50cZM-CEk4nfkzwqCZj_i8NwCLcBGAs/s640/SWF%2Bmale.jpg...

Didn't see many of these about in 2018. This one was from Bavins Shaw, July 27th... https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rGpk2iZR3Ek/XCqNu3ZTSMI/AAAAAAAABbk/tM2EkY0QZ5Eo-DAhFXm0sT8wnW32y8MUgCLcBGAs/s640/painted%2Blady%2B27-07-18.jpg She (or he) was camera-shy and would not oblige for a top-side shot although ...

From my back garden (Halling, April 14th)...

From Ranscombe Farm on June 23rd, var. anommata . There were at least three of these variants around and on the wing at the time, but all of them eluded my attempts to get an upper side shot... https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oKZNVeOs-1w/W1o6PAhpMTI/AAAAAAAABEg/OMDdXXd6wvU75eroA0DxVthIJlxfCcWWgCLcBGAs/s6...

Numbers of Gatekeepers around here were well down on last year, and my only half-decent photo opportunity in 2018 was of this rather shy female at Birch Wood, Cuxton on July 10th... https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C7YsegEgBWE/W-MMfrdc5lI/AAAAAAAABNI/kDpf_yg-e6knV7CwMmcYjmGODRAuvEITwCEwYBhgL/s640/Gatekeep...