A Lady Brimstone comes alaying in my garden.

[Cotswold Cockney]

The cold start to Spring locally meant my two potted Alder Buckthorns have been slow to come into full leaf. A month ago I saw a female Brimstone feeding on a Dandelion Flower... no other nectar sources in this slow start to Spring temperatures. The insect did not stay long. My potted plants had barely started to open their leaf buds back then.

Today was again a nice warm one with near continuous sunshine so I did some work on the cars. Took a break and whilst making some tea in the early afternoon, through the kitchen window I saw a female Brimstone flying around my two potted plants and laying. I quickly got my simple compact camera and inserted the Memory Card, set it to Movie. Then moved outside and got some hurried footage of the butterfly busy laying. It spent the best part of half and hour in and about the garden inspecting every plant briefly then returning to lay one of two more ova. I observed at least a dozen visits to the plants and the curvature of the abdomen with each deposited ovum. I managed to get some representative footage with the limited equipment. Here it is.:~

View My Video

Edit to add @ 0:47

Checking the leaves later, I counted at least a dozen ova. Considering the Brimstone is a large-ish Butterfly by UK standards, they lay remarkably disproportionately small ova. Very small and mosty laid on the underside of the leaves.

[Cotswold Cockney]

Spent a pleasant couple of hours working on the cars in the garden yesterday afternoon. Warm sunshine all day. At least two female Brimstones visited my potted plants. Could tell the difference as one was tatty with chunks missing from wings whilst the other near perfect despite being around ten months old.

Today i was able to check the plants and there are far more ova on the mostly undersides of the leaves. I also removed several minute spiders, smaller than a pin head bodies as they will predate on the young larvae and possibly the ova too.

One of the more succulent tender growing terminal leaves had no less than seven ova on it. Different colours so possibly several females chose this particular leaf. I do hope that unlike the Orange Tip, these larvae are not cannibalistic as that will decimate their numbers. These ova are very small considering the size of the insect. I had not noticed this before with these ova. Perhaps my old eyes aint what they used to be ...

There's a change in the weather coming soon. Can hear distant rumbling thunder in the far south where very dark clouds can be seen. went on for several minutes and we even had a very light shower of rain.

[Jack Harrison]

Clipped headers can be misleading.

brim.jpg (12.89 KiB) Viewed 2086 times

Jack

[David M]

Only you, Jack.....

[Cotswold Cockney]

UPDATE:~

Checking my two potted plants for signs of larvae since counting those freshly laid ova, at least twenty probably more unseen both on and under the leaves, proved disappointing. very few signs of any larval activity. Left it a week and follow up checks revealed a few very small larvae. Checked again a few days ago and was in for a big shock! Lots of larvae and some at least larger than half grown. One of my potted Alder Buckthorns was looking pretty tatty with some areas devoid of leaves! The other plant was in much better shape with plenty of large healthy leaves. Too maqny and too large to support them all and I feared for my plants.

What to do? Over ten years ago I planted a small sapling Purging Buckthorn in my own little Nature Reserve on the other side of Gloucestershire. I also planted about twenty bare root 50 cm seedlings in the winter about five years ago. They were part of the same batch purchased as my two potted plants. Some of those has survived and thrived but I think the majority have not, being crowded out by surrounding vigorous Hawthorn, Blackthorn and Wild Rose and Blackberry Scrub. So what I did was carefully remove fifteen from my potted plants still on their leaves and took those to my little NR. Then carefully pinned the leaves with their larva to both species of Buckthorn. I was pleased to observe most immediately transferred to the growing plants and started feeding with gusto!

Five of my plants I checked for pests and also looked for "wild" Brimstone larvae. The first four Alder plants checked showed uneaten leaves and the much larger Purging Buckthorn showed many widespread signs of larval feeding and even frass on some leaves just like those on the two plants in my garden. No signs of actual larvae though. The last of my Alder Buckthorns I checked told a different story. Thgis was the smallest of the plants and had been extensively eaten by something. A visual check showed at least five near fully grown "wild" Brimstone larvae. Not enough leaves for much more feeding and few if any suitable for the larvae to pupate underneath.

Anyway, a final check of those "my" larvae I pinned to several growing plants confirmed they were happy having moved onto healthy growing leaves and some noted actually feeding. The following images show what was involved, The first of the some near fully grown larvae on my potted plant with more uneaten leaves. Even so, too many larvae for that plant though. I had to use flash which gives a false impression of darkness. It was very windy and my compact digital camera only produced shaky images of the constantly moving twigs and leaves without flash. :~



Same image without flash :~



This is the mature and much larger Purging Buckthorn in my field which Brimstones have used in the past :~



This is the method I have used to attach ova or larvae to foodplant leaves for closing on fifty years. The weight of the pin holds it securely. :~



My final check of these showed the pins still holding the pieces of leaves firmly in place. Most larvae having transferred to growing leaves.

This was the tatty "runt" Alder Buckthorn specimen chosen by passing Brimstones for their offspring, whilst ignoring the nicer ones a few metres away.



Closer view of top of that smaller plant showing much feeding.



These images of the "wild" larvae found on this small plant. Probably just enough to feed these to full grown but, that means no suitable leaves and other cover to pupate underneath. :~





Finally, because of the massive increase of scrub growth over the past couple of decades in what was an open area full of grassland species and a few dayflying moths, back in the winter I paid a local Agricultural Contractor to Bull Doze most of that harmful scrub away. He made a number of piles of the cleared scrub and I hoped much of it had dried out enabling it to be burnt. Even so, it was difficult to get it to burn and of the ten piles of bulldozed scrub, I was only able to ignite four before all of my kindling had been exhausted... and my patience with the wind which would blow the fires out before the burn took full hold. Tomorrow's another day and in a year or two I hope the central area will again see scores of Ringlets, Marbled Whites, Meadow Browns and all the others which bred in that once open area. I saw only one Ringlet and one Meadow Brown, both freshly emerged, systematically searching between the grasses looking for females. The females will not appear for a few more days yet. So those males must be patient. These two males were incessantly searching between the grasses at the edge of the cleared area without even stopping to feed for most of the time I was there.

This short video shows the burning and how windy it was. The wind became stronger later during the night. :~

View My Video

EDIT TO ADD @ 20:15

How come no images? Got me stumped. Much edited by 23:59. I was unable to edit the "attachments" and only able to post the above inages using an image host.

[Pete Eeles]

How come no images? Got me stumped.

It looks like you added them as attachments, but never added them to the post! I've reinstated them, but I'm not sure what belongs where. Please edit!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Cotswold Cockney]

How come no images? Got me stumped.

It looks like you added them as attachments, but never added them to the post! I've reinstated them, but I'm not sure what belongs where. Please edit!

Cheers,

- Pete

Just seen this Pete. Thank you. Will sort it out later. Can hardly keep my eyes open at the moment and have an early start in the morning.

I was not able to make the attachments appear. As far as I know, I used the same method as previously without problem but could not do so this time for some reason. I used and image host to include the images in my post. Still puzzled why or what i may have done wrong.

[Cotswold Cockney]

Having transferred fifteen larger Brimstone Larvae to free growing bushes in my field, I checked the two potted plants of Alder Buckthorn plants in my garden. I counted at least fifteen more larvae of various sizes and I fear for my poor plants. So in total at least thirty larvae on the two potted bushes originally.

I will need to take most of those remaining and place on the free growing bushes in the wooded parts of my field. Otherwise my poor plants would be stripped bare and not provide sufficient leaves to feed all to maturity let alone find suitable leaves under which to pupate.