Painted Lady influx!!!

[Gruditch]

Second thoughts, looking back through my transect reports, even if this lot breed straight after emergence. It would still be two weeks, till the earliest of the English second brood emerged.

Painted Lady numbers on the Danebury Hill transect.

Week 9 = 110 this was the big influx day.

Week 10 = 9

Week 11 = 5

Week 12 = 3

Week 13 = 2

Week 14 = 3

Week 15 = 23 first fresh specimens appear ( UK born )

Week 16 = 100

Week 17 = 85

Week 18 = 124

Week 19 = 150 most specimens are starting to look quit worn.

Gruditch

[Zonda]

Something i have noticed is that some PL's are very small now. They must vary in size extremely.

[Dave McCormick]

Something i have noticed is that some PL's are very small now. They must vary in size extremely.

With so many being seen, noticing size varying can be common, it does happen in species, but usually there is not enough abundance of a species to notice very much, but when there is, like PLs now, it can be more noticable.

[Dave McCormick]

Anyone know what the length of the wings on a PL are when closed? I had one hatch out of pupae today, male I think and when its wings are closed, from the hindwing bottom to tip of forewing its about 30mm (1.18 inches) but I think I did notice the butterfly was smaller looking that the ones that migrated here. Could it be the weather or some other factor in the UK that caused Painted Ladies to be smaller?

[Cotswold Cockney]

As I posted earlier, those freshly emerged Painted Ladies in my garden during the past week or so are noticeably larger than those that emerged say a month ago.

Considering the variety of larval plants they use, and micro conditions with any individual plant, there will always be a variance with size apart from any inherent condition.

There have been so many butterflies in and around both my front and rear gardens recently, they have been impossible to count accurately. Far too many.

Two or three Red Admirals about today ~ all below average size than those I expect in a normal Red Admiral year. Peacocks in good numbers and even a few Small tortoiseshells. all three whites in good numbers.

In all my many years observing butterflies, I cannot remember a summer like this one for garden butterfly sightings.

One final garden observation today worthy of note. A female Green Viened White over a period of five minutes laid three ova on a very small "Bitter Cress" like plant. The plant was so small ~ only 3" high with insufficient green material to feed one larva to half maturity..... I will try to get a picture of this plant with a ruler in the shot to show just how small it is. I wonder if like the Orange Tip larvae, they are cannibals and readily eat others.
..

[Dave McCormick]

One final garden observation today worthy of note. A female Green Viened White over a period of five minutes laid three ova on a very small "Bitter Cress" like plant. The plant was so small ~ only 3" high with insufficient green material to feed one larva to half maturity..... I will try to get a picture of this plant with a ruler in the shot to show just how small it is. I wonder if like the Orange Tip larvae, they are cannibals and readily eat others.

Hi CC,

I don't think GV White caterpillars are cannibalistic. I have seen GV White eggs on same cuckoo flowers as Orange-Tip eggs and noticed in more cases than not, only a OT larvae remains, where as the GV White one probably got eaten. However, I have noticed GV White females probing bittercress here trying to find good locations to lay eggs, but the plants were as you described, very small and the whites did not lay on them. Could it be that if there are better plants around to lay on, they will bypass the smaller, less sufficient ones, but if not they will take what they can find and lay? Here is a shot of the said female that I was able to get:

Out of the whites, large, Small and GV, GV white larvae is the only ones I have not found in wild yet, but I have always wanted to find them. Seen eggs, but only on cuckooflower and those also had OT eggs.

[Dave McCormick]

I was at Mountstewart Gardens today and found about 20 Painted Ladies. I got so close to them, I could practically touch them. So I got some close ups of them.

First, I got this:



Is the "holes" where the male scent scales used to be or what is the wholes in this shot?


Here is an antennae of one:


Here is two Painted Ladies (one each side of the shot):

[Cotswold Cockney]

The weather today was one of the finest this summer locally. Plenty of butterfly activity in the garden all day but, there has been a change in numbers. Painted Ladies far fewer and still a good number but, outnumbered today by Peacocks.... up to twenty today. Plenty of whites and with the exception of the Green Viened, they are on average larger this season. Large Whites really deserve that name Large this summer. less on the flowers and plenty of little groups of three or four chasing about much of the time ~ again less interest in the flowers.

Saw a few Painted Ladies flying just above the hot tarmac in the road, some even settling on it. Those that are still about this afternoon have ignored the Buddlleia spikes with nly one or two present.

So, where have the Painted Ladies gone I wonder. Will check the numbers again tomorrow.

[NickB]

Hi
Just back from Finland - and they are there in numbers too! Waiting for a tram, saw two in the centre of Helsinki on Tuesday along with several more in different locations on the outskirts of the city.
Also saw a few in central Finland - on a similar latitude as Reykjavik in Iceland. (Nice also to see a couple of Red Admirals in both places too!).
N

[Gruditch]

So, where have the Painted Ladies gone I wonder

Gone South I think, the numbers at Danebury dropped to just 28, from 150 last week, we have had a Northerly breeze, for the last few days too.

The few that are still about, look to be mostly fresher specimens, obviously not ready for the off.

Gruditch

[Piers]

I witnessed a painted lady ovipositing in the garden today and subsequently located about a dozen ova on thistles growing in my lawn (embarrassing admission regarding the condition of my lawns!). Might be worth checking out any thistles as it looks as if we are in for another (partial?) brood.

Cheers,

Felix.

[Gruditch]

Checked again yesterday, our PL's have all but dissapeared.

If they repeat the same cycle if France, as they did here, ( breed on arrival, then die , next gen emerge in 6 weeks, hang around, and feed up for another 4 to 5 weeks, then fly South ), then they should arrive in North Africa in mid November.

Gruditch

[Dave McCormick]

I am wondering, would the weather stay good enough for the caterpillars that will appear now from the PLs that just laid eggs, be able to reach adult before the weather starts turning colder or would the pupae try and go into hibernation? I think they might reach adults, but if they did go into hibernation, I am not sure if they would survive the winter, don't know.

[Susie]

There was a tiny PL today on the buddleia, less than half the usual size. It was very fresh and perfect in every other way.

[NickB]

Still a few PLs round here but not in any great numbers and it does seem they are responding to their migratory instincts and not hanging around. Given the drop in temperatures and the slowly lengthening nights it does seem PLs know which way is up! In that, the early migrants headed stoically north, even against strong winds; now the season is closing their compass points them south again.
We have rarely had the opportunity to witness such a mass migration. The tracking, monitoring and location of butterflies has come a long way since the last such event and their progress up and down the country through regular transect data should prove a treasure-trove to help explain and track the progress of this phenomenon and prove, or not, the currently-held wisdom that they do indeed return migrate after such an event.
N

[Dave McCormick]

hmm...I think the smaller PLs we have been seeing are males. Males are usually smaller than females and since they need to fuel up before mating and females only have a certian time to mate before they lose interest, males hatch first then a few days/weeks later the females appear when males are fueled up and ready to mate and now can. Females being bigger than males. Back when the first migrants appeared, they seemed bigger because we saw both males and females at same time, not like when the generation here hatched as adults, we saw males first and by time females came, we stopped noticing the sizes so much...just my theory though.

[Gruditch]

We have rarely had the opportunity to witness such a mass migration. The tracking, monitoring and location of butterflies has come a long way since the last such event and their progress up and down the country through regular transect data should prove a treasure-trove to help explain and track the progress of this phenomenon and prove, or not, the currently-held wisdom that they do indeed return migrate after such an event.

I can't wait for the AGM's this year, we should have some definite answers by then.

As I said last week, our PL's had all but gone, but come this weekend, there were scores again. I assume PL's on the move from further North, that only managed to get this far, before the wind changed.

Gruditch

[NickB]

From C&E BC - Two transect walks nr Cambridge this weekend reported 49 out of 237 butterflies as Painted Ladies (21% of total) and 132 out of 340 butterflies (39%).
There is certainly a large population circulating in the UK! We have noted that Red Admirals exhibit moves up and down the country as the weather and temperatures vary later in the season; PLs maybe also exhibit this behavoir?
N

[Dave McCormick]

Here is a video I made on Painted Ladies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1FvgZ0bOBg has a slight bit on migration, plus vdeos of a few painted ladies I have seen recently.

[Zonda]

Great vid Dave. Well shot and informative.