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Orange-tip - Favourite Photo of 2020

Week 12 Happy New Year to one and all on UKB

So here we are in 2021 – we actually made it! I was quite surprised that 2020 didn’t have anything else in store for us – Godzilla Attack, Alien Invasion, Zombie Apocalypse...Still it’s a case of DYSFT (Different Year Same Favourites Thread) so I hope this week’s selection helps to warm the cockles in the much cooler temperatures.

Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos as then it will be easier to keep track of things? Of course our overseas members are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants. As in previous years details of locations, dates, times and circumstances would be welcome as would any accompanying stories and anecdotes or other observations of behaviour and interesting other points.

Just a reminder - it might be a good idea to select your Overall Favourite Butterfly Photo of 2020 now so that you’ve got something to post when the series of threads culminates in several weeks time…


Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

Here's a lockdown female from 5th May 2020, on an early morning stroll around our local Lincolnshire lanes on government-approved exercise...

Orange tips were fairly abundant just a short walk to the side of the River Don in Aberdeen, close to my house. As usual it took a lot of patience to get a decent photo. They are perpetual motion!!!
All photos taken between 16th to 26th May.

I was lucky last year, the Orange Tips came to my Garden, all I had to do was slowly follow them around
I took my shots of the Female on the 14th April and the Male on the 15th followed by later sightings on the 24th April, 6th and 28th of May, this time it was only the Female 's I saw.
Because of the lock down I was afraid I wouldn't get to see them, so I was really pleased at the time Goldie

The Orange-tip breeds on garlic mustard, in my garden, most years. My favourite photograph is of this day old larva eating its eggshell.


http://eastsussexwanderer.blogspot.co.uk

My harbinger of spring. Kept me upbeat during the first lockdown watching these beautiful butterflies on my local exercise walks along the River Avon in Wiltshire.

Always the most difficult species to choose a favourite from. Lockdown meant all my images came from local wanders and I've managed to whittle it down to one of each sex

Orange Tip in my garden provided me with much pleasure this year. I have never found so many eggs and lava, but I did spend plenty of time looking. It is clear from this thread what the favored food plants are.

Always one of the happiest moments of the season when this species emerges, and I'm pleased to say that in my neck of the woods they were plentiful in 2020, taking full advantage of the warm April & May.

Once again, I saw my first specimens in late March, with numbers probably peaking in the third week of April.
Pride of place went to this ab. transvestita, seen in early May on the Swansea coast:

It is often said that you cannot have too many photos of Orange-tips and with this species flight period in 2020 coinciding with me working from home and then being furloughed, I saw plenty in my garden and within walking distance of home. I saw my first one on 26th March which is early for around here but then a few days of cooler weather meant that it was another week before they really got going. From then on they turned up nearly every day in my garden and on my local exercise walks throughout the rest of April and well into May but by late they May had disappeared for another year.

During some of the warm sunny days we had during that period, I would spend ages just sitting in the garden and watching the same individuals repeatedly returning on their circuits around the houses. Later in the afternoon they would usually slow down a bit and start settling to refuel more often before finding somewhere to roost up.

This is not an obviously variable species but close examination shows a surprising amount of subtle variation in the size and shape of the forewing spots and black markings. This is something that I used to count individuals and confirm how many were actually the same ones coming around again on repeat visits.
One male, seen at my local spot by Wagon Lane Park, was a particularly attractive example with extended black marking along the leading edge of his forewings.
From mid April onwards, the females steadily increased in numbers.
And finally an underside of a male that settled down to roost for the night on a Spanish Bluebell. These things have been in my garden ever since we moved here over twenty years ago and spring up all over the place, but they do provide some nice spring colour and an attractive perch for a butterfly to settle on.
Definitely a species that I reckon we are all probably looking forward to more than ever after the past few months.

Cheers,

Neil

Orange-tip

I had a good year with OTs this year and they were quite easy to find at both Five Rivers and Middle Street as well as appearing at a few other places here and there. My Favourite however had to come from an Exercise/Lockdown visit to Five Rivers. I was mooching around at the far end of the Banks and had been having some luck with OTs in that they’d actually stopped for nectar so I had a few shot on the memory card when I watched a pair fly along from lower on the banks up towards me and then plop down next to each other on low growing branch. With minimal flapping the male had arched his abdomen around and the two had locked together – my first OT pairing. I’m still so chuffed with this I’ve plumped for two shots – the first was just seconds after they’d joined and the second came from later in their 45 minute tete-a tete.
Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

I had an early male Orange-tip on 2nd April near home and then near-daily sightings throughout lockdown. Then, for the first time ever, what had to have been a second brood male, on 24th June.

I also found quite a few eggs and caterpillars this year and have a chrysalis in the garage, waiting for the spring.

This male was sitting just right at Magdalen Hill Down in the spring.

What a joy this species is in Spring, and with luck and a bit of early March sunshine we shall be seeing them again in a couple of months time.

Considering its relatively short season, this species comes out as the 8th most commonly seen species on my local patch over the year, beating such contenders in 2020 as Red Admirals, Commas and Green-veined Whites. However, the extraordinary amount of spring sunshine coincided precisely with its flight period and it clearly made the most of it. My favourite shots were from the latter part of this, and actually from Copper country down at Staines Moor. I enjoy watching the sexes interact and try and capture their antics on camera. Dave

Sweet Rocket & Orang-tip butterfly
This plant (Hesperis matronalis) had been highly hybridised into different varieties, (flower colours and sizes). It was in the Brassicaceae family and attracted a female Orange-tip ovipositor.
As the flowers were large, the plant was easily seen by the butterfly from distance, but tests showed that a butterfly preferred to oviposit on our native Garlic Mustard (an individual from the Orang-tip species, had a slowly evolved, dependant relationship with it).
Sweet Rocket and Garlic Mustard could be companion planted together, for the sole purpose of helping the Orange-tip find the Garlic Mustard (which had smaller flowers than the Sweet Rocket).
Other than that, it was thought, some plants offered little more than a distraction to the Orange-tip species while in ovipositor phase, as the larval development phase, was not observed on this specific plant.