www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Saw this beautiful butterfly on 18th July near to Liverpool St Stn, London. Noticed it flying and thought it was a small bird at first, it then descended onto a buddliea bush and I managed to grab a few photos using my phone camera before it flew off towards Bishopsgate. It was huge and beautiful.

It's a Monarch. It or another was also photographed in Kensington Gardens two days later. Maybe a release/escape or with the prevailing winds may be drawn up from Spain/Canaries/Azore?

it's perhaps worth mentioning that there is a butterfly event on currently at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington so a few escapees are a distinct possibility.

We visited the Natural History Museum event last year and there were no monarchs. That's not to say they don't have any this year of course. Highly recommended if you're in the area by the way, and you can buy tickets next to it with no queue, i.e. you don't have to wait in the massive queue for the NHM that is often present during school holidays.

Thanks very much for the replies. The Natural History exhibition sounds great will definitely go along to that this summer.

I've seen photos taken of another Monarch nearby on the Middlesex Street Estate, E1 on 17th July. It doesn't have any wing damage, but the markings are sufficiently different to tell it's not the same individual.

I really hope they were actual migrants rather than being released or escapees!

nathNW6 wrote:I really hope they were actual migrants rather than being released or escapees!

I'm with you on that, but I doubt it. So many of this species are now being supplied by breeders for wedding releases, exhibitions etc that we have no idea where we stand. It p****s me off big-time.
On Bugalert I only usually mention such sightings in passing.
Adrian Riley http://www.bugalert.net.

I would bet on releases/escapes. The influxes of Monarchs that sometimes reach the UK are usually the result of a specific set of weather conditions coinciding with their southerly migration down the East Coast of Canada and the US. They get picked up by Atlantic storm systems, often ex-Tropical Storms or ex-Hurricanes and carried swiftly eastwards as these systems recurve. This set of meteorological conditions occurs most frequently between September and November, and that is when records show most of our Monarchs are seen. The majority of these (as you would expect) are seen around our southwest coasts.

Though they don't seem to migrate much (does anyone know?), it is possible that the breeding populations in the Canaries, Madeira and Southern Spain do occasionally stray north, but you would expect records from intervening areas before they reached our shores.

Dave