The Nature Blog

photo credit: Benimoto

Whilst I love to see butterflies, I am far from an expert and so regularly find myself leafing through books and websites to learn more about a species I have seen recently.

During my research I have come across a number of useful online resources for identifying British butterflies and their caterpillars and thought that it might be useful for other readers to gather the best resources into one place.

Possibly the best place to start your identification journey is with a visit to Butterfly Conservation’s UK Butterflies site which has neatly categorized all of the UK butterfly species, with clear photos of each making identification reasonably easy for most species.

As well as the photos, this site also groups butterflies by type, helping to narrow down your search and also has a handy “Flying This Week” chart on the left-hand side of the page which is a great place to start your hunt.

Butterfly Conservation’s main website also has some very useful resources including a complete A to Z listing of UK butterflies and a special “butterfly identifier” where you can select options from a form which will then offer up possible identifications.

Also worth mentioning is UK Leps which has lots of nice photos and information but unfortunately there is no overview feature. Because of this, UK Leps is probably not so useful for identification when compared to the two Butterfly Conservation websites but once you have worked out what your butterfly is, the site provides plenty more useful information on the species.

Whilst the flying adult butterflies are often the most visible form, it is of course not unusual to find caterpillars and these can potentially be even more problematic to identify.

What’s That Caterpillar is a great resource for identification of British caterpillars. To make your identification a little easier, try to identify the actual plant that you find the caterpillar on and then use one of the various lists of larval food plants to narrow down the options.

Some of the best lists of larval food plants I have found are Foremost Butterflies and Over The Garden Gate.

Lastly, if you have some top identification websites that you use for lepidoptera, please leave me a comment so we can all benefit from your knowledge

Continue Reading

photo credit: ahisgett

In spring and summer a visit to a sunny opening near a ancient hedgerow or in a forest will often reveal large numbers of this elegant butterfly who can be so active as to make identification quite a challenge.

Appearance

The general appearance of the Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) butterfly is one of a brown butterfly of average size, covered in a number of spots which may range in colour from pale cream through to a yellow-orange. Closer inspection reveals a far more delicate-looking butterfly with attractive markings and gentle “scalloping” of the posterior wings.

Habitat

This butterfly is most often found, as the name suggests, around the margins and openings of woods and hedgerows where it is often a very active flyer, only settling to rest occasionally.

Food

The caterpillars feed on a variety of grasses most notably couch grass.

Interesting Facts

Whilst this butterfly is often seen reasonably early in the season from April onwards, it does not overwinter as an adult butterfly typically but is far more likely to see out the colder months either as a large caterpillar or as a pupae, ready to hatch in the spring as the weather warms up.

Continue Reading

photo credit: Ernst Vikne

I hope your weather is just as amazing as mine is right now. I took full advantage of it yesterday to go for a short nature walk and there was insect life everywhere. Whilst a few weeks ago I was excited to see my first bumblebee of the year, yesterday of course they were absolutely everywhere.

And I was also pleased to see a large number of butterflies. It always amuses me that the first butterfly of the year that I see always seems to be a Comma rather than the classic Brimstone. I managed to get a reasonable photo of him (or her!) though as you can see it was a pretty tatty specimen.

Compare that to a “normal” Comma and you’ll see what he *should* have looked like (top of post). Clearly the specimen I saw had been through the wars with various bits of it’s wings missing.

Here’s a snap of a lovely Small Tortoiseshell I also saw with those fantastic blue spots around the rear edge of the wing. I must have seen a dozen of these over just an hour or two but this was the one I managed to get closest to.

Strange to think that both these butterflies have probably overwintered here as adults, just as Brimstones do and a number of other early butterflies, and will soon start to lay the first clutches of eggs for the year. No wonder the Comma doesn’t look at his or her best after the weather we had this winter!

Continue Reading

photo credit: Darius Baužys

I just received a flyer from Butterfly Conservation (of which I am a member) with some pretty stark news. Butterfly Conservation runs the largest butterfly recording scheme in the world – a project that is essential for conservation monitoring.

Unfortunately it seems that Butterfly Conservation, like so many other charities, has been severely hit by the recession and they are finding a potential shortfall of £75,000 from their financies this year.

Clearly, this is pretty serious and I’m sure as a reader of this website you’d want to know about this. Luckily, helping Butterfly Conservation is easy.

Please take just 2 minutes to click on the following link and make a donation of whatever you can afford, no matter how small. You can donate as little as £1 and as much as you like. So go on, make a difference today.

Click here to support Butterfly Conservation.

Continue Reading

photo credit: kyle simourd

The white admiral (Limenitis camilla) is a truly wonderful species of a butterfly and a real pleasure to see. The adults may only be on the wing for a few weeks each year and so you really have to be on the ball to stand a chance of seeing them but when you do it can be a magical experience.

Appearance:

The basic appearance of the white admiral is that it is a mainly brown butterfly with some white markings on the wings. Clearly this doesn’t typically set it apart from a range of other brown butterflies with white marks on the wings but identification is easiest using behavioural details. Read on to learn more!

Habitat:

The white admiral tends to favour woodland areas, most especially deciduous woods where it is generally seen flitting around in the sunshine in the canopy of trees such as oak and beech. So if you happen to see a brown butterfly in the middle of summer flying high around woodland trees and stopping from time to time to sun-bathe then you may well have seen a white admiral.

Food:

The caterpillars feed on wild honeysuckle so finding a woodland with some of this plant can be a good way to start your search for these butterflies. The adults do feed and bramble flowers can be very good for attracting the adults.

Continue Reading

photo credit: Stefan Willoughby

The Painted Lady is a stunning migrant butterfly species which spends much of winter feeding in northern Africa before migrating up into Europe as the weather here improves. This is likely because it is at this time of year that Africa becomes dry and barren and so few food plants are available for the Painted Ladys to breed on.

Appearance:

In many ways the Painted Lady appears as a more fragile and subtle version of the Small Tortoiseshell (Anglais urticae) though the base colour is more orange than red. It is an average-sized butterfly with gentle markings on the wings.

Habitat:

Once the Painted Lady reaches the UK it can be found in most habitats as a widespead sign of summer. They enjoy feeding on nectar-rich plants like many butterflies and so are often encountered in gardens feeding on Buddleia and the lke. They may alse be encountered in grassland, forest edges and virtually anywhere that they may be gathering nectar are looking for egg laying locations.

Food:

The young larvae feed on thistles or nettles in the UK. Caterpillars which pupate early in the season may try to breed in the UK laying a second generation of eggs. In the autumn, adults fly back south down to northern Africa for the winter.

Interesting Facts:

The complete breeding cycle was unknown until 2009 when the UK as well as much of Europe experienced one of their largest influxes of this species ever. Public interest and a combination of media sources such as daily newspapers, Butterfly Conservation and BBC2′s Autumn Watch helped us to trace the flight-paths of the species, and so prove once and for all that the adults do indeed migrate back to Africa in the autumn.

Continue Reading