Another busy week has gone by and as we move yet further into spring, more and more wildlife is making it’s first appearance of 2012. It has admittedly been rather cool lately, with daytime temperatures only reaching a chilly 10C and dropping to below 0C at night.
However, this doesn’t seem to have stopped the insects too much, as I was delighted to see my first orange-tip butterfly (or Anthocharis cardamines) at Langford on Tuesday last week – a stunning looking male too! Orange-tips are common spring flying butterflies and can be seen from the beginning of April to the beginning of June, being usually only single brooded, with a small second brood appearing occasionally. They are one of the first butterflies to emerge that haven’t overwintered as adults.
The species is named for the striking bright orange tips to the wings of the male insects. However the females don’t have the orange coloured tips to the wings, instead having wholly white upperwings. Look for the ‘marbled’ green and white patterning on the underside of the hindwing to distinguish females from the similar looking small and green-veined white butterflies.
They inhabit a wide range of habitats including grasslands, hedgerows, woodland rides and margins and riverbanks and are common and widespread throughout England and Wales, becoming scarcer into Scotland.
And how about this for perfect timing – just as I was enjoying my first orange-tip of the year, I happened to notice the first flowering cuckoo-flower on the Phase 1 grassland, the larval foodplant of the orange-tip. Also known as lady’s smock or Cardamine pratensis, cuckoo-flower is a perennial, growing up to 60cm in height and inhabiting open or semi-shaded ground in damp areas such as damp grasslands and riverbanks. The leaves are long and thin, with the elegant looking flowers borne on long stalks having four white to light pink coloured petals. Flowering is from April to June. It is a common species throughout the UK.