Watch out for the sunshine butterfly

Here's a little test for you - how many different types of yellow can you name?

I tried this on the bus, and came up with lemon, cadmium yellow, gold, mustard and saffron before I had to switch to flowers such as daffodil yellow.

The thing is, we have one resident yellow butterfly, the Brimstone, the males of which are kind of a buttery yellow with an acid tinge. But each year a yellow butterfly from the Mediterranean pushes northwards, with a few - or sometimes thousands - reaching our shores: the Clouded Yellow

And this year is a pretty good one, with quite a few Clouded Yellows wandering the fields and, if you're lucky, the larger gardens of the country. And I was fortunate enough to see and photograph one last weekend, although not in my garden.

So which yellow is it? Well, the closest I can get in my mind is sunflower or sunshine yellow, because it is a deep, rich yellow with a hint of orange.

But you'd never know when they settle because these are coy creatures that don't like to flash their attributes. Tightly closed, the underside is a kind of pale lime green, with a blob of white in the middle of the hind wing and green eyes.

But in the photo at least you can get a hint of the sunshine they bring on the underside of the forewing.

They breed all year round in the Mediterranean and North Africa, and then make a bid for Europe-wide domination as the season progresses, seeking out clover fields to lay their eggs. They caterpillars grow quickly if the weather is warm and new adults can be on the wing in only six weeks or so, bolstering the populations into the autumn before the winter damp strikes them all down.

So if you have a good meadowy lawn, full of clover and in a sunny spot, keep your eyes peeled - you might just be visited by an extra little burst of sunshine in butterfly form.