Some Orange Tip Observations

Although I believe that it is best to leave nature to do its own thing and not to interfere, I sometimes I think it could do with a helping hand. The spring of 2020 was lovely, but the weather took an unfortunate turn for the worse in June.

In April and May of 2020 there were a lot of Orange Tips flying around and I found loads of eggs and caterpillars. Unfortunately, we had a lot of heavy rain in early June and most of the caterpillars I had been watching disappeared. After one particularly heavy shower I could only find one caterpillar, so I popped it on a Garlic Mustard plant that I had in a pot and put it in a mesh cage for safety.

On 27th June the caterpillar attached itself to the seed head with a girdle of thread and formed into a J-shape. It stayed like that for 3 days before shedding its skin and forming a chrysalis.

I kept the chrysalis in a mesh cage under an overhang of the house. It remained there all winter and eventually emerged into a butterfly on 11th May 2021. I was surprised as this was a dark cloudy morning and only 10 degrees. However, I had noticed its colour change over the previous week, so possibly it couldn't delay the process any longer.

As each Orange Tip's under wing pattern appears to be unique I was able to photograph any I saw and discovered that my Orange Tip was still living on 24th May. It had survived though a horrible period of weather with several periods of really heavy rain.

I often wonder if butterflies can survive heavy downpours or prolonged periods of rain and this one proved that they can. I have also wondered when I see an Orange Tip if it is the same one that I had seen the previous day, or if it is a new one that has flown into the area. Checking through the photographs I took this year, I have identified at least 28 different Orange Tips and only a few of them were seen on more than one occasion.

This spring I was pleased to see plenty of Orange Tips flying around. There were so many that quite a few Garlic Mustard seed heads had more than one egg on them. This is unusual, as it is thought that Orange Tip caterpillars are cannibalistic. I noticed two Cuckoo Flowers growing on the edge of our pond which were proving very attractive to female Orange Tips. When I checked one plant had seven eggs on it and the other had nine. These are really small plants and I find it hard to believe that there is enough to eat in one plant for just one caterpillar. 

A few days later I checked and the eggs had all hatched. I kept an eye on them and then suddenly on day 8 all the caterpillars were gone. I don't know if they were eaten or if they all decided to go and look for something more substantial to fee on. I think I will try to grow a Cuckoo flower in a pot next spring and see if I can attract an Orange Tip to lay an egg so I can see if the caterpillar stays on the plant.

How Butterflies Arrive in East Lothian

In previous posts I have described how Speckled Woods and Wall Browns have arrived in East Lothian over the last few years and then colonised the whole county.

They both worked their way up the east coast from Berwickshire, skirting around the Lammermuir Hills, which run along the south of East Lothian. This seems like an obvious route, taking advantage of the milder climate along the coast and avoiding higher slightly baron hills.

It does appear that the Lammermuir Hills, with a maximum elevation of only 535 metres, is quite a barrier for butterflies as they expand their range.

Speckled Woods were first recorded in East Lothian in 2009 right on the south east corner of East Lothian at Dunglass. A year later Wall Browns were discovered in the same location and both species spread around the coast and have also used river valleys as they have colonised the county.

When Large Skippers were also found at Dunglass in 2014 we all expected them to follow the same route, but we were disappointed not to find them further along the coast over the next few years. Instead, the odd record came in suggesting that they had followed the foothills of the Lammermuirs westwards. This summer they were found in good numbers at Levenhall Links, which is on the extreme west of East Lothian. So, it seems that they chose a completely different route across the county.

Of course, Large Skippers are not easy to spot as they whizz about between flowers and maybe they are under-recorded as a result.

It is interesting, then, that Small Skippers were first recorded in East Lothian between Aberlady and Gullane in 2011. They had been recorded previously in the Borders, but hadn’t been spotted anywhere in East Lothian. Over the years more records came in and we have watched them spread east and west along the coast. There were some early records from some woodland south of Aberlady and also up in the Lammermuir Hills at Linn Dean.

It would appear that these little guys took a completely different route into East Lothian and came over the Lammermuirs via Soutra. It is no coincidence that the two main roads coming north into East Lothian are the A1 which follows the coast and the A68 which comes up over Soutra. The highest point of the A68 at Soutra is 364 metres above sea level, so still a bit of a climb, but the lowest point away from the coast.

Last year we moved to the Yarrow Valley in the Scottish Borders. Our house is between 30 and 40 miles from the coast as the crow (or butterfly) flies, but this short distance makes a surprising difference to the weather. We are at 175 metres above sea level, which isn’t that much, but the elevation and distance from the sea appears to have quite an impact on the weather. I can’t say that it is very noticeable, but the season here is at least three weeks behind what it is in more coastal areas.

It is noticeable in the spring that the Daffodils are at least three weeks later, but even later in the year my Buddleia flower at least three weeks behind those plants in our East Lothian garden, from which I took them as cuttings.

Although the summers appear to be just as hot, if not hotter than on the coast it is interesting that the shorter season means that Speckled Woods and Wall Browns, that are now so common in East Lothian, haven’t made it this far inland. However, the more adventurous Small and Large Skippers have both arrived here. It will be interesting to see what the next few years bring.