Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui

I have only seen a Painted Lady laying an egg on three occasions. The first time was on a Creeping Thistle in a horse field, so I picked the thistle leaf and decided to raise the caterpillar on a thistle at home in my garden. Sadly a few days after hatching we had torrential rain and I never saw the caterpillar after that.

Two years ago I saw a Painted Lady lay and egg on a Woodland Groundsel plant in my woods. I marked the plant and kept an eye on it, but two days later we had torrential rain again and the egg disappeared. I searched the ground around the leaf it had been on, but couldn’t find the egg.

This June, when I was up in East Lothian I watched a Painted Lady as it laid several eggs on a Spear Thistle at the side of a path. I decided to pick one flower head and try raising the butterfly in the safety of a cage at home. The picture below was taken on my work phone. The others were all taken on my Samsung phone, so not the best of quality, but they give an idea of the different stages.

Seven days later, on the 6^th July, I noticed that the egg had hatched, but despite searching the flower head for ages, I couldn’t find a caterpillar anywhere. 

Three days later I found it at the base of the flower. At this stage it was dark brown with three rows of three yellow spines.

I picked a stem of Creeping Thistle and put it in a jar of water with a hole in the lid, but the caterpillar didn’t seem to like this, so I tried a much less palatable-looking Spear thistle and it happy ate that!

I then realised that I had two caterpillars, so there must have been another egg on the flower. Unfortunately, though I wasn’t thorough enough checking the leaves and I discovered that I had introduced a Flower Bug into the cage, which devoured one of the caterpillars. I didn’t know anything about these creatures, so I looked it up and discovered that they area a “gardener’s friend”, as they kill aphids and caterpillars by piercing their skin and sucking out the contents!

The remaining caterpillar munched its way through several leaves, but didn’t seem to have as much of an appetite as the Red Admirals or Peacocks I was rearing at the time.

After going through various very attractive instars the caterpillar left the thistle on the 25^th of July and made its way up to the top of the cage, where it spun a silk pad and hung in a J-shape for a couple of days.

Two days later it had formed a beautiful chrysalis.

It only remained as a chrysalis for 12 days and it emerged as a butterfly on the 8^th August.

Once it had dried its wings I took it outside into the afternoon sun. Almost immediately it took off and flew across the orchard never to be seen again!

I checked my Buddleia plants daily and it wasn’t until the 5^th of September that I saw another Painted Lady. I had quite a few regularly feeding until late September when the weather started to cool down.

Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta

On 22nd June I was working in my study when I notice a butterfly out of the corner of my eye. I am easily distracted that way, so looked round and saw it was a Red Admiral and it was inspecting the nettles right outside my window. I spotted it laying an egg and, as I have mentioned before, my study window looks out on the hen run, so I doubt any caterpillars would last long.

At lunchtime I popped out and picked the nettle that the egg had been laid on. I kept it in a jar of water with a hole punched through the lid. All of these photos were taken with my phone. This one was taken looking through a microscope.

Seven days later the egg hatched, but I couldn't find the caterpillar. After three days I spotted it in the young shoot at the top of the nettle stem. It stayed there for another five days in a sort of web it had made and once it had eaten most of the young leaves it moved to a larger leaf further down the stem, where it started constructing a tent.

I kept putting fresh nettle stems in the jar and I noticed that the caterpillar would spend the day inside its tent. The following morning I would find the tent completely eaten and a new tent formed on the new stem. This happened for a further 19 days during which I didn't see the caterpillar.

On the 25th July no new tent had been formed and I managed to see the caterpillar hanging in a characteristic J-shape inside the leaf tent. The following day it had formed a chrysalis and I was able to open up the tent to get a better look.

It remained as a chrysalis until the 8th August, when it emerged as a butterfly. Over the previous two days the chrysalis darkened and I was able to make out the pattern of the top sides of the wings. A couple of hours before it emerged I could see the abdomen section of the chrysalis lengthen slightly, however, I still managed to miss the actual point of emergence!

So, it was seven days as an egg, 26 days as a caterpillar and 13 days as a chrysalis.

This is an almost identical story to the Red Admiral egg that was laid in the hen run last year. On that occasion the egg hatched after only four days, it also remained as a caterpillar for 26 days and it remained as a chrysalis for 16 days.

Once its wings had dried I took the butterfly outside. It spent a while warming up in the sun, then took off and did a couple of laps of the patio before flying off to join the other Red Admirals on the Buddleia.

Sierra Nevada, Spain Flora

I remember back in 2014 before I went to the Sierra Nevada I asked for information about good walks there where I would be able to see butterflies. I was surprised when the recommended walk was up at the Hoya de la Mora carpark, which is over 2,500 metres up in the mountains.

I was told it was a great place to find Zullich’s Blues, Sierra Nevada Blues, Spanish Brassy Ringlets and various other endemic or rare species. A look at Google aerial views showed a very baron, rocky environment. I was particularly surprised that I was also told that July was the perfect time of year to see butterflies, thinking that it would be particularly hot and dry then.

What I didn’t take account of was altitude. What I discovered when I visited was that at 9am it was only 10 degrees Celsius at Hoya de la Mora, rising to 17 degrees by midday. Only 15 kilometres away in Granada the temperature was over 35 degrees.

Hoya de la Mora is a popular ski resort and for seven months in the year is covered in snow. Even in July there are odd pockets of snow in shady spots.

All of this makes the high Sierra Nevada mountains a unique habitat supporting a very interesting variety of flora. It wasn’t until I started walking that I notice all of the small plants tucked into cracks in the rocks. Here are a few examples that I have tried to name, although I am no expert.

I was very intrigued to see what looked like Kidney Vetch, Anthyllis vulneraria, but instead of the yellow-flowered plant I am used to seeing on the east coast of Scotland, in the Sierra Nevada it is pink. I think this is the subspecies arundana, although there are other pink subspecies found in mountain ranges across Europe.

One of the many lovely cushion-forming plants I saw is Arenaria tetraquetra, which I think is endemic to the Sierra Nevada.

The plant below is a Cerastium species. There are many very similar species. An endemic of the Sierra Nevada is Cerastium alpinum ssp. nevadan, but I can't be sure that this is what this one is.

I am a great fan of Dianthus, so I was delighted to see this one dotted around the rocks there. I think it is Dianthus brachyanthus, although there seem to be many different names given for species and sub-species depending on which book or website you look at!

This is Erodium cheilanthifolium, which is found on many mountain ranges in Spain.

There was a lovely white Rockrose growing amongst the rocks and scree. I think this is Helianthemum apenninum, which is said to occur in the Sierra Nevada, although there is another very similar-looking Helianthemum almeriense that occurs in southern Spain.

Back in Scotland I have spent many hours searching Rockrose for the eggs of Northern Brown Argus. I didn't think to have a look to see if there were any eggs on this white Rockrose!

A plant that I have specifically looked for on each visit to the Sierra Nevada is Androsace vitaliana, which is the food plant of the Zullich's Blue caterpillar. As with so many other plants there is a subspecies, nevadensis, which occurs in Sierra Nevada and it is only found above 2,400 metres. I have only ever found it on very loose scree on exposed, windswept slopes.

In these same areas I have seen this lovely little pink flower, Nevadensia purpurea. It forms lovely cushions, covered in flowers and only occurs in the Sierra Nevada.

Another lovely little prostrate flower found high in the Sierra Nevada is Leontodon boryi, which also appears to be endemic to the Sierra Nevada.

Jurinea humilis gave a lovely splash of colour on some of the exposed slopes. It is found over much of Spain above 1500 metres.

There were so many other flower amongst the rocks and scree and I mostly photographed those that were in flower. I believed that over 2100 different species of plants have been recorded in the Sierra Nevada, so what I saw was only a fraction of those. Just a few more!!

The Sierra Nevada Violet, Viola crassiuscula, seemed to be quite common along the side of the paths that I walked on. Yet again, this plant is endemic to the Sierra Nevada.

I particularly liked the Sempervivum vicentei, which squeezed into small cracks in the rocks.

I was intrigued by this woody plant that I spotted between two large rocks at the bottom of a scree slope. It is Prunus prostrata, a little cherry tree!

This prostrate Juniper, Juniperus sabina, was quite common in some areas. It gave off a lovely scent when I brushed against it trying to get pictures of butterflies!!

Not all of the area up there was so bare and rocky. Next to a stream and in damper areas below springs there were green areas of grass with wild flowers.

These areas supported a variety of flowers. The most striking was a gentian, Gentiana sierrae. This only occurs in Sierra Nevada and Sierra de Baza.

They were often seen near Pinguicula nevadensis, an insectivorous plant which is endemic to the Sierra Nevada.

So many of these species are only found on the Sierra Nevada mountains and they are quite vulnerable to erosion. I noticed this summer when I was there that the National Park have blocked off some of the paths and are encouraging walkers to stick to the main paths. They are also preventing cyclists using the rough paths, asking them to stick to the road, to try to reduce erosion of the mountainside.

I was always very conscious not to stand on any plants and often I felt as though I was in the middle of an amazing rock garden!

Further down the mountains by about 1500 metres above sea level there were a lot more shrubs and trees and the flowers there are taller and very similar to what can be found in other areas of meadow in Spain.

I can highly recommend the WASTE Magazine website, where I have found so much useful information about the flora and fauna of Sierra Nevada and southern Spain. It was Merche from this website who first recommended that I should visit Sierra Nevada to look for butterflies.