Of Caterpillars and Chrysalises

So far this year has been amazing for butterflies, but not only in their adult form. I also seem to have come across quite a few eggs, caterpillars and chrysalises.

It is always fun searching for Orange Tip eggs and caterpillars on Garlic Mustard and Cuckoo Flowers. This year they seemed to be on just about every flower spike I saw. This is a group of freshly laid eggs on a Cuckoo Flower.

In a couple of days they turn bright orange. I followed one egg with interest, which had been laid on a Garlic Mustard near the house. This was the caterpillar a couple of days after it had hatched.

The egg hatched on 11 May and I watched it develop until the 17 June when it formed a chrysalis. This is another caterpillar preparing to form a chrysalis.

And another one that unusually is about to form a chrysalis head down.

This is the chrysalis of the caterpillar I reared. It seems strange that it will remain in this state until April next year. 

On 13th May I saw a Green-veined White laying eggs on the leaves of a Garlic Mustard plant.

The eggs hatched on the 21st May and the caterpillars developed until the 30th June when they formed chrysalises.

On the 9th July both chrysalises emerged.

I have found three batches of well developed Peacock caterpillars amongst the nettles here. I haven’t noted the dates of any of these, as I didn’t know when the eggs were laid, or when the caterpillars formed chrysalises. However, on 3rd July I was demolishing an old shed and discovered a mature Peacock caterpillar on a piece of wood I had ripped off. Luckily it wasn’t injured, so I put it into a mesh cage, where it crawled to the roof and hung in a “J” shape.

Two days later it was still hanging there, but I noticed a 3pm it had moulted and formed a lovely green chrysalis.

This changed colour over the next few days and on 22nd July it emerged.

Sadly, it didn’t stick around for an open-wing photograph!

On the 5th July I was walking up our drive when I noticed a Red Admiral caterpillar crossing in front of me. Of course I collected it up and put it in a cage, where it immediately went to a Garlic Mustard plant and started stitching together the edges of a leaf to form a tent. The next day I noticed it had formed a chrysalis. I wasn’t very hopeful of a positive outcome, as I thought it unusual to find the caterpillar out in the open like that, as they usually hide away inside leaf tents. However, on the 22nd July it emerged, the same day as the Peacock. 

It was a lot more cooperative and allowed me to take some pictures of it before it flew off!

I have seen a lot of Red Admiral caterpillars and chrysalises in the nettles in our garden. There are a lot of adults flying around so hopefully they will soon be joined by more.

Peacock caterpillars, Aglais io

After a cooler than normal April and May and a cloudy June I was worried by the low number of butterflies I had seen in the spring. I wondered if they would have an opportunity to breed and despite searching patches of nettles I hadn't noticed any nests of Small Tortoiseshell or Peacock butterflies. Normally, they are quite obvious.

Much to my relief on the 19th July I found some Peacock caterpillars on nettles in my meadow. It was just the one patch, rather than the normal two or three groups of caterpillars of both Peacocks and Small Tortoiseshells.

I kept an eye on them for a few days and by the 26th July they started to disperse a bit, so I collected two caterpillars to rear in a cage away from predators.

I was amazed by how active they were and how much they ate, requiring a new nettle stem each day.

By the 31st July one had formed into a chrysalis and the other was hanging from a silk pad it had spun on a leaf stem.

On 1st August I carefully carried the jar with nettle stem outside to photograph. I then put it back in its cage and when I looked ten minutes later its skin had split and it was starting for form a chrysalis. Yet again, I missed the actual moment when the skin split!

On the 13th August the first chrysalis emerged. It was the same story. Earlier in the day I had checked the chrysalis and when I checked ten minutes later there was a butterfly!!

Normally the chrysalis darkens a couple of days before the butterfly is due to emerge and the pattern of the underside of the wings can be seen. This give a pretty good indication of when the chrysalis will emerge. An hour-or-so before emergence the abdomen section of the chrysalis lengthens slightly and you can see the gaps between the segments pull away from the chrysalis as seen in the picture below.

The following day the second chrysalis emerged, again without me actually experiencing it! I am not complaining though, as I did witness this happening two years ago.

Peacock emergence

Most years I find several groups of Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars on nettles, but strangely this year I haven't found any at all. I had feared that the late spring had meant that very few had been able to breed this year, but luckily in August the Buddleia bank was covered in Peacocks, Small Tortoiseshells and Red Admirals, so they must have laid eggs on a patch of nettles close by, unnoticed by me!

Last year there were several groups of Peacock caterpillars on the nettles in my meadow. I collected a couple of caterpillars in June and kept them in a mesh cage so that I could watch then develop.

On 4th July both caterpillars crawled up to the top of the cage and formed a J-shape and they formed into chrysalises on the 7th July.

On the 31st July one emerged at 11am. As always I missed this happening, having checked the chrysalis a little earlier in the morning. So I placed the twig that the other chrysalis was attached to on my desk, next to where I was working. At 4.45pm I heard a crack and noticed that the chrysalis had split open, so I grabbed my phone and managed to film the butterfly emerging.

Chrysalises tend to colour up a couple of days before the butterfly emerges, so it is reasonably easy to know which day the emergence will happen. I I used to imagine that they would emerge in the morning of a sunny day, but I have known butterflies appear in the early hours of the morning through to late afternoon and I have also had them emerge on dull, rainy days.

It was such a thrill to see this butterfly emerge. By the time its wings had dried out it was too late to release it that day. The following morning it was still on its twig, so I took it outside into the sun where it quickly took off.

The Peacock - Aglais io

The Peacock butterfly is reasonably common here in East Lothian. They over-winter as adult butterflies, seeking out dark places, such as old sheds and buildings, or deep in log piles in which to hibernate.

They are often the first butterfly of the year to be seen, appearing on a sunny day in February or March. The adults go on to breed and lay their eggs in large clusters on the underside of nettle leaves in May or June. Depending on the weather the eggs will go on to hatch about two weeks later. The caterpillars will take about four or five weeks before they pupate. They will remain as chrysalises for somewhere around two to four weeks, depending on the temperature.

So, there is one generation of this butterfly each year. The adult butterflies emerge here in August and their numbers peak around the middle of the month. They slowly reduce in numbers as they start to hibernate and by October we only see the odd sighting. However, after hibernation these same butterflies will be on the wing until June the following year. So, potentially, an adult can survive for up to ten months.

Last year I found an enormous group of caterpillars in a patch of nettles in a field where I walk our dog. I estimate that there must have been over 200 caterpillars there. I took this picture with my phone on 19th July, just as the weather took a turn for the worst.

The following day (the 20th) I collected three caterpillars and put them on some nettles I had picked, which I placed in a cage in the garage next to the window. They were at least out of the rain and protected from predators.

By the following evening, they were all hanging upside down from the nettles, looking as though they were about to pupate. They remained like that all day on Saturday 22nd, which was particularly wet and cold.

On Sunday morning, when I took a look, they had all turned into chrysalises.

During that period we had torrential rain for three days and when I took a look at the nettle patch I couldn't find any of the other caterpillars. I don't know if they had perished, or if they had also turned into chrysalises, which I couldn't find.

I had to wait for 24 days for my three chrysalises to emerge into butterflies on 15th August. I took the picture below before I went to work. You can see the pattern of the wing showing through the chrysalis.

And when I arrived home later that day, I was lucky enough to see the butterfly that had emerged.

The under-side of their wings is really well camouflaged among the dead nettle leaves, unlike the upper-side which is so beautiful.

Buddleia activity

We have just been spending a few days down at the property we have inherited from my father down in the Scottish Borders. We were very busy preparing two areas where we hope to build a garage and have a hen run, but I took some time out to watch a Buddleia bush in a rather overgrown flower bed.

Back home, only 40 miles north of there, our Buddleias finished flowering about two weeks ago. However, there was still a good number of flowers on the bush in the Borders. Maybe it is a different species or variety, but I noticed that a cutting I had planted from home was also in flower there.

When our Buddleias flower back home it often coincides with the period when there are not so many butterflies around. However, with the Buddleia flowering later in the Borders it was covered in butterflies and bees! It was almost like being in a butterfly house!

The Red Admirals, Vanessa atalanta, were the first butterflies to arrive each day, usually arriving by about 8.30am. I would love to know where they spend the nights, but they would come drifting down, either from the surrounding trees, or possibly just flying over the trees to get there.

I watched them in the evenings to see if I could follow some of them to see where they went, but failed in my mission! One day was much cooler, about 17 degrees and it was raining, but the Red Admirals still turned up. They tended to feed on the underside of the flowers when the rain was heavier, moving to the tops of the flowers when the rain eased.

I was very pleased to see a Comma, Polygonia c-album, among the butterflies there. There don't seem to have been many of them around this year.

There were also a few Peacock butterflies, Aglais io, feeding there preparing for their winter hibernation. 

Another butterfly that has been doing very well here this year is the Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui. I was pleased to see a few of them visiting the Buddleia over the last few days. I presume they were fueling up in preparation for their migration back to Africa.

Whilst it was great to see these four species of butterflies, it was sad not to see any Small Tortoiseshells, Aglais urticae. In a normal year they would be seen in far greater numbers than any other species just now, but sadly they have done very badly this year and I haven't seen one since July.

While I was watching the butterflies and trying to get some photographs, I saw a small bird out of the corner of my eye. It was a Spotted Flycatcher, Muscicapa striata. It was watching the butterflies and other insects flying from flower to flower. My camera was set on video at the time, so the picture below is a screenshot from the video. When my father built his house he asked the builders to make various holes and ledges for birds to nest in. I remember him showing me one hole and telling me that it was for a Spotted Flycatcher to nest in and, sure enough, each year a Spotted Flycatcher took up residence.

Just after I finished videoing, it flew down, narrowly missing a Painted Lady and caught a bee. 

I had a look in a bird book to find out more about the Spotted Flycatcher and found out that it visits the UK each year to breed and in September/October it migrates back to sub-Sarah Africa. It is an interesting thought that it may see the Painted Ladies again over the winter while they all enjoy the better weather there!

I tried uploading a video of the action, but the quality has reduced dramatically, but it gives an idea of what was going on!

East Lothian Butterflies 2015

I will remember 2015 as being rather grey and cool. After a mild winter with only one dusting of snow, spring arrived in mid March with butterflies regularly being recorded from the 18th March.

Much of the summer was cloudy with only short spells of sunshine. While areas north and south of East Lothian enjoyed longer sunny periods, we seemed to miss any good weather. In fact when I was checking the Butterfly Transect results, I didn't come across one record sheet showing the temperature being above 20 degrees Celsius!

However, the weather in September and October was lovely and later in the year we avoided the heavy rain, which caused flooding elsewhere in the UK. The weather didn't really turn cold until 4th December.

Despite the weather I received a bumper number of records this year, which gave a really good picture of how the butterflies fared over the year.

Peacock, Aglais io

The first butterfly recorded in 2015 was a Peacock on 4th March. They were regularly seen with the last record of a worn specimen being seen on 30th June. On 16th July the first of the new generation was spotted and again they were seen in good numbers until 1 November.

Small Tortoiseshell, Aglais urticae

Small Tortoiseshells also did well this year with the first record being on 19th March. There was no clear division between the generations and they were recorded through to 8 December. That was our last butterfly record of the year.

Comma, Polygonia c-album

I think 2015 was the best year we have had for Commas here in East Lothian. The first record was on 23rd March and they were regularly spotted through April. I only received one record each month in May, June and July and then from the beginning of August they were seen in good numbers through to 26th October.

Small White, Pieris rapae

The number of Small Whites recorded in the spring was down on previous years, probably reflecting the poor weather we had late in the summer of 2014. The first record in 2015 was on 9th April and they were seen through to the 7th July. From 6th August the second generation appeared and they were seen in better numbers until 1 October.

Orange Tip, Anthocharis cardamines

Orange Tips did well this year. The first record was on 9th April and they were recorded through to 27 June. This was quite a prolonged flight period, maybe as a result of the cool weather.

Green-veined White, Pieris napi

Green-veined Whites always do well here. The first record for 2015 was on 9th April and they were seen in smaller than normal numbers until 16th July. On 6th August the second generation emerged and they were seen in good numbers until 14th October.

Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta

The first Red Admiral record was on 10th April and I only received three more records until July when we were literally invaded by hundreds of them. On 1st July I saw six Red Admirals flying or blowing in from the sea on a cold grey day. Six other people reported similar sightings that day and I received several records of Red Admirals over the next few days. These butterflies went on to produce a further generation and high numbers of Red Admirals were seen until 11 November.

Large White, Pieris brassicae

Like the Small White, numbers of the spring population of Large Whites were quite low. They were first recorded on 15th April until 7th July. The second generation was seen between August 6th and October 26th in far greater numbers.

Speckled Wood, Pararge aegeria

The first Speckled Wood was recorded on 18 April. Their numbers seemed a little disappointing compared with last year, but they picked up later in the season. The last record was on 26th October. They didn't extend their range as they have in previous years, but considering the weather they continued to do well.

Small Copper, Lycaena phlaeas

Small Coppers did very well here in 2015. Because I received so many records there was a nice clear division between the two generations with the first generation being between 20th April and 8th July and the second generation being between the 12th August and 1st October.

Holly Blue, Celastrina argiolus

I only received one record of a Holly Blue in 2015 on 21st April. Whilst it is sad to only receive one, it gives me hope that there may be a hidden colony of Holly Blues somewhere in East Lothian. Records in recent years have all come from three neighbouring villages, so I intend to have a thorough search of the area this year!

Small Heath, Coenonympha pamphilus

Small Heaths were recorded from 4th May until 25th September. This is a longer season than I have seen here before, which is possibly a result of the cool summer we had.

I'll continue with the remaining species in my next post.