Orange Tip egg laying

[Jack Harrison]

Sweet Rocket (aka Dames Violet) is a favourite foodplant. I grow quite a lot in my garden - it's a very useful flower. Not only do Orange Tips love it, but it looks superb (Purple and White versions) in the garden. As a cut flower (lasts well in water), it has a gorgeous scent.

I also grow the very similar-looking Wallflower Bowles Mauve. This is a magnet for nectaring butterflies, but really confuses Orange Tip females. Bowels Mauve does not set seed (easily propagated from cuttings) and the Orange Tip females seem to know that. After fluttering around for a while - clearly in egg-laying mood - they give up, instinctively (so it would seem) realising that Bowles Mauve is no good.

Jack

[KeithS]

I have Sweet Rocket, Cuckoo flower and Garlic Mustard growing in my garden, but the Orange Tips only ever seem to lay their eggs on the Garlic Mustard - or, at least, I’ve never found eggs on the sweet rocket or cuckoo flower!
Unfortunately I have a pair of Robins in my garden who seem to have taken a liking to catching Orange Tips and Small Whites in mid-flight, though the more powerful flight of Brimstones seems to defeat them. It’s only something I’ve noticed in the past couple of years. Maybe a general dearth of insects has forced the robins to chase other prey.
The low numbers of bees and butterflies in my garden this year is quite disturbing.

[Jack Harrison]

"Heartaches by the Number" sang Guy Mitchell 65 years ago.

Today I have "Larvae by the Number". I cut flowers from my garden Sweet Rocket (aka Dames Violet) for indoor decoration and scent. Not entirely unexpectedly, I have also got numerous Orange Tip caterpillars. I suppose I should put them back outside to feed the Sparrows. But I haven't the heart to do that. So next spring, some two dozen adults will be released.

They are currently in plastic boxes (many have already pupated) which will be transferred to the fridge in November. Experience has shown that leaving them outside often results in premature emergence. Mine is a tried and tested method. Out of the fridge early April.

Jack

[Matsukaze]

Much the same story here in Somerset. Garlic Mustard is the preferred foodplant, but from time to time I find an egg or a caterpillar on Sweet Rocket.

[PhilBJohnson]

Orange Tip (OT) egg laying seasonal timing
Remember to collect Dames violet seed later in the year, for floral displays.
For me Dames violet was very easy to grow plugs from seed. I found Orange-tip had a preference for Dames Rocket later in a season, when Garlic mustard seedpods might have been very long with very small flowers on the end and possibly less hydrated in late Spring, summer heat progression.
The larger white garden flowers of Sweet Rocket acted a bit like "big flags" that OT could find from a distance. Caterpillars might be more easy to find there for predatory birds, if it was not growing near a hedge or undergrowth for pupal, caterpillar site preference, with naturally important camouflage.
I thought that in the south of the UK, Orange-tip females might have been, in recent years, on the wing ovipositing from about mid April in the South, to about mid-June in the North and seen very little before or after that.
If it was the larger flowers of Dames violet, they appeared to choose the tightly bunched flower buds (or just opening flower buds to lay on, as a preference and the slightly taller, hydrated Garlic mustard flowers, if it wasn't windy.
If it was the engineered very large flowers of oil seed, there might have been a preferred timing to keep an Orange-tip female in a hedgerow and away from developing Oil seed flower buds. I have not observed an oviposit there, but I understood from another post that OT caterpillars might graze on it, if introduced there.
From my understanding of clouds, farmers might wish to, (or be legally required to) offset with Garlic M seed (Not GM) in their field margins, or boundary hedges, somewhere most suitable.
To be clearer, my understanding, what I meant by "engineered" was generationally grown larger flower heads, that produced higher competitive crop yields of oil seed (depending on species variety) from more or larger seedpods for harvest, that formed after flowers.

Kind Regards

[David Lazarus]

Orange Tip (OT) egg laying seasonal timing
If it was the engineered very large flowers of oil seed, there might have been a preferred timing to keep an Orange-tip female in a hedgerow and away from developing Oil seed flower buds. I have not observed an oviposit there, but I understood from another post that OT caterpillars might graze on it, if introduced there.

Good timing, Phil. A couple of hours ago I managed to take a photograph of an Orange-tip ovipositing on Oil-seed Rape Brassica napus subsp. oleifera:

Female Orange-tip ovipositing on Oil-seed Rape
15/05/2024 Baddow Meads

Rest assured this is not in an intensive agricultural setting which would probably result in the loss of the insect at the larval/pupal stage. This is an 'escapee' within the River Chelmer flood plain - there is a lot of it around and I haven't got a problem with this as it provides larval food supplies for a number of our Spring whites. By the time this particular plant is cut down in hay making the larva has a chance to pupate elsewhere.

It is interesting that the choice made by this particular Orange-tip is in keeping with the information provided in Roger Dennis' excellent book A Resource-based Habitat View for Conservation. Rather than laying within a large patch of Garlic Mustard Alliaria petiolata which was lush and in full sun a couple of weeks ago but is now yellowing and without vegetation appropriate for pupation close by, she has chosen to lay on this particular plant which is healthy and covered in numerous flowers. It is also in full sun and has vegetation which will endure through the winter months providing opportunities for the larva if only they can find it. That is to say, a far better chance of a fresh Orange-tip successfully emerging in the spring of 2025 giving me a chance to capture it with my mobile as I have just done with it's mother.

[bugboy]

I did an experiment a few years ago to see how they did on Rape:

viewtopic.php?t=10989

[David Lazarus]

I did an experiment a few years ago to see how they did on Rape:

viewtopic.php?t=10989

Thank you Paul, really interesting- I will be back to inspect the Oil-seed Rape plant [if I can remember which one it was] over the next two weeks or so.

[PhilBJohnson]

Good timing, Phil. A couple of hours ago I managed to take a photograph of an Orange-tip ovipositing on Oil-seed Rape Brassica napus subsp. oleifera:

2024.05.15 Orange-tip Baddow Meads.jpg

Hello dlaz44,
Looks a bit like Field Mustard with smaller seedpods. I need to be careful not to upset a farmer not being as sharp as some guys with a super accurate and fast plant identification App.

Kind Regards

[David Lazarus]

Looks a bit like Field Mustard with smaller seedpods. I need to be careful not to upset a farmer not being as sharp as some guys with a super accurate and fast plant identification App.

You could very well be right Phil as they are very similar and indeed there is a lot of Field Mustard Brassica rapa var. rapa around - not sure I am expert enough to tell the difference even though I am a plantsperson. They are so similar I am not sure a female Orange-tip could tell the difference either.

We also have lots of Hedge Mustard Sisymbrium officinale as well as large patches of Garlic Mustard Alliaria petiolata here in Chelmsford on the riverbanks, hedgerows, and wet woodland edges - so perfect conditions for both Orange-tip and Green-veined White which, as a result, are numerous at the moment I am pleased to say. The last two years we have had a third brood of Green-veined White whose mass emergence I have fortunately observed - over 50 along a 200 metre or so stretch of the River Chelmer on the 3rd of September last year.

We have Cuckoo Flower Cardamine pratensis on the River Chelmer flood plain here as well Phil, but sadly the numbers are low because of intensive farming and I have never seen either an Orange-tip nor Green-veined White anywhere near the isolated plants.

Regards,

David

[PhilBJohnson]

Thanks David,
In my opinion, we need to make sure that the native UK wild flower plant identification apps for mobile phones get this right and as a team, embarrass the plant identification apps, that were the worst offenders. Even if they gave a percentage chance of correctness, it in my opinion, would be better than getting it wrong. Your picture is a nice picture capturing the moment. I don't have it stored on my phone. #ButterflyTiming