30th April

[Jack Harrison]

Orange Tips are widespread and quite common in my part of north Scotland. Favourite food plants are Hedge Garlic (Garlic Mustard) , Lady's Smock (Cuckoo Flower) and especially the cultivated - although does escape to the wild - Sweet Rocket (Dame's Violet)

Not far from home is a marshy area at the side of a small loch. It has masses of Lady's Smock nad is alway guaranteed to have Orange Tips in season. Today was a real bonanza with as many as six in view at a time. It's quite a small patch and presumably they congregate there.

In my garden, there was a very confused female Orange Tip. It was obviously in egg-laying mode and was investigating some Bowles Mauve (short lived wallflowers). But Bowles Mauve doesn't set seed although is easily grown from cuttings. Superficially, Bowles Mauve is very similar in appearance to Sweet Rocket; hence the confusion for this Orange Tip today. After some five minutes, the she moved on to look for proper plants.

Jack