Painted Lady influx!!!

[dave brown]

The Painted Lady influx continued yesterday. We were watching about one mile inland of Reculver, Kent, on a slight rise, and saw 825 between 13.55hrs and 14.25 hrs. We only counted those we could be sure of being Painted Ladies. There was many more moving further south and the total movement must have been in the thousands. They were still moving when we left so we probably only saw a small proportion of the movement. Strangely the movement was North East to South West, but there was a slight mist hanging over the sea one mile away, which may have had some bearing.
This followed a sighting of 114 the previous day passing Beckley Wood in East Sussex. These were heading South East to North West.

Dave

[Charles Nicol]

yesterday i took some photos of the new arrivals... this one was at Port Holme meadow near Huntingdon

charles

[IAC]

Hi all,
1 reported at Berwick upon Tweed N Northumberland yesterday....expecting many more by weekend, Siver Y numbers on the coast building.
Cheers IAC.

[Trev Sawyer]

So, if the Silver Y moths are also ready to invade, sounds like our gardens will be alive with scaly wings day and night...
PS: Do you know why Silver Y moths fly with their legs apart?...



...Well have you ever seen the size of moth-balls?

Sorry, I'll get my coat.

Trev

[Jack Harrison]

Trev

I wanted to post a topical cartoon yesterday, but sought Pete’s advice first. He thought that it was too non-PC so I didn’t post it. And now you lower the standard – and get away with it

PS If anyone wants a copy of that non-PC cartoon – relevant to this group of course – drop me a private message and I’ll send it to you.

Jack

[Trev Sawyer]

Pete may not have seen my post yet, so I may have to remove it anyway

Trev

[NickB]

PS: Do you know why Silver Y moths fly with their legs apart?...Trev

Is it the same reason Pete splays his legs??!! (See posts in May Sightings passim)
(I think we should be told )
N

[sarahrookley]

Hello - I'm a newbie here, but it was the Painted Lady influx which inspired me to join. I live in a village in the middle of the Isle of Wight, and since last Friday we have had literally hundreds of Painted Lady butterflies on our land. I have never seen anything like it - if they weren't so pretty, the sheer numbers would not go amiss in an Alfred Hitchcock film (although "The Painted Ladies" doesn't have quite the same menacing ring as "The Birds"). Still - whatever this means, it is a total delight to see them.... I wonder if they know something we don't about the summer?

[Jack Harrison]

Sarah

You are lucky to live in such a butterfly-rich area. The Painted Lady influx is merely a splendid bonus. But research the other marvellous species you have on the Island; Adonis Blue, Glanville Fritillary, (even sightings of Large Tortoiseshell earlier this spring) for example. The ukbutterflies archive will have lots of comments about the “goodies” to be found on your island.

Jack

[walpolec]

I'd not spotted this thread but came on tonight to see if anyone else has had a "Good Painted Lady day" like I have. After seeing none, nil, zero last year, today I have seen 30-40 in the space of a couple of hundred meters in about 20 minutes. Modest by south/central Europe standards, but a super result for me in Northants

Here's one of the first I saw - looking pretty good:


This one's a little battered:


They all tended to do this as I crept up on them to get a photo:


Happy days!

Chris

[Susie]

I didn't need to creep up on them. I had the little beauties right next to me and they didn't bat a wing. I must have seen a hundred or more flying over Horsham park and town centre today and then i came home and there were loads in the garden again. Bliss. I think I have gone to butterfly heaven.

[Perseus]

Hello,

26 May 2009
The mass immigration of Painted Lady Butterflies was astonishing, throughout the morning over east Shoreham, Southwick and Portslade the Painted Ladies exceeded two a minute for an hour and were over one a minute the rest of the time, with large numbers (100+) in Portslade Cemetery and on the main road that traversed Hove Cemetery, the butterflies flew across the road at over 30 every minute for five minutes in passing. The conservative estimate was at least 500 seen as I cycled along the urban roads. Occasionally a Large White Butterfly was spotted.

Adur Butterfly & Large Moth List
http://www.glaucus.org.uk/Butterfly-list2009.html

Cheers

Andy Horton
glaucus@hotmail.com
Adur Valley Nature Notes
http://www.glaucus.org.uk/Adur2009.html
http://www.glaucus.org.uk/Adur2008.html
Adur Valley Nature Notes: May 2009
http://www.glaucus.org.uk/May2009.html

[Susie]

Standing room only.



Except for when the sun goes in, then they have a lie down.

[thepostieles]

wow great stuff 1996 saw lots of painted ladies when lived in wales all over buddlias, great stuff

[eccles]

.. and they've finally hit my local reserve at Willsbridge, with about half a dozen seen in the reserve this morning, and four stopped for a refuel on purple wallflower in the wildlife garden.

[sarahrookley]

Yes Jack - we're so lucky with all the butterflies we have on the Isle of Wight, but the last two years have been awful; I could count on one hand anything other than the whites for the previous two summers. I got so worried about this that I even decided to "grow my own" this year, and sent off for various native larvae from LBA and WWB, which I have been raising with some success.

We're fortunate in having four acres here, one of which has a couple of streams, a big pond and some marshy bits. I've let this acre do exactly what it wants, and it's a glorious tangle of nettles, thistles, burdock, brambles, hops and a variety of good old native trees, all much loved by a variety of insects.

One thing that made me have a little chuckle to myself was that I paid for ten tiny Painted Lady caterpillars a while ago.... I don't think I'm responsible for the current masses though, and that particular exercise seems a wee bit pointless now as I fight my way through huge clouds of the adult butterflies! Long may it continue like this though.

[Jack Harrison]

From The Times today:

"Giant"? And "global warming"? As far as I know, there was no significant global warming when this phenomenon was first noticed more than a century ago.

At least the newspaper didn’t make its usual mistake of converting round figures in one unit into some absurd precision in another unit, eg I would not have been surprised to have seen 3in wingspan (7.6204cm)

Jack

[Dave McCormick]

Giant? They are more 2 - 2 7/8 in not 3in, but who is that precise anyway? When I think of a giant butterfly I tend to think Monarch or birdwing butterflies

The affects of global warming have been seen for years, but it has been warmer than usual for the time of year... it was around 27 C in London at the weekend and its supposed to get around 22-23C here this weekend, and thats warmer than usual as its only been about 16-17 at the moment.

Only three painted ladies have been reported this month in Northern Ireland, one on 10th, one on 12th and one on 24th. As June creeps in there will surely be more. All I have noticed here is a larger amount of Large Whites appearing and not much else about.

Well what I read that over 150,000 pupae were found in winter in Atlas Mountains and because of wet weather it cause the painted ladies to breed exceptionally well and cause so many to pupae, and since painted ladies if weather is right, migrate anyway, tseeing as much as we have is not surprising given the number of pupae found at that location.

[Padfield]

This kind of article is ridiculous. The invasion is clearly nothing whatsoever to do with global warming (and in any case there has been no warming so far in the 21st century, the current warm period peaking in 1998). I hope someone writes to The Times and makes them aware that this is inaccurate, sloppy reporting, of which they should be ashamed.

Guy

And, of course, painted ladies are not by any stretch of the imagination 'giant'!!

[Jack Harrison]

Some reports have lacked accuracy. May I recommend a decent GPS

http://s214580749.websitehome.co.uk/photos/GPS.jpg

Jack