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Painted Lady - Favourite Photo of 2024

Week 12

Hopefully everyone is stuffed and not just with good cheer from Christmas 2024? This will be the last Favourites post of 2024…but don’t worry we’ll still be continuing into 2025 as we’ve only just reached the ‘P’s’.

Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos as then it will be easier to keep track of things? Of course our overseas members are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants. As in previous years details of locations, dates, times and circumstances would be welcome as would any accompanying stories and anecdotes or other observations of behaviour and interesting other points.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Another disappointing year for Painted Lady Butterflies in my Aberdeen garden.

Only one visited on 18th August.

The Painted Lady was a big surprise for me this year, I found it in my garden on a nearly dead flower ,it stayed there for quite a while, this was on the 8th of August ,I didn't see another one at all after that.Goldie

Probably saw fewer than 30 in the UK this year (and not a great many more on the continent).

This one was the first one I got close to, at Rhossili Head, Gower, on 26th July:

Bertl wrote: ↑Sun Dec 29, 2024 10:36 pmAnother disappointing year for Painted Lady Butterflies in my Aberdeen garden.

Surprised you managed to get that one, Bertl. There were very few in south Wales, which must be 500 miles further south.

Very few around till August when I think I managed to see one on every trip out.
This seen on the footpath behind our cottage on 28th August
Now I would love to know what it is sitting on? Julian

David M wrote: ↑Mon Dec 30, 2024 4:00 pm

Bertl wrote: ↑Sun Dec 29, 2024 10:36 pmAnother disappointing year for Painted Lady Butterflies in my Aberdeen garden.

Surprised you managed to get that one, Bertl. There were very few in south Wales, which must be 500 miles further south.

The only other one I saw in 2024 was in Clackmannanshire on 3rd June.

A low count for the year David.

I only saw 15 Painted Ladies this year, all but one of them on the south coast. The other was in my Crawley garden.
Vince

Very fortunate to see quite a few Painted Lady during my travels around Essex during 2024 with the first one being the most impressive.

Just four Painted Ladies for me in 2024. The first one was an unexpected surprise in my garden on an otherwise dull day in mid May. This turned out to be the only one I saw locally all year.
I saw two down on The Lizard in early August inlcuding this one basking on the stone wall on the walk down to the Lighthouse.
The last one flew past me at Durdle Door when were we down in Dorset in early September.

Cheers,

Neil.

Painted Lady

My first selection for this set of threads (Orange-tip) came very early in the season whereas for the Painted Lady appeared right in the dying seconds of the season! As it was half term and K was back from Uni I took the girls out to Mottisfont. I took my camera as there is often the odd butterfly hanging around the Beech trees or in the Walled garden and failing that there is always a bit of cheat with hibernators on the roof of the Cellarium. Well I didn’t need to worry about that as by the end of the visit I’d seen 6 species, none too shabby for October. The star of the show for me was the Painted Lady. Things had built nicely with a Red Admiral and Small White in the first of the three walled gardens, followed by a fly-past Large White and Peacock. In the third was the peak; a Painted Lady on the Boules Mauve. It was quite a reach for my camera as it was feeding right in the centre of the bed but luckily it had a bit of a wing stretch and plopped back down on the Lavender hedge. Cracking.
Have a goodun

Wurzel

Had it not been for a small influx that appeared to occur late in the season, it would have been slim pickings. As it was I only saw around 30 on my travels. This is one from the influx that occurred around the same time as the White invasion

Definitely not a Painted Lady year! I found a handful on my local patch during the middle of May when there was a minor immigration......and then a few more during the second inward movement at the very end of the summer, with a peak count of six on 11th September.I saw hardly any anywhere else I visited either.

I saw the last one of 2024 on 24th October when it was on its way back south in the company of several Red Admirals. Dave

I tend to prefer the underside of the Painted Lady, but my favourites of 2024 are upper side photographs of a fresh individual that visited my garden for a few days and became quite “tame”.

I don't get much clearer images than this with my current mobile phone. These two get the nod as my favourites.