A year of my nature hunting: Day 239 - Tremendously Beautiful Tortoiseshell Butterflies

Tuesday 30 June 2015

Day 239 - Tremendously Beautiful Tortoiseshell Butterflies

Small Tortoiseshell ( Aglais urticae )

Hey everyone today's Day 239 and, as it's Summer, I thought I would cover something that usually comes out around this time. But before I do this, I just want to say 'sorry about the heatwave' to anybody that's living in England especially people down South as it is thought to get up to 35*C in London. The sad thing is where I am there's a weather warning as the temperature maximum is 26*C, and it's Sports Day tomorrow!

Anyway, on with today's post. Small Tortoiseshells butterflies usually come out around this time but I haven't actually seen many yet so I was lucky to see this one recently and grab some shots. I love butterflies in general and last year my Grandad actually bought me a Painted Lady growing kit. It had 5 caterpillars in it and, over the Spring, I successfully raised them and set all 5 of them free! There's a bit more about this in my Painted Lady post.

So, here are the Small Tortoiseshell facts:

Above I said that the usually come out this time of the year but not always. The high temperature is what wakes them.

All this heat should ensure lots are emerging

This means that they might come out of their hibernation on the first days of January or the middle of September. With the previous weather I have had up here, the heatwave should entice them out of their sleep.

They have a wingspan of 45-55mm in Males and 52-62mm and each wing has an orange backdrop with a black outline, at the top there is a line of black and peach. Right on the wing tip is a dab of white.

Females lay their eggs on young stinging nettles, either the Common Nettle or the Small Nettle.

This is because the larvae feed on these plants, the adults' main food source is nectar extracted from different plants.

You will normally see the Tortoiseshell Butterfly throughout March to October, if the weather is right. The caterpillars are seen from May to August.

This is a long season as they often have two broods per year and explains why you often see hibernating Tortoiseshells.

Very successful but numbers are declining

They are usually found feeding on a variety of flowers in most 'flowery places' and in both urban and rural places.

They are a very successful butterfly in the UK and are very widespread being found all across the country including as far North of Shetland.

Worryingly though there has been a decline in their numbers and this could be down to a fly who's larvae feed on the butterflys larvae. This fly Sturmia Bella, is now more common due to global warming.