Urban Essex Skippers

 I like insects that are a bit of a fieldwork challenge, and Essex Skippers are one of those. The Essex Skipper is a small butterfly with golden wings. As other skippers, they are fast flyers and like to perch on flower heads, well exposed, with plenty of darting chasing each other. They live in grasslands, and their larval foodplant, the common grass, Cock's-foot, whilst the adults like to nectar on thistles, ragwort and knapweeds. Emergence is usually in early July and the last ones are usually seen at the beginning of August, so a short flight period. 

Essex Skippers were one of the last species of butterfly listed in the UK. In 1890 F.W. Hawes published an article describing that he had collected the species in Essex, and that it was likely that it had been previously overlooked. He was right, and specimens were found in several collections that had been labelled as Small Skippers. The reason is that it is superficially very similar to the Small Skipper. The best way to tell them apart in the field is to get down at eye level with the butterfly when perched, and examine the underside of their antennae (if you have good eyesight!) or take a photo. Essex Skippers have ink black undersides of the antennae tip (top shot), while in the Small Skipper the underside of the antennae tips are orange-brown (photo below)

Small Skipper.

The first time I saw this butterfly was at Spurn, in 2018, but in the last few years I have recorded it in several sites in Hull. Last week, I found it in my patch, at Sculcoates, on a meadow in a disused cemetery. As other species I've dealt with in the blog over the years, it is expanding its range northwards, possibly due to a combination of climate warming and habitat changes. It appears to be using motorway and trunk road embankments to disperse and it has been reported that hay transport could be another way this butterfly has colonised new sites, as the tiny eggs travel with the grass.

Essex Skipper, my first one at the patch. Sculcoates, 5th July 2025.

Red Admiral at windfall fruit

Any sunny spell of weather these days and you are likely to come across a Red Admiral, basking or  nectaring on flowering Ivy. Red Admirals are generalist butterflies and late flowering Buddleia, Asters or other late blooming bushes will be used too. Red Admirals are also partial to fruit, and rotting, windfall pears or apples attract many individuals. Last week, a pear and an apple tree at a car park provided a glut of food for Red Admirals and wasps alike. About a dozen Red Admirals were around, either feeding on the fruit under the trees, wings closed, or basking on leaves with their wings fully open. Wasps were also feeding on the fruit, but the butterflies were not keen on sharing their table, so every time a wasp got too close the Red Admiral flicked its wings open (top shot) and flushed it out.

A basking fresh individual.

Urban Purple Hairstreaks

I had a most unexpected and delightful walk to work this morning. As I was about to cross Westbourne Avenue, where a water leak has been repair, a passer-by flushed a small butterfly from the barriers. I thought it was probably a Holly Blue, but when it settled with wings closed on a privet hedge nearby, I realised it was a hairstreak! I fumbled for my camera as it fluttered along the hedge into a front garden, where it sat with wings open. With shaking hands, I was able to take a photo (below), confirming the id as Purple Hairstreak! 

The first Purple Hairstreak

The Avenues is a very leafy part of Hull, with large gardens often holding large trees. In fact, there is a mature, spectacular oak at the back of the Adult Education Centre on Park Avenue not far away, and, as I walked past, I wondered if the wind might have blown the small butterfly away. I carried onto Jack Kaye fields. A Speckled Wood by the entrance to the fields, by an oak, reminded me to do a butterfly count, and I set an alarm on my phone to 15 min. I counted six Speckled Woods, as they squabbled around the trees. Then I moved onto the first glade. A small butterfly settled on a Whitebeam to bask in the sunshine. As I focused my camera, I got the feeling of being in a dream: it was another Purple Hairstreak! It has its wings closed and I took plenty of photos. 

Tree canopy butterflies

Purple Hairstreaks are canopy specialists, they spend much of their time on tree tops, around oaks (the larval food plant) and nearby trees, where they feed on honeydew. Although other species that obtain most of their food from honeydew, like Speckled Wood and Holly Blue, can occasionally be found feeding on flowers, or resting or fluttering low down, Purple Hairstreaks rarely come down to the lower level of trees, but they have been seen feeding on bramble or hemp-agrimony. They live up in the tree tops, and it is for this reason that they are easily missed. There are only 18 records of this species in East Yorkshire, mostly in nature reserves, but also at Snuff Mill Lane, just outside Hull, where I saw them in July and in Beverley Westwood, which has a sizeable population. They are not only found in woodland, but also along lanes and in parks with oaks. But, as these lovely, tiny butterflies, spend their adult lives up in tree canopies gorging on honeydew, they are likely to be overlooked and under-recorded. In the last few weeks I've been looking for them at Jack Kaye, staring into that small oak by the entrance, so although I was beyond pleased to find it, I was a bit astounded that it had actually happened. 

I will keep an eye on this area to check if these are isolated individuals or if there is a colony, and I plan to keep looking at oaks, wherever they are!

Painted Ladies, the world travellers

I kneeled down and crept closer. The butterfly stood tiptoeing exposing its wings fully to the low afternoon sun, warming up. I was on the coastal path by the low cliff top at Spurn Head, a well known bird migration hotspot. This was my last Painted Lady of that year, 5th October 2014. The butterfly's faded colour and worn wings suggested that it was old and had been on the wing for a while, migrating. It still had a very long journey ahead.

Cosmopolitan and warmth loving

The Painted Lady is one of the most cosmopolitan butterflies, only absent from South America, Australia and the polar regions. It is cosmopolitan in more than one sense, as it is a constant traveller, moving in search of good caterpillar food sources and away of the cold. Unlike other butterflies, which have a cold-resistant stage - which can be the egg, the caterpillar or the adult - no life cycle stage of the Painted Lady can survive cold temperatures. In the UK, most sightings occur from May to September, with a strong peak in August.

This fresh individual from 25th July (Hornsea, East Yorkshire), feeding on buddleia, is likely to have been born locally.

A male Painted Lady hilltopping in the Swiss Alps (12th August 2015).

Through the desert and back

Painted Ladies migrate north in the spring to arrive as the summer starts in Europe, and they do the reverse flight in the autumn - just like many migratory birds - although the facts and routes of their migration have been only recently been pieced together. Unlike birds, migration is achieved in several generations - individual adults live for about four weeks - so it will be different individuals who carry out each leg of a migratory flight. Scientists used to think that the Northern European individuals overwintered around the Mediterranean and in North Africa, and that if any made it across the Sahara they might reach a dead end. Even a return journey from northern Europe was doubted, as migration is less obvious in the autumn, when the butterflies fly at high altitude to take advantage of tail winds, where they are out of sight. Research in the last few years has revealed that their migratory journey encompasses sub tropical Africa in a circuit of about 12,000 km. The migratory journey of the Painted Lady is actually the longest of any butterfly, with individuals being able to cover over 4000 km journeys, easily surpassing the Monarch! Gerard Talavera and Roger Vila, from the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva in Barcelona, travelled to four countries in the African Sahel (Senegal, Benin, Chad and Ethiopia), a band of savannah environments just south of the Sahara desert in October-November, just after the rainy season, with the vegetation is at its lushest. They visited tens of sites in each country in search of Painted Ladies. They found evidence of southbound migration, with worn individuals and directional movements, and local breeding. This is evidence that the European populations must actually cross the Sahara en masse during their migrations, to spend the winter months in tropical areas after the rainy season. Overall, they estimated that between six to ten generations are involved in the yearly cycle. 

Stable isotopes and the autumn migration

Is there an efficient return autumn migration in the Painted Lady? How can we find out? Scientists can fit migratory birds with miniature geolocators before migration, and these can be retrieved when the birds return to their breeding grounds, and the collected data allows to reconstruct their migratory routes and strategies. Unfortunately this is not feasible with small insects. There is, however, an alternative technique is at hand: to use stable isotopes. Stable isotopes, which have a lot of regional variation, leave permanent signatures of the natal origin of an insect in their bodies. The tissue development of a butterfly takes place in the caterpillar and pupal stage - often occurring in a single plant, and therefore reflects precisely the isotope composition of the particular place were the butterfly developed. If the adult emerging then migrates and is captured at its destination, or en route, the stable isotope composition of its wings provides a signature of where the butterfly developed. 

In a different study, Talavera and his multidisciplinary team collected specimens from around the Mediterranean from Morocco and Spain to Israel and Egypt just as they reappeared in early spring (February to April). They then analysed the stable hydrogen isotopes on samples of the butterfly wings. These were consistent with the presence of some locally born individuals but many others had a sub-Saharan origin, providing evidence for a return migration from the Sahel and subtropical Africa in spring.

Another likely migrant, this one a spring one, found in Flamborough head, 29th June 2015.

Next time you see one of these tattered Painted Ladies, spare a thought about the incredible distance that this small insect might have covered, and that it might have spend the last week or two flying across the Sahara, crossing the Mediterranean and moving through Europe in search of food for its next brood.

More information
The Vanessa cardui project. Here.

Talavera, G. & Vila, R. Discovery of mass migration and breeding of the painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui in the Sub-Sahara: the Europe–Africa migration revisited. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. Lond. 120, 274–285 (2017).

Talavera, G., Bataille, C., Benyamini, D., Gascoigne-Pees, M. & Vila, R. Round-trip across the Sahara: Afrotropical Painted Lady butterflies recolonize the Mediterranean in early spring. Biol. Lett. 14, (2018).

Red Admiral's admirable camouflage

A Red Admiral flew into the cherry tree as I was in the garden. I had seen where it had landed and how it positioned itself head down and as I looked for it I realised how wonderfully camouflaged, matching the colours and patterning of a branch. Can you spot it? If you can't I have cropped a photo at as slightly different angle, showing the antennae. I then made a sudden movement and the butterfly slightly opened its wings, exposing the red marks on its forewings (bottom photo). It had started to rain, and it was much cooler so the butterfly will probably spend the night roosting like that in the tree, well concealed from visual predators.

Summer generation Holly Blue

The first Holly Blue of the summer generation. This butterfly has two main larval foodplants: spring generation females lay their eggs on the buds of holly, whereas summer generation ones lay on the buds of Ivy. Unlike the other blues, the Holly blue tends to fly high near trees and bushes.

Small Skippers

There were many territorial male Small Skippers in a meadow area in the outskirts of town. The males look like little, golden triangles perched on grass tips or flower heads, which dart after passing butterflies hoping for a female skipper. Males and female skippers are easy to tell apart when perched, as males have a dark line parallel to the edge of their forewings, the 'sex brand'. The photo above shows a female, below, a male. Both sexes were enjoying the plentiful creeping thistle flowers.

The patrolling Red Admiral

Since the beginning of June, Red Admirals have been well established, having returned from the Mediterranean in their one way spring migration. Females should be mating and looking for sunny nettle patches in which to lay their eggs. Males should be looking for receptive females to mate with. They will produce one or more broods in the summer. As temperatures drop in the autumn, butterflies will prepared themselves for the autumn migration and then they become very apparent in gardens, where they feed on buddleia and other nectar rich flowers. Male and female have the same wing colour pattern. If you have a good view of the abdomen when the butterfly is resting with its wings open, a swollen abdomen will allow you to identify a female, but otherwise it might be easier to tell them apart by their behaviour in early summer.
 Last week, in the afternoon, I have flushed a Red Admiral from the same sunny spot on a grassy area amongst trees, where they were sitting day after day, exactly where I often found them last year. This afternoon was unusually warm and, as I left work, a Red Admiral sat on a low hedge on a wooded glade teeming with nettles in our university campus (above). It would sit and then fly up patrolling around the trees and chasing passing bumblebees in a similar way a Speckled Wood male would do, and then return to the same perch. I had never noticed this behaviour in the Red Admiral, but it appears that I had observed a male, and that red Admiral males actually defend territories. It might seem hard to believe that beautiful, fluttery butterflies actually engage in any kind of aggressive interaction. Indeed, butterflies have no offensive weapons other than their wings, and, butterfly contests, even when they are defending a territory are often perceived as chases instead of aggressive interactions. However, there is now abundant research showing territorial behaviour in a number of butterfly species. The important point is not the presence of an actual fight but the outcome: as a result of the behaviour the owner remains in the territory and the intruder flies away. Royce Bitzer and Kenneth Shaw studied the territorial behaviour of the Red Admiral on the Iowa University campus. They captured and marked individual Red Admirals with different spots of paint and observed their behaviour once released. They found that Red Admirals spend the morning feeding, but each evening males establish temporary territories for a couple of hours before roosting. Males spent most of their time perched, but occasionally patrolled their territory boundaries. They were not seen feeding. Birds or other butterfly species were chased in a linear way, but male intruders are chased upwards in a spiral. In Red Admiral chases, the owner often retains ownership and the intruder flies away. Good territories are likely to be an area containing resting spots from where passing females can be easily detected, usually with linear features (e.g. a pavement or a few trees in a line). The maintenance of these temporary territories could allow better access to receptive females moving into their roost, as mating is thought to happen in the roosting sites in trees.

A particularly bright red and intact individual, maybe the result of a first local brood?

Two days later a much more faded individual with tattered wings, on the same favoured spot on the grass.

More information
Red Admiral and Painted Lady Research Site. Here.

Bitzer, R. J., & Shaw, K. C. (1979). Territorial Behavior of the Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta (L.)(Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera, 18(1), 36-49. here.

Fresh Painted ladies

It has been almost four years that I haven't seen a Painted Lady, but today I had a nice surprise when I spotted one, high on the buddleia, amongst the dozen or so Peacocks that are so abundant these days. Painted Ladies are warmth-loving butterflies, unable to survive our winters, so before the cold sets in, they will migrate to the Mediterranean. This generation is the offspring of the butterflies that migrated to the UK in the spring, from southern countries, as far as Morocco. They arrived, mated, laid eggs, and the caterpillars fed on thistles, with the new generation being the fresh painted Ladies that will migrate south. Painted Ladies have mass migration years, in which they are much more numerous than usual, and these years appear to coincide with warm summers when Hummingbird Hawkmoths and Silver Y moths also migrate in large numbers to the UK. The last mass migration year was in 2009.
 If you see Painted Ladies, you can contribute to the research into their migrations reporting your sighting to Butterfly Conservation Migrant Watch Survey.
  See previous posts on Painted Ladies in BugBlog.

The intricate patterns of the underwing of Painted Lady

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Legs for laying eggs

Most Nymphalid butterflies, a group of large species that include the Peacock, Painted Lady, Comma and the Monarch, have modified forelegs, smaller than the rest of the legs and normally tucked in under the head. In the Peacock (above) the forelegs are relatively large, but not used for walking and they even have the same dark colour as the body, giving the impression that the butterfly has only four legs. Why is this? Despite their vestigial appearance, experiments have shown that the forelegs have a very important function, especially in females. In the investigated Nymphalid species (mainly the Monarch and the Queen butterfly), the tips of the reduced forelegs in females - but not males - have sensory organs associated to spines, which they use to recognise specific chemicals from the larval foodplant when ovipositing. They drum the leaves with their forelegs, puncturing the leaves and releasing plant chemicals allowing their receptors to detect them (what is known as contact chemorreception). The antennae and the tips of the other legs also contribute to selecting the foodplant, with tapping with the antennae and drumming with the mid legs also observed when selecting foodplant. The forelegs are part of a very complex sensory system, possibly providing a 'backup' with the sensory spines protected from damage, by the forelegs being reduced and not being used for walking. Butterflies can be very selective in choosing foodplants, as they not only have to determine the species of plant, but also how healthy or how old the leaves are, so it is not surprising that they use a complex sensory system to assess this, which we are only beginning to understand.

This video from Arkive, shows a female Peacock tapping a nettle leaf with its forelegs while laying eggs.



More information

Baur, R., Haribal, M., Renwich, J. A. A. and Staedler, E. (1998). Contact chemoreception related to host selection and oviposition behaviour in the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus Physiological Entomology, 23, 7-19 DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-3032.1998.2310007.x

Myers, Judith. 1969 Distribution of foodplant chemoreceptors on the female Florida queen butterfly, Danaus gilippus berenice (Nymphalidae)." J. Lepid. Soc 23: 196-198.

Nymphalid riot

The buddleias are now in full bloom in the garden, and buzzing with bumblebees, droneflies and butterflies. Today it was a particularly wonderful day for butterflies. Eight species were feeding, or passing by the garden, but the 5 Peacocks on one buddleia at the same time must have been a first. A Comma and a Small Tortoiseshell accompanied them at some point. A Speckled Wood fluttered by the garden, not settling long enough for a photo. The three common white species were about, some egg laying and a darting skipper - which didn't settle either made an appearance too.
 The Peacocks spend most of the time feeding on the buddleias, occasionally settling on the wall or the ground for a spot of sunbathing. The Small Tortoiseshell sat on top of the fence, allowing me to take a photo of it at an unusual angle.
A great day for a Big Butterfly Count too.

Peacock underside, such an amazing contrast between the brightly coloured upper wing colours.

Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell together

Two of the five Peacocks feeding on the buddleia

Large white

Small White

Sunbathing on the ground

Comma, showing the paler underside of the summer generation

Comma

Ringlet

I watched two Ringlets in the wildlife garden with their characteristic bobbing, low flight amongst the grasses. They looked like they would never settle, but this one did, and it posed beautifully for me for quite a while, allowing close approximation. It's lighter underside colour indicates is likely to be a female. Ringlets live in woodland glades and meadows with long, coarse grasses, their larval food plant. Adults are quite short lived, and their flight season is mainly July.

Courting Small Tortoiseshells

Several common Nymphalid butterflies, like the Comma, Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell (but also the Brimstone) overwinter as adults. They were born the previous summer and spent the sunny days of late summer and early autumn feeding and accumulating the fat reserves needed to spend the winter. Then they searched for a suitable dry, sheltered place (often inside outbuildings or roof spaces) and entered a resting period during the colder months of the year, when nectar resources are most scarce. These are often the first butterflies to fly on spring, sometimes awaken during sunny, mild winter days, but most regularly appearing in later March and early April. While before their winter rest, food was the only thing on their minds and they were happy to feed in groups, their interests during spring are clearly shifted to reproduction. Now males are actively defending temporal territories around south-facing nettle beds waiting for passing females, and fighting intruding males in spiral flights. When a female is detected, he will chase her at high speed to court her.
This afternoon, on a sunny clearing full of sprouting nettles, four Small Tortoiseshells danced around each other. A pair, eventually found themselves on their own and landed on the ground. The male approached the female from behind and started to court her tapping her with his antennae (above). She will normally fly away again and the settling and tapping will continue until she accepts his advances and they mate on a sheltered spot on the ground. The pair of courting tortoiseshells flew away quickly before I could see where they settled. You can watch a video of the courtship of the Small Tortoiseshell here.

Loving the ivy

The late flowers of the ivy are a bug magnet in the autumn, when other sources of nectar are scarce. I have posted before on ivy fest season, but today I came across some new ivy visitors in a large ivy just starting to bloom in my local cemetery. Speckled Wood butterflies rarely visit flowers, as they usually feed on honeydew produced by aphids up in trees. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see two individuals feeding on ivy together with a Comma and many Droneflies.

Speckled Wood and Comma

Comma

Dronefly Eristalis tenax

Male wasp

Helophilus

Yellow dung fly?