Butterfly Conservation Ireland

The Painted Lady Vanessa cardui is an attractive migrant butterfly. It appears in Britain and Ireland every year. It is less numerous than the Red Admiral but more numerous than the Clouded Yellow, our other regular migrant butterflies. It is closely related to the Red Admiral and similar in size, with wingspans ranging from about 58mm to 74mm, with males smaller than females. Sexes look alike. Its uppersides are dark brown, orange and white with small, faint blue markings on the anal angle of the hindwings. The hindwing underside is mottled buff, white and slate blue, while the forewing pattern imitates the forewing upperside, but the broad band is pink, not orange. In fresh butterflies, the uppersides can show a lovely pink flush. The Painted Lady is seen in Ireland mainly during the summer and early autumn.

The butterfly is our most mobile species and can appear anywhere there are nectar sources, especially if thistles, the food for the larvae, are present. The butterfly breeds in Ireland during the summer, but the caterpillar cannot survive temperatures below five degrees Celsius. The Painted Lady has no ‘rest phase’ in its life cycle, and when conditions no longer favour breeding, the butterfly must migrate to find suitable conditions.

In the past, the view was that the Painted Lady migrated to Britain, Ireland and northern Europe, but that all life stages of the butterfly died when cold weather arrived. This view was supported by the almost complete absence of observed southward migration from northerly areas in autumn. However, research carried out since 2008 provides fascinating information about the butterfly’s migration.

Where do Painted Lady butterflies migrate to? How do we know where migrating Painted Lady butterflies originate?

The Painted Lady performs an annual multi-generational migration between Europe and North Africa. Its seasonal appearance south of the Sahara in autumn is well known and has led to the suggestion that it results from extremely long migratory flights by European butterflies to seasonally exploit the Sahel and the tropical savannah. However, this possibility had not been proven. However, a study by Constanti Stefanescu and his colleagues that analysed the isotopic composition of Painted Lady butterflies from seven European and seven African countries provides support for this hypothesis. Each butterfly was assigned a geographical natal (birth) origin, based on its wing stable hydrogen isotope (d2 Hw) value and a predicted d2 Hw basemap for Europe and northern Africa.

Isotopes are two or more forms of the same element that contain equal numbers of protons but different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei and hence differ in relative atomic mass but not in chemical properties; in particular, a radioactive form of an element. Isotopes of hydrogen are different across Europe and Africa, with regional variations in their abundance due to differences in climate, rainfall patterns, and moisture sources. While the three main hydrogen isotopes (protium ¹H), deuterium (²H), and tritium (³H)) are naturally occurring, their stable isotopic ratios (expressed as δ²H) vary geographically, with more depleted values found in temperate and boreal regions of Europe and higher values closer to the tropics and coastal areas in Africa. These differences in hydrological hydrogen are reliable across Europe, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, enabling researchers to identify the origin of migrating Painted Lady butterflies.

Natal assignments of autumn migrants collected south of the Sahara (Sahel) confirmed long-distance movements (of 4,000 km or more) starting in Europe. Samples from Maghreb (north-west Africa) revealed a mixed origin of migrants, with most individuals having a European origin, but others having originated in the Sahel. Therefore, autumn movements are not only directed to northwestern Africa but also include southward and northward flights across the Sahara. Through this remarkable behaviour, the productive but highly seasonal region south of the Sahara (the area receives rain in June and July) is incorporated into the migratory circuit of the Painted Lady.

How do we know about high altitude migration, and how do Painted Lady butterflies travel such long distances?

Migration of the Painted Lady to north-eastern Spain is aided by African wind currents that show a strong correlation between wind patterns and the ability of the butterfly to migrate long distances in a corresponding direction, concluding that the butterfly rides on the wind currents in the upper levels of the atmosphere when undertaking long-distance flights. This was confirmed by Jason Chapman and Rebecca Nesbit using vertical-looking radar to show that the insects regularly fly at a height of up to 1,200 m. In the reverse (southbound) autumn migration in 2009, most flew at between 200 and 400  Chapman and Nesbit wrote: “Wind speeds 500m above the ground are often four or five times faster than the butterflies’ flight speed, so that if they are able to fly at these heights they could reach speeds of almost 100km/hr (60 mph)”. High altitude flights are especially frequent southwards from Europe in autumn.

I observed how these high-altitude flights are launched by the Painted Lady and the Red Admiral. Individual butterflies typically use level flight when moving through the landscape, but in autumn, while migratory flight at eye level occurs, high altitude flight is mostly used. Individual butterflies fly upward, in a vertical or near-vertical trajectory, eventually disappearing from the view of the observer on the ground. When a following wind is located, likely, level flight at altitude is then adopted to help the butterfly move toward its destination.

Journeys northwards into Europe in spring and summer are made by successive generations of Painted Lady butterflies. Stefanescu and his colleagues state: “The migratory cycle in this species involves six generations, encompassing a latitudinal shift of thousands of kilometres”. This is a round-trip extending from Africa to above the Arctic Circle of over 13,000 kilometres.

However, as stated earlier, we also know that individual Painted Lady butterflies fly as many as 4,000 km when migrating from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa in autumn.

Another method that has been used to track butterfly movement is telemetry, when radio tags are fixed to a butterfly. A tag fitted to a Swallowtail butterfly’s head was used to track its movements in the Maltese Islands over an approximate period of two weeks of field monitoring. The release site was Comino, the island between Malta and the second-largest Maltese Island, Gozo. Tagged Swallowtail Papilio machaon melitensis individuals were recorded to undertake a short sea crossing between the islands of Comino and Gozo, subsequently, each making their way to the northern side of Gozo. Each butterfly is estimated to have covered a minimum distance of approximately 16.6 km in 17 days. While the Swallowtail (wingspan up to 93mm) is larger than the Painted Lady, it is conceivable that the Painted Lady might be tracked using telemetry in the future. (The Swallowtail is dispersive within Malta, but elsewhere it will migrate. The migration rate of Papilio machaon in North America was estimated at 4.3 km per day in upwind conditions ( Sperling and Harrison, 1994). In favourable weather conditions (downwind), this rate is probably higher.

What triggers the Painted Lady’s migration?

The research has concluded that the reason for migration is the need to locate and exploit abundant but temporary resources over large geographical areas. But what are the cues that drive the species to migrate? For now, these remain unknown.

The theory is that northward migration in spring is triggered by population density, increasing daylight hours, increasing temperatures, increasing aridity and decreasing nectar and larval host plant resources. Southward migration from Europe might be triggered by the decreasing light levels, falling temperatures, and diminishing nectar and host plant resources.

The wonder of Painted Lady migration

Whatever the causes, the migration of the Painted Lady is a fascinating chapter in the story of our butterflies. Adding to this wonderment is the sheer scale of these mass movements. While some migrations occur over weeks and span wide geographical areas, others are concentrated over a shorter period of time and within narrower spatial zones. I saw hundreds of Painted Ladies in Kinvara, County Galway, on May 30, 2009, flying off the Atlantic to settle on Red Valerian, trees, shrubs and even the coast road where they were crushed by traffic. I travelled home that afternoon, watching the butterflies fly across roads during my eastward journey through Galway. It is estimated that 11 million Painted Lady butterflies arrived in these islands in May 2009, but that 21 million left Britain and Ireland that autumn. Many accounts of thousands of caterpillars were recorded. An estimated 500,000 Painted Lady caterpillars were recorded in two fallow fields near Port Isaac, Cornwall.

Another mass migration occurred in 2019, when millions arrived. One County Down gardener reported 100 or more in his coastal garden, on lavender, on August 1. Hundreds of adults were recorded on Tory Island, Co. Donegal, on the previous day. 

An unusual aspect of the 2019 mass migration was that it followed two years of large migrations. Typically, the year or years following a mass Painted Lady migration see very low numbers in Ireland. In 2010, following the millions that arrived in 2009, the Painted Lady was very scarce in Ireland. I saw one Painted Lady in 2010, a famine following a feast. Another unusual feature of the 2019 migration is that it began on January 10, when at least 20 were seen near Bere Island on the south side of Fair Head, County Cork.  However, the main arrivals occurred in June, July and August. High numbers were recorded during September 2019, but by mid-September, the figures declined as reverse migration occurred. Few were seen in Ireland during 2020.

Such spectacular migrations are impressive, but in California, one migration was estimated to contain three billion Painted Lady butterflies! Given its rapid development rate (the egg to adult stage I observed in 2019 lasted 54 days, but this will be shorter in warmer conditions),  impressive migratory capability and the wide range of larval food plants it uses, it is understandable that it is probably the most successful butterfly on Earth, occurring on all continents except South America.

When you admire a Painted Lady in your garden in late summer or autumn, keep this thought in mind: in a few days, it could be flitting between blooms on the African savannah south of the Sahara, in the company of African Lions, Leopards and Dama Gazelles.

Key References

Chapman, J. W. and Nesbit, R. L. (2008). Mysteries of Lepidoptera migration revealed by entomological radar. Atropos. 35, pp. 28-36.

Grech, N. (2021). Investigating ecological corridors and barriers to movement: a species approach for conservation (Master’s dissertation). University of Malta https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/94093

Sperling, F.A.H.; Harrison, R.G. (1994). Mitochondrial DNA variation within and between species of the Papilio machaon group of swallowtail butterflies. Evolution  48, 408–422.

Stefanescu C, Soto DX, Talavera G, Vila R, Hobson KA. (2016). Long-distance autumn migration across the Sahara by painted lady butterflies: exploiting resource pulses in the tropical savannah. Biol. Lett. 12: 20160561. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0561

Stefanescu, Constantí; Páramo, Ferran; Åkesson, Susanne; Alarcón, Marta; Ávila, Anna; Brereton, Tom; Carnicer, Jofre; Cassar, Louis F.; Fox, Richard; Heliölä, Janne; Hill, Jane K.; Hirneisen, Norbert; Kjellén, Nils; Kühn, Elisabeth; Kuussaari, Mikko; Leskinen, Matti; Liechti, Felix; Musche, Martin; Regan, Eugenie C.; Reynolds, Don R.; Roy, David B.; Ryrholm, Nils; Schmaljohann, Heiko; Settele, Josef; Thomas, Chris D.; van Swaay, Chris; Chapman, Jason W., Multi-generational long-distance migration of insects: studying the painted lady butterfly in the Western Palaearctic Ecography (Copenhagen), 2013-04 Vol.36 (4), p.474-486

All photographs copyright J. Harding.

 

 

Ivy Hedera helix is an evergreen climber found in hedges, on trees, walls and on the ground, in shaded places. The plant flowers mainly during August, September and October. The value of Ivy for pollinators lies in its abundance in the landscape and the timing of its flowering. By early September, most grassland herbs have finished flowering. Warm, sheltered, lightly managed hedges containing Ivy in flower are ideal places for pollinators, and these are well worth checking in sunny weather during autumn. Ivy hosts nocturnal insects, too. Moths like Herald and Red-green Carpet take nectar during darkness, while hoverflies, bees, wasps, flies and butterflies visit during the day.

Here are some species that use flowering Ivy.

A tip for nature lovers in September and October is to check the flowering Ivy in coastal areas. Red Admiral and Painted Lady will gorge on Ivy before flying seaward. Hundreds have been observed on Ivy on the south Wexford coast (Slade) in autumn.  It provides food and roost sites for pre-migration butterflies. 

Ivy is also used by overwintering insects. The Brimstone is adapted to use Ivy. Its wing shape imitates Ivy leaves, even including blotch marks on the underside of the wings.

Comma may use it too.  The Comma underside has a leaf-like appearance, mimicking a dead oak leaf. Dense Ivy will hold dead leaves from other plants. Being evergreen, it conceals and shelters.

Ivy is also used as a larval foodplant by the Holly Blue. Its caterpillar relies on Ivy berries in late summer and autumn. Double-striped Pug, Yellow-barred Brindle, Willow Beauty,  Dot Moth, Old Lady and Small Angle Shades are macro-moths that use Ivy as their larval foodplant, among other plants. 

Allowing Ivy to flower is crucial if you want to help autumn insects. If it must be trimmed, do this in February, after the worst of the winter weather is over, but avoid trimming all your Ivy in any year. Variety helps biodiversity.

 

 

 

 

‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,’ enthused Keats about autumn, but this year has witnessed an abrupt change as a dry, sunny August ended. Keats’ autumn was sunny, gentle and bountiful, but September 2025 has been wet so far, so butterflies are less visible, but appear quite abundant when the sun shines. This post looks at some of the butterflies we can expect to observe this month. 

The Green-veined White, Large White and Small White are confusion species. We show images of all three and describe some key differences.

The Green-veined White can be separated by habitat preference. It rarely appears in cultural habitats such as urban parks and urban and suburban gardens, due to its avoidance of dry habitats. It prefers moist, humid habitats, including moist hedgerow margins, vegetated ditches, ponds with watercress, wet grassland, fens, marshes, damp rides in woodland, bog margins, and wilder rural gardens.

The Large and Small Whites prefer drier places. These are happy in green spaces in towns and cities, especially gardens containing brassicas, allotments, brownfield sites, ‘Linnet plots’ on farmland, dry coastal habitats and generally anywhere with flowers and brassicas, but neither breeds in the damp places favoured by the Green-veined White.

All three can be found together in some places containing moist and dry conditions, such as coastal areas containing dune slacks (moist) and eroding dunes (dry), fields with damp and dry areas, and rural gardens and other places with flowers where all three will occur to take nectar. Another identification challenge is that the Large White and Small White are highly mobile and can appear anywhere, but neither breeds in humid places. 

All images 2025 copyright Jesmond Harding 

The Burren, a unique karst landscape situated in north County Clare and southwest Galway, boasts a fascinating, rich, and abundant biodiversity within visually stunning landscapes. The following images aim to provide a taste of this beauty and inspire a love for and a desire to conserve this most special place.

All photographs copyright Jesmond Harding

 

Our Moth Morning, held at Cormackstown Wood, Cormickstown, Maynooth, as our Heritage Week event, was a great success.

Discovery is exciting, and moths are largely unknown to many. This mystery is unsurprising because most are nocturnal and adept at diurnal concealment.

Robinson moth traps with a 125V Mercury Vapour lamp are a great draw for nocturnal moths, and so it proved, despite the night we trapped being cooler than recent nights.

Against this possibility, event leader Philip Strickland trapped the night before and retained some important species, including the migrant Vestal, a large Poplar Hawkmoth and the dramatic Bullrush Wainscot.

The event was well attended by younger and more experienced nature lovers. People were treated to 50 species of moths of a range of markings, colours, shapes and sizes.  Philip explained that autumnal moths are less colourful than those emerging during May, June and July, and are typically brown. This did not diminish the interest in those who attended. We got close views of all the species, and the more docile moths were handled and closely observed before all were released.

The desire to trap and record moths has already been kindled, hopefully accompanied by the drive to protect and enhance their habitats. 

We weren’t the only attendees. Philip’s grounds host Barn Swallows, who took a keen interest in proceedings, swooping low to check on the chances of a meal. A couple of moths were snapped up, but this underlines the importance of moths in our ecosystems.

After all the traps were examined,  we were invited indoors to a wonderful spread of home-baked treats, coffee, tea, etc, etc. If I posted a photograph of the table laden with these delights, the next moth morning would be seriously over-subscribed!

Our thanks are due to the Heritage Council for supporting our moth morning, and to the Strickland family for their generosity in hosting the event and feeding us, and Philip Strickland for planning the event and his expertise.

 

August is the final summer month, and slowly the light decreases, temperatures drop, and if you look hard enough, you’ll see colour changes in the trees, hinting at autumn. However, a warm August is an excellent month for butterflies. Twenty-seven of our thirty-five species fly during August. The peak population of some of these has passed, but some reach their highest abundance during August. 

The Holly Blue, Peacock and Brimstone often show their highest figures in August. The second generation of Wood White (recorded in just 24 out of  1,019 10 km squares between 2010 and 2021) is on the wing in the Burren, and showing high abundance this year. The even rarer Brown Hairstreak, one of Ireland’s rarest butterflies, has been recorded in just 18 out of 1,019 10 km squares between 2010 and 2021. It is now flying, with the first record arriving from Burren National Park on July 31st. 

We should celebrate the uplift in Small Tortoiseshell populations this August. Last year was disastrous for this common favourite. The abundance trend during the period 2008-2024 was a decline of 63%. Much of this figure is linked to the collapse in 2024; it was a cold, wet year following a wet summer in 2023.  There are many larvae, pupae and adult Small Tortoiseshells in our countryside at the moment; last year, I found no adults in my garden until September, and saw about three individual caterpillars all last year.

Interestingly, I am seeing several Small Tortoiseshell adults in gardens and flower-rich habitats, feeding on nectar. The significance of this behaviour is that it suggests a reproductive diapause applies to these butterflies. These butterflies will delay breeding until next year.  Direct-breeding Small Tortoiseshells certainly feed on nectar, but they stay close to nettle beds and exhibit territorial and courtship behaviour. My garden Small Tortoiseshells are not seeking mates. Pre-hibernation feeding is their activity. 

That does not preclude breeding by the Small Tortoiseshell now or later this year. Some will likely breed, creating a further, later generation that will fly in September and October. The mechanisms that govern whether Small Tortoiseshells breed directly or delay breeding during early August are probably influenced by conditions such as sunlight levels, temperature, moisture levels, and foodplant quality. These conditions vary across the landscape. For example, the local climate in the Howth area on the Dublin coast is drier than it is thirty-five km inland, in south Meath.  In Howth, nettles lack the moisture and nutrient content of those growing in heavier, more fertile soils inland.  Frank Smyth, who has observed the Small Tortoiseshell in Howth for decades, has noticed that it has abandoned the second generation in most years.  

In South County Meath, Small Tortoiseshell larvae have been recorded at various times from May 13th to August 4th.  Looking at the dates it has been found, it is possible that the species has produced three generations there in 2025.

In its nettles, the Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars are in company with Red Admiral larvae. These live singly, concealed with folded leaves. The adult Red Admiral is showing in good numbers, and breeding is still taking place. The larvae are polymorphic. Some are mainly black, some green, and others a mixture of colours.

The Holly Blue is showing in its second generation at the moment. This generation relies mostly on Ivy for breeding. This generation flies well into September. Those flying in late September and October might represent a third generation.

The white family of butterflies continue to fly in high numbers. The three common whites, the Large White, Small White and Green-veined White, continue to grace our gardens and wilder places. The Brimstone has its second peak of the year during August; the first peak is in April. 

Finally, the brown family of butterflies contains common and rare species, and one endangered species. The Wall Brown is endangered, now largely restricted to grassland on the most nutrient-poor, free-draining soils near and among rock outcrops.  The second generation peaks this month. Sadly, your chances of seeing it are so much reduced from what they were thirty years ago.

Finally, an intriguining development has just been reported from England, where the Southern Small White Pieris mannii has finally arrived from the continent. This butterfly has expanded rapidly from its chief traditional breeding grounds in the southern and southeast Mediterranean, reaching Calais by 2019. This species breeds on Candytuft, Iberis sempervirens and Rock Candytuft Iberis saxatilis, not native but widely grown in gardens. 

Looking very like our Small White, it can be separated by the forewing upperside’s apical patch. In the Small White, this extends further down the costa than down the outer edge. In the Southern Small White this patch extends as far down the outer margin as it does along the costa. Will this butterfly cross the Irish Sea? It was recorded on August 2nd in Languard Nature Reserve, on the Suffolk coast.  This site is about 123 km from the French coast near Dunkirk. If the Southern Small White migrated this distance, it is certainly capable of reaching Ireland from Britain across the Irish Sea, which in many places is significantly less distant. It could be capable of reaching Ireland from the continent using the following southerly wind.

It might be in Ireland already. It is well worth looking at all ‘Small Whites’, especially in coastal areas in the south and east. We would be happy to check any photographs sent to us by email at conservation.butterfly@gmail.com

All photographs copyright J. Harding

References

Harding, J. & Lysaght, L. (Eds.) (2025) An Atlas of Butterflies in Ireland 2010-2021. The National Biodiversity Data Centre, Waterford.

Judge, M and Lysaght, L.(2025) The Irish Butterfly Monitoring Scheme Newsletter, Issue 17. National Biodiversity Data Centre.

 

 

 

 

In The Irish Butterfly Book, I wrote about the brood structure (the number of generations) produced by the Cryptic Wood White Leptidea juvernica, one of Ireland’s most mysterious butterflies, present also in Europe but curiously absent from Britain:

While it is double-brooded in parts of Europe (Eeles, 2019), it has proven to be single-brooded in Ireland (but see below). This species has remained single-brooded even in the hottest summers, such as the summer of 2018. None of the eggs from Kildare reared by Peter Eeles in the South of England in 2018 went into a second brood, whereas all the Wood Whites Leptidea sinapis he reared from English stock did (Eeles, 2019).

However, on September 2nd 2020, I caught a freshly emerged male in a hedged lane at Mulhussey, County Meath, seven weeks after the last adult Cryptic Wood White was seen in the area. This is the first confirmed identification of a Cryptic Wood White flying several weeks after its usual flight period in Ireland ended. Interestingly, the undersides (of the individual caught) look paler than in a first brood, and the black wingtip on the forewing upperside appears to be more extensive. While finding this individual butterfly cannot be interpreted as evidence that the species can be double-brooded in Ireland, the finding raises questions. Did the early start to its flight period in 2020 and the warm, sunny weather, which lasted from April to the beginning of June, encourage a second flight, albeit by one or a small number of individuals? Is it therefore single-brooded in Ireland because of the climatic and ecological conditions? If so, will the warming climate and the resulting longer growing season for plants cause the species to emerge earlier in the year and fit in a second generation? Or is the Cryptic Wood White in Ireland genetically programmed to be single-brooded, and the specimen found a late emergent? The answers should emerge, with changing conditions, over time.

That time might be here.

Several Cryptic Wood Whites have been recorded in Northern Ireland late in July, but just one in the south, in Kildare. Between 14 and 19 were seen at 6 sites in Northern Ireland (7-8 at Navan Fort and Quarry, Co. Armagh; 2-5 at Craigavon Lakes, Co. Armagh; 2 at Colin Glen Forest, Co. Antrim, 1-2 at Umbra Dunes, Co. Londonderry; one at Murlough, Co. Down, and one at Belfast Harbour Estate, Co. Down.

Another record from the north, from Carrowhugh, near Inishowen Head, Co. Donegal, from July 30th, by Con O’ Donnell, adds to the northerly bias of these late July records. Only a single record for late July comes from the south, from Cadamstown, Kildare, on July 24th, from James O’Neill. This adds to the mystery. The tendency to produce further generations in Ireland (and in Europe generally) typically decreases further north. For example, the Holly Blue can produce three generations in Cork, in the south of Ireland. In Donegal, in the northwest of Ireland, the Holly Blue produces one brood a year.

We would like to know if this species is changing its habits. Interestingly, the weather so far in 2025 resembles the conditions in 2020, the last year a late emerging Cryptic Wood White was seen.

If its brood structure is changing, there are implications for how we deal with herb-rich edges along hedges and wood edges and wilder grassland in managed areas.

Please check areas that you know contain Cryptic Wood White butterflies in spring, and let us know if you find any, or if you don’t. 

Send your butterfly records to us by email to: conservation.butterfly@gmail.com.

Let us know:

your first name/s, and surname/s, 

your contact details (typically an email address),

date of find,

species found,

the life stage/s found,

numbers seen,

location the butterfly/moth was found (e.g. site name, townland name, county),

six-figure grid reference, including the letter identifying the 100,000-metre grid square in which the location lies (from http://www.gridreference.ie/ or Discovery Series maps)

weather conditions

and any other interesting comments you wish to provide.

Example: John Doe (30/07/2025)

Cryptic Wood White 1, Common Blue 5 at N 95856 10275, Native Woodland Trust reserve, Burgage, Co. Wicklow. Sunny spells, 20 Celsius.

References

Eeles, P. (2019) Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies. Pisces Publications, Berkshire.

Harding, J. (2021). The Irish Butterfly Book. Privately published, Maynooth.

 

The rain is beating heavily on the skylight as I type, the drumming patter and light-swallowing gloom projecting me to a juxtaposed childhood, with confinement and feral freedom vying for prominence in memory.

A 1970s childhood is incomparable with today’s. Technology and the radically different parental outlook on safety are key drivers of the shift from the era when children roamed at will and reappeared when hunger, cartoon time, or bedtime beckoned to an IT-dominated, sedentary life where outdoor activity, when it occurs, is adult-supervised. Rare are the impromptu games that kick off when one of the boys shows up with a new plastic football; games are now scheduled; parents drop off and collect their offspring. Values are quite different, with media playing a greater role in shaping moral values and social mores.

Change brings benefits and drawbacks. We have less contact with the outdoor world, yet ironically, the concern for the condition of the natural environment is greater than it was, despite the loss of nature that occurred well before and during the 1960s and 1970s. More of us say we are worried about the state of nature than the public expressed fifty years ago. I cannot help but feel that some of this is armchair or couch concern, fed by generalised anxiety that is grievously prevalent in contemporary Western society. Deeper empathy comes from contact with nature.

My parents were happy or unhappy. When they were happy, I could disapparate, to use J.K. Rowling’s verb for vanish. Rambling the fields and hills alone or with friends, life was great. Bird nest hunting, pursuing and catching butterflies, looking for Fox dens, Hedgehogs and Badger setts, collecting frogspawn…you name it, we did it.

I was given an arbitrary time to be home by, which I divined by the severity of stomach rumblings or the arc of the sun across the sky or the onset of conscience, quickened by fear of the consequences of lateness, which could be unpleasant.

When my parents were unhappy, life at home reflected that, a pathetic fallacy realised. This could last for days, and confinement indoors followed.

One thing my mother couldn’t abide was grass seed stitched into our socks, an inevitability when traipsing through knee-high grasses of the hay-making era. She set out the conditions for allowing me out, and avoiding grass seed in socks (with her poor English, mum called them ‘nettles’) was one, and utterly unfulfillable. When I returned, socks riddled with seed, consequences occurred.

Mum knew that I would agree to anything for permission to go out, and this was milked. Sometimes the domestic servitude release conditions were so onerous that it wasn’t worth complying: scrub the kitchen floor on hands and knees, hoover the house, wash and dry the dishes, play with your brother and sister (for how long?), do the shopping and then you can go out, as long as you don’t get nettles in your socks.

I recall my surprise at once being offered a choice of punishments: a few smacks or being locked in my bedroom for the rest of the day. The wooden spoon was chosen. Physical punishment, however unpleasant, was brief. After it was administered, parental guilt meant I was allowed to head for the hills. 

I was confined in my room.  I’d shown my hand. Furious at being tricked and incarcerated, I lay on my bed and cried bitterly. The sun shone outside, laughing at my imprisonment. Think of all the butterflies I was missing. All my friends would be out looking for recently arrived Red Admirals.

There I lay, staring at a white ceiling instead of a blue sky. Perhaps a gang of pals would call to the door asking if I could go out. That might do the trick. Sometimes my mother relented because she’d feel guilty. That didn’t happen that day.

But something good did. The top bedroom window was open, and in danced the most beautiful Small Tortoiseshell butterfly I have ever seen. It fluttered round the bedroom, tossed itself against the brilliant white ceiling, carefully searching for a hideout. I was paralysed with wonder. The usual orange ground colour of the uppersides of the Small Tortoiseshell was instead a deep red, like the pure, dreamlike crimson of Mabille’s Red Glider Cymothoe mabille or even the Blood-red Glider Cymothoe sangaris, both species of Central African forests.

My usual reaction to seeing a butterfly in flight was to sprint in its direction. Spellbound, I lay still. Admiration inspired stillness. What I didn’t know is that this messenger from the world of sunshine has a topographical memory. Egg-laying females lay large clusters of eggs under the leaf of a nettle located near or at the top of a Stinging Nettle. Egg-laying females are frequently disturbed by birds or mammals. The disturbed female flies away from the egg-site, in a straight line, up to 17 metres from their unfinished cluster, returning to resume egg-laying when the disturbance has ended. When a nettle containing an unfinished egg cluster is moved, the female returns to the original position of the nettle, not to the place to which it has been moved. The female is relying on spatial memory, not on scent, to relocate her egg cluster.

Neither mating nor egg-laying was on the mind of this mythical butterfly. It didn’t blunder into my room. The butterfly was looking for an overwintering spot. From mid-July to early August, a small minority of our Small Tortoiseshells are non-reproductive. Instead of mating and laying eggs and dying, these long-lived Small Tortoiseshells are feeding to lay down the fat needed to hibernate. It seems very strange to think of Small Tortoiseshells and Commas hibernating in July and early August. This pre-overwintering behaviour is typical of most autumn Small Tortoiseshells because most are programmed to delay breeding until the following spring, after hibernation. However, a  few Small Tortoiseshells must breed in late August and perhaps in early September; this would explain the presence of caterpillars at the end of September.

There are a few clues as to whether a Small Tortoiseshell belongs to the reproductive cohort or the reproductive delay population. One is the time of the year. Between March and mid-July, all or nearly all Small Tortoiseshells are direct breeders.

Another is place. Breeding Small Tortoiseshells are found near nettles, less often in gardens and flower-rich habitats. Flower-rich locations are the places where overwintering Small Tortoiseshells gather to get ready for hibernation.

Another indicator is behaviour. Courtship, which involves a lengthy flight with male following female, who appears completely disinterested, will be observed in the general countryside and wilder parks, especially near nettle beds. Males establish territories to locate females. These are often in and near nettle beds but sometimes on sun-soaked tracks and near walls to intercept females that are seeking egg-laying sites.

A certain way to identify a direct-breeding male Small Tortoiseshell, Comma and Peacock is to show an object in his eye line. Non-reproductive males and all females ignore the missile. Breeding males fly at the airborne object.

Small Tortoiseshells seen feeding on flowers in late summer and autumn, often concentrated in large numbers, and very easy to approach, are in reproductive diapause. These are second and probably third generation butterflies (the number of generations depends on latitude, climate and very likely, the weather in any given year). These autumn butterflies will join their uncles and aunts that entered hibernation in summer.

I didn’t know this at the age of ten. My gorgeous Small Tortoiseshell, its inspection over, headed back towards the open window. Too late, I thought of shutting it. The bringer of colour, wonder and sunshine was gone. I sprang to the window to follow its flight, but I never saw him again.

The following day, I asked my friends if they’d seen him. They hadn’t.

I hadn’t missed out after all.

Photographs © J. Harding

July 2025 has provided much warmer and sunnier weather than its two predecessors, allowing our butterflies to thrive without being harmed by wet, cold conditions that damage populations. The butterflies flying in early July are still on the wing but are becoming faded. The following article, looking at mid-July butterflies, is based on reports submitted to our 2025 Record page.

A star of the Irish, English and European woods is the magnificent Silver-washed Fritillary. Only one of the 45 fritillaries that occur in Europe is larger, and none have the graceful flight and astonishing courtship ritual that gives this characterful butterfly its popularity among butterfly lovers.

It breeds within woods and mature scrub, but it is often met in clearings and wood edges containing flowers, especially Bramble. The distribution map in  An Atlas of the Butterflies in Ireland 2010-2021 shows an increase in recorded 10 km squares from 248 squares before 2010 to 422 squares in 2021, suggesting that it is thriving in Ireland. It does not occur within typical commercial coniferous plantations or woods or parts of woods containing mainly non-native trees like Sycamore and Beech. It needs well-lit woods on wet and drier soils containing Common Dog-violet among dry plant litter for the caterpillar and nectar for the adult, especially Bramble and Creeping Thistle. Counties that contain the highest number of recorded squares per area are Wicklow, Kildare and Wexford in Leinster, Fermanagh in Ulster, Clare and Cork in Munster and Galway in Connaught (Harding et al., 2025).

A fellow woodland denizen, but much scarcer and more elusive than the Silver-washed Fritillary, is skulking in some of our oak woods now. The Purple Hairstreak is strictly arboreal, loftily ensconced in foliage sprays of Sessile and Pedunculate Oaks, but it is not well distributed. Its caterpillar and adult feed on oaks, so it is fully reliant on oak woods. Oak woodland, especially lowland oak woodland, is rare in Ireland. The butterfly occurs in two of Dublin’s parks, St. Catherine’s Park, Lucan, and Phoenix Park, near Castleknock and in woodland on a farm in Lucan. Unsurprisingly, Wicklow holds populations along with Carlow and Wexford. Elsewhere, Fermanagh, Derry, Galway, Clare, Laois, Tipperary,  Kilkenny, Waterford, Kerry and Cork have populations, while in Sligo, Roscommon, Mayo and Limerick it is recorded from just a single 10 km square. There are no records for the remaining counties in Ireland in the recent Atlas maps (Harding et al., 2025). 

Another woodland species, but one that loves gardens, especially in suburban and urban areas with mature shrubs and trees, is the highly successful Holly Blue. This diminutive, gleaming garden gem is now just beginning to hatch its second generation. Flashes of violet, somewhat metallic blue, are frequent in sunshine in our wooded parks and gardens, hedges, and woodland, but close views are rarely afforded to us in warm, sunny weather. Let the sun be obscured by cloud, and this shining jewel settles into the foliage, vanishing despite its pale, greyish-blue undersides. The Holly Blue is busy contradicting its name in summer by breeding on Common Ivy. It is the Holly Blue in spring, the ‘Ivy Blue’ during summer and autumn. Seasonal dimorphism is evident in the female, with the summer female showing an extended black forewing apex.

We are staying in sylvan haunts for our next species, continuing with our second-brood theme and a new seasonal look. The summer season’s model is quite dowdy. The spring hatch of the Speckled Wood has deep chocolate upper surfaces spangled with large, rich cream spots. The summer edition is often paler brown with paler, smaller, less vivid spots. The summer males behave differently from their dads, showing a tendency to patrol their territory at a greater pace, creating the appearance of far greater aggression. The seasonal difference is attributable to increased temperatures. Cooler spring weather dictates greater time spent perching over patrolling. The ladies behave differently, too. Spring females lay their eggs in warm areas bathed in sunshine. In hot summer weather, shaded, more humid sites are favoured.

We are not leaving the woods, but our next butterfly likes more open habitats too. There are plenty of splendid scarlet-on-velvet black migrant Red Admirals on the go now. Many are females, laying frantically, suggesting a pent-up ovipositing urge unleashed following their arrival from overseas. Most of the Red Admirals have been extremely wary and almost impossible to approach closely. Speculating on reasons for their skittish demeanour, I have seen Painted Ladies behave in a similarly unsettled manner when arriving in an area, but they disappeared when I checked them the following day. Migrants will feed and possibly lay a few eggs in an area and move on, continuing their journey until they eventually settle in a district. Butterflies that have recently emerged can also be unsettled and highly wary.

The Large White is having a good summer, with records arriving from across the country. This widespread butterfly is a generalist and can turn up almost anywhere, but avoids intact bogland. This butterfly has declined greatly in abundance, with a 74% decline during the period 2008-2024. However, this might be improving; during 2015-2024, the abundance trend shows a 31% decline (Judge & Lysaght, 2025). This shouldn’t create confidence; taking a trend from a downward shifting baseline can obscure the extent of a decline. Grow brassicas and Garden Nasturtium Tropaeolum majus for this handsome, elegant butterfly.

One of the world’s most stunning, multi-coloured butterflies is widespread in Ireland, and its population is stable. It is beginning to appear now and first turned up in my garden yesterday (July 16th). Is anyone ever blasé about seeing a Peacock?

If you are doing Butterfly Conservation Ireland’s National Garden Butterfly Survey, keep a close eye on your garden. Mine is bursting with activity, making me reluctant to go out exploring. What better way to enjoy nature than on your doorstep?

The National Garden Butterfly Survey form is available here: 

https://butterflyconservation.ie/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/National-Garden-Butterfly-Survey.pdf

References

Harding, J and Mapplebeck, P. (2025) Silver-washed Fritillary (Argynnis paphia). Pp 90-91. In Harding & Lysaght (2025) An Atlas of Butterflies in Ireland 2010-2021. The National Biodiversity Data Centre. Waterford.

Judge, M and Lysaght, L.(2025) The Irish Butterfly Monitoring Scheme Newsletter, Issue 17. National Biodiversity Data Centre

Rippey, I. (2025) Purple Hairstreak (Favonius quercus). Pp 66-67. In Harding & Lysaght (2025) An Atlas of Butterflies in Ireland 2010-2021. The National Biodiversity Data Centre. Waterford.

The weather in Ireland in early July 2025 is so-so. Not hot, not cold, not sunny, but not raining heavily. Unlike in 2024, Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock caterpillars are being frequently seen on nettles as both butterflies rebuild after two years of wet weather.

Populations are higher this year, but not abundant. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it suffered enormous damage on a single day in 443 AD when an earthquake struck central Italy, as the Mount Vettore fault system ruptured. The damage caused by a massive event can be irreparable or take a long time to resolve.

I have not recorded a Garden Tiger moth in my garden since 2015. Damage is therefore ongoing, so my advice is never to turn one’s nose at a common butterfly. Celebrate each; you never know when we may lose them.

All photographs above were taken in early July 2025.

All photos copyright Jesmond Harding.