The Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui

Description

This beautiful butterfly migrates into the country every year, in very variable numbers, so that some years go down in history as "Painted Lady" years. The overall impression is of a peachy coloured butterfly with black and white flashes on its wings.

There are some remarkable colours and patterns on the under wings:

The underside of the Painted Lady is quite, quite beautiful:

Temple Ewell, 15-08-2013

Distribution

The Painted Lady is most likely to be come across in a Hadlow garden, probably on a Buddleia or other autumn flowering shrub. Occasionally you will see them moving strongly across country, potentially anywhere in the parish.

St Margarets, 15-08-2013

The migration causes waves of butterflies to arrive normally in the UK from a southeasterly direction, but their UK distribution does not reflect this - they can be found all across Britain and Ireland - right up to the Shetlands.

This Painted Lady was seen in June down by Whetsted Gravel Pits in the very south of the Parish, sunning itself on one of the paths. Had it just flown in from the continent?

Whetsted Gravel Pits, 01-06-2014

This butterfly is a multi-generational mass-migrator and it is a very interesting question - where is its home? Some would say that it originates in North Africa and circulates around Europe, reaching Britain in the NorthWest and then heading off towards Poland in the East, ending up back in the deserts of Africa again after about NINE generations of travelling!


Life cycle

The main larval food-plant species in the UK are thistles.


Oddities


Predators and parasites