All
the way from Africa, an invasion of Painted Ladies; all the way to
our garden. Dozens, nay scores, of orange beauties dancing and
fluttering on the buddleia flowers.
This year has seen millions of
them arriving from Europe though they start their journey in Africa
to where they will migrate back in the Autumn after reaching as or
north as Iceland and even out to St Kilda. Each butterfly's entire
life-cycle is about a month so it takes several generations to make
each journey, mating and breeding on the move.
How
does this tiny creature manage such a feat? With no opportunity to
follow its now deceased parents, how does each succeeding generation
know where to go and when to turn back? Hard-wired into a brain the
size of a pin-head, what are the stimuli that control the mass
movement?
We
take their beauty so lightly, these marvels of migration arriving in
our gardens looking for nettles and thistles for their caterpillars.
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| Perfect food for Painted Lady caterpillars |
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| A solitary Red Admiral among the Ladies |
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