Dear Readers, there has been a ‘fall’ of Painted Lady butterflies in the south of England over the past few weeks, and today I finally got a photograph of one. This poor creature has probably arrived from Spain or France: the adults leave Morocco and fly over the Atlas mountains, laying eggs as they head north. These eggs then hatch and continue to head north as adult butterflies, arriving in the UK in May or early June, by which time adults that were laid here also hatch – these will look much more pristine.

This is a good advert for having some lavender in your garden as well…

I am amazed that this animal has made it this far – it’s missing the whole bottom part of one wing, but was still surprisingly speedy.

The caterpillars need thistles, burdock or our old friend stinging nettles to feed on, and will not move from the plants that they were hatched on, so if there are too many, some will starve. They also need warm weather, so fingers crossed! Stinging nettles are also food for Red Admiral caterpillars, so let’s not eat all of them, eh.

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) caterpillar – Photo by By Harald Süpfle – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7395467