Orange-tips take to the wing

Late April into May is when the orange-tip butterfly takes to the wing. You may have seen a male with bright orange markings flit past you in recent weeks. Like all newly hatched male butterflies, they are constantly on the move, as they search desperately for nectar and a mate in equal measure.

The female is a small white butterfly and in place of the orange markings, has black wing tips and a dark spot on each wing. They are less active and more secretive but like the male, have wonderful mottled green markings on the underwing that provide excellent camouflage.

I spotted a female last week clinging to a cuckoo flower, a plant whose story is intertwined with the orange-tip’s life cycle. This delicate herb with lilac-pink flowers favours the damp banks of the ditches and is so-called as the timing of its blooms coincide with the arrival of the cuckoo.

The female orange-tip lays her eggs on the cuckoo flower stem. These eggs, the size of a pin prick, turn bright orange before a green caterpillar emerges to feed on the seedpods. After about a month, it becomes a brown chrysalis hidden in the vegetation waiting to emerge as a butterfly next spring.

Just one of the many wonderful cycles of life that the meadows support, which, like the returning of the cattle, we should celebrate each spring.