Butterflies

After a poor summer for butterflies in my garden - none appeared on the flowering buddleia earlier on - it was good to see three species today on the michaelmas daisies.
Malcolm

Peacock

Red Admiral

Small Tortoiseshell

Photos from Colonsay

I was on Colonsay last week for my brother's wedding and, apart from taking hundreds of wedding photos, managed to get out for some walks and photograph the beautiful scenery and wildlife there. Here's a few for starters.
Becky

Beautiful Balnahard Bay on the north-east of the island

Profusion of Dog Violets

Peacock Butterfly

After a week of searching I was rewarded by a brief view of my favourite butterfly - Green Hairstreak. There's no doubt there's fewer of them this year as a result of our poor spring.

Our Peacocks have emerged!

I was glad it didn't happen on Monday - the day of rain. It happened yesterday, or rather it started to happen - the first of our Peacock chrysalises hatched and the beautiful imagos (butterflies) emerged. I allowed them to rest and dry their wings yesterday and today have put them out to enjoy the sunshine and fly off when they are ready. There are still a few left to fly!
Becky

Peacock butterflies resting on the pavilion

Butterfly Update

Shortly after arriving for another day at the visitor centre this morning, I began doing the rounds, checking all the creatures were alright. I was so excited when I noticed this Peacock Butterfly caterpillar beginning its transformation into a chrysalis, having missed the other 5 or so. For the next 8 minutes (9.38 am -9.46 am) I keenly watched  the fat caterpillar get shorter and shorter, squashing itself into its shiny green tent. I have captured the action in this sequence of photos as best I could amongst a maze of fellow chrysalises! The final stage was for the hard worked caterpillar to decapitate itself (almost). You will see this in a video to follow.

9.38am

9.38am

9.41am

9.44am: It looked like a real struggle!

9.46am: Once the major transformation was complete, there was much writhing, squirming and twitching. The chrysalis gradually darkened to brown.

The 'Big Question' in July's BBC Wildlife Magazine is all about how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. In my reading, I have discovered that a caterpillar's juvenile hormone 'slows progress towards adulthood', keeping it a larva while the hormone's levels are high. Gradually the juvenile hormone slows down and falls below a critical level, triggering the final moult into a chrysalis. Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar is basically recycled, and adult features finally develop!

Lorna

Peacock Butterfly

An extremely battered-looking Peacock butterfly that must have over-wintered and was out enjoying some spring sunshine near Ballygrant today.

Peacock Butterfly in November - Jenni Minto

Thanks to Jenni for this shot of a Peacock taken outside Port Charlotte yesterday...

Butterfly Pavilion Update

I was very excited this morning when I went to check the caterpillars we'd put in the pavilion last night because not only were they crawling all over the place and looking lovely and healthy, but, wait for it, there were some eggs that I'd not noticed before. The top picture shows what I think are Peacock butterfly eggs because they look a bit like miniscule gooseberries.

The bottom picture shows both Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars (stripey) and Peacock caterpillars (black) in our pavilion.

Becky

Peacock Butterfly Caterpillars

The rock pooling was impossible today due to high tide, but we followed Malcolm's advice and searched through the nettles at Port Mor, looking for Peacock Butterfly eggs which I told everyone looked a bit like tiny gooseberries. Darcy was the first person to find them, but they weren't eggs anymore, they had just hatched into tiny black caterpillars, lots of them. It was a very exciting moment.

But there was more to come when Darcy (again) called over that she'd found more caterpillars that looked a bit different. This time they were Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars which also feed on nettles. I was ecstatic! The ones shown above are the Peacock caterpillars; the Small Tortoiseshell ones didn't come out but I'll try again tomorrow.

We have taken a few of each species to put in our butterfly pavilion at the centre. Do come and have a look when we open next week.

Becky