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Butterfly Survey 1976-2015
Orange Tip
Orange Tip Male (anthocharis cardamines)
Wingspan - 40 mm
The Orange Tip is the signature butterfly for the arrival of Spring for anyone who has walked or cycled the lanes and footpaths of this small corner of Kent. As one of the first Spring emergents, i.e., non hibernating in butterfly form, the orange tip is a good indicator of climate change. In the study I have conducted, the butterfly demonstrates a full months difference in its pattern of emergence between the 1970's and now - even when taking our naturally variable weather patterns into account.
Habit: Semi territorial, The unmistakable orange winged males emerge first and will often be found patrolling close to its foodplant along a particular stretch of lane, hedgerow or woodland margin. This patrolling behaviour is almost certainly a search mechanism the male to locate and mate with the more reticent and later emerging females. The season for the butterfly is extensive, stretching from April well into May and occasionally June, when the Spring weather is changeable and uncertain.
Single brooded: over winters as a pupae hooked up on a thread in a vee from a twig. The larvae is unexceptional, thin and greenish and mimics the pods of the hedge garlic on which it feeds*.
Larval Foodplant: garlic mustard (and relations), cuckoo flower*
Status: Under some threat - numbers fluctuate, but diminished from former times - undoubtedly a casualty of interference of habitat through modern hedge management, increased traffic and pesticide use. Suffers much mortality in the larval and pupal stages by the often untimely and brutal roadside hedge trimming.
WH - White Hill, SH-Shoreham, BC-Bromley Common, Ha-Hayes BN-Bromley North, BR-Bromley All, Ey-Eynsford, Orp-Orpington, Rux -Ruxley Res Kn Pk - Knoll Pk
© Rodney Compton