Challenge on Nature Photography Part 4

 My fourth photo for my slow (but I assure you, fully intended to be completed) ‘challenge on nature photography’, is of two roosting male Orange Tips (Anthocharis cardamines), it's a particular favourite of mine, taken this Spring, and was highly commended in this year's British Wildlife Photography Awards (http://www.bwpawards.org/static/2015/young-winner-2015.html). For birdwatchers, the first sign of spring might be a singing Chiffchaff, or the first Swallows on the wires, for Botanists, the first bulbs, maybe Snowdrops or Daffodils, but for butterfly-watchers, this tangerine – tipped icon, is the undisputed harbinger of the changing seasons.




A close up of the combination of yellow and black scales that give
the Orange Tip underside its mottled green colouring.

Generally, it’s the males that emerge first with the eponymous orange wing tips, followed by the females with black ones. Interestingly, the markings of male Orange Tips give them a double-barrelled approach to preventing predation, the bright wing tips are an example of aposematic colouring – that warns predators of the foul taste of the butterfly (thanks to toxins it absorbs from its foodplant as a caterpillar), thus persuading them to go elsewhere for a quick bite, whilst the underside of the hindwings exhibit ‘crypsis’, with their mottled green (actually a mixture of yellow and black scales) markings giving Orange Tips brilliant camouflage when at rest (particularly when on cow parsley, which is all they seem to roost on in the garden), allowing them to escape detection and predation.

Females are a more retiring butterfly than the brilliantly-coloured males, and are generally only seen when being harassed by a male, and giving the distinctive raised-abdomen butterfly equivalent of the middle finger, or when flitting from foodplant to foodplant on an egg-laying run. Eggs are laid on crucifers, most often Garlic Mustard and Cuckoo Flower but Orange Tips are fairly Catholic in their tastes, and I’ve seen them laying on that famous super food: Kale (does it work wonders for Caterpillars too?), and even Oilseed Rape. 



Neonicotinoid pesticides that are regularly applied to the latter as a seed dressing have recently been linked to hefty declines in many British butterfly species, particularly grass-feeders, and some of the Orange Tip’s close pierid relatives, which will also lay on crucifers and Oilseed Rape. So far, Orange Tips seem to have escaped unscathed, but it’s vital that more research is done into the effects of a group of chemicals increasingly seen as a silent killer in our countryside, if you fancy helping with this, you can donate here: http://butterfly-conservation.org/48-10581/neonicotinoid-pesticides-linked-to-butterfly-declines.html.


For now, anyway, Orange Tips remain relatively easy to find in our gardens, parks, and boggy meadows – long may it last!


Spot the Orange Tips! - There are 7 in this photo, and there was another just out of shot!



As you've probably realised, I'm an absolute sucker for backlit Orange Tips at roost,
they just look soooo nice.