Yellows

Family: PIERIDAE

This family includes the familiar 'Cabbage Whites' and their allies. Due to their larger size and conspicuous colouring, they are much more noticeable. They move around more, too -being in the more mobile categories of butterflies, especially the Yellows, featured on this page.

CLOUDED YELLOW Colias croceus

We are very fortunate in having already had this occasional migrant butterfly visit us during three out of our first eleven summers here. Due to it's erratic migration this far north into Britain, it may be years before we see it here again. Even if they breed whilst here, the caterpillars cannot survive our winters. The butterflies are much more beautiful than can be appreciated from photos, because they never open their wings when settled, therefore their real beauty is only discerned in flight, when they look like miniature AA vans hurrying through the flowers!

CURRENT STATUS infrequent migrant - seen 1998, 2000, 2002. LARVAL FOODPLANT clover. FAVOURED NECTAR PLANTS Buddleia; scabious; Verbena bonariensis; knapweed; Liatris spicata. WHEN SEEN June and July, then offspring seen August and September. SPECIALIST REQUIREMENTS purely migratory - a guest species.

BRIMSTONE Gonepteryx rhamni

The bright butter yellow is only present in the male, the female is a greenish-white colour, but in flight can easily be mistaken for a Large White. Brimstones never open their wings when settled.

CURRENT STATUS Uncommon. Breeds on site but has yet to establish a permanent breeding colony. LARVAL FOODPLANT Alder buckthorn. FAVOURED NECTAR PLANTS Buddleia; red campion; dame's-violet; honesty; broad bean; rose campion; scabious spp.; montbretia; hemp agrimony; fox-and-cubs; red phlox; clover; mallow. WHEN SEEN Hibernate as adults, so can be seen as soon as the spring weather is warm enough, up until late June. The offspring flies from late July until entering hibernation, usually around September - October. SPECIALIST REQUIREMENTS A wealth of the foodplant if you want these wanderers to stay with you. Even then they may decide to wander off on their missions.

This is the longest living British butterfly, the adults living for almost a year including hibernation. They hibernate in evergreen bushes, bramble, or ivy, where they look like leaves themselves. A good example of this can be seen on the left. They breed in the spring only, and the new butterflies that emerge in the high summer wander extensively.