Get set for a painted lady summer: big year for orange butterflies in Britain | Butterflies
If you’ve ever seen a pale orange butterfly scurrying at a crazy pace through the streets, fields or gardens, you’ve probably noticed the new immigrants who will add color to the summer in record numbers.
What is expected to be the biggest arrival? painted lady The eradication of butterflies has been ongoing in Britain for 17 years after heatwaves and favorable winds drove thousands, if not millions, of the insects northward.
The painted lady flies north from sub-Saharan Africa at the beginning of each year. Successive generations breed in North Africa and then in the Southern Mediterranean before reaching Northern Europe in the summer. In September, the children of these immigrants fly south again.
In some summers, none of these butterflies reach British shores, but Butterfly Conservation experts said a combination of favorable early spring conditions in southern Europe, a recent heatwave and benign southerly winds were turning 2026 into a once-in-a-decade “painted lady summer”.
“We’ve been seeing small numbers for the last three weeks, but last week it looks like there was a big migration from Europe just as the warm weather was settling in,” said Dan Hoare, the Butterfly Sanctuary’s director of nature recovery. “They grow extremely fast, feed easily and fly very well, breeding successfully in France and Spain during the heatwave and then catching favorable winds to enable them to cross the Channel.”
Painted females can hatch from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis and develop into an adult butterfly in as little as four to six weeks in warm weather, allowing buffer generations to emerge rapidly.
Butterflies have been spotted in large numbers this week along the east coast as far as northern England. On: Hickling national nature reserve Near the Norfolk coast, 253 butterflies were seen feeding on blackberry flowers.
Many are pale gray “grandparent” butterflies that may have traveled directly from North Africa or southern Spain, while others are brighter orange, short-distance travelers, French-born offspring that arrive in southern Europe in March and April.
The heatwave and southerly winds also helped an extremely rare moth: eastern border strawA species found in moth traps in southern England. striped hawks Another rare and unusual arrival worth paying attention to.
Painted ladies delight gardeners and farmers because their caterpillars devour a wide variety of thistles.
Within five or six weeks a great breed of British-born painted ladies is likely to arise; this is just in time for the world’s largest citizen science insect census, carried out by 100,000 volunteers every July.
“It feels like a real summer of butterflies, and this great migration could give us an even bigger brood in time. Big Number of Butterfliessaid Hoare.
The arrival of the painted lady en masse could lead to a late vote boost in the Butterfly Conservancy’s poll to find Britain’s favorite butterfly. The painted woman could challenge the peacock butterfly for first place.
“If the painted woman is your favorite, definitely give your votesaid Hoare.
