A visit by an Orange-tip butterfly to the garden, what happens next is surely one of nature’s joys.
One of the joys of spring is seeing the Orange-tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines). The males with their flash of orange from which it gets its name, are often seen fluttering along woodland rides, passing by with purpose in mind.
The females in comparison bear no Orange-tip, but grey tips to her wings. Yet when she settles reveals a mottled green underwing that looks like decorative stained-glass windows in a church, a pattern unique to that butterfly. The males also have this mottling but its the orange flashes that first draw attention. These butterflies bring a smile to my face and are always welcome in my garden.
The story begins one sunny afternoon in the garden a couple of weeks ago, when I was sitting reading a substack article and a female Orange-tip came to visit. It landed on a plant called Jack by the Hedge, also known by the name Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolate). This year it’s growing in profusion down the right-hand side of the garden as I look-out from the kitchen window. It’s a biennial which means last year we saw very few but this year it has flourished filling the entire border. Orange-tips need Garlic Mustard or Cuckoo flower (Cardamine pratensis) also known as Lady’s Smock to complete their lifecycle. We don’t have any Cuckoo flower in the garden; it is a plant preferring wet meadows, which unfortunately this garden isn’t.
I watched a video recently by The Rambling Entomologist, Trevor Pendleton who indicated that the female lays her eggs not in a cluster of plants but in singletons. There is a very good reason for this preference, which I will come back to shortly.
On Monday the 27th of April at around 3pm a suspected female Orange-tip was spotted surveying the garden. I say suspected because it is not easy to get the detail of which particular white butterfly it might be until it lands. Here in the UK, there are three other common white butterflies namely the Small White (Pieris rapae), the Large White (Pieris brassicae) as well as the Green Veined White (Pieris napi). They are all on the wing at the same time which doesn’t help with identification at a glance. Apart from Large Whites, they are also roughly the same size, then again size is relative. The Orange-tip is 45mm, the Large White 63mm whilst other whites are somewhere in between, but closer to the Orange-tip in size. The Orange-tip has the shortest season on the wing Apr-June, and unlike the others is Univoltine – which means it completes only one generation per year.
Our Orange-tip settled on the very edge of the Jack by the Hedge border see below, red circle marks the spot. I say settled - it stayed for several days, no movement, no wing opening to absorb heat, no repositioning on the flowerhead, it was just motionless and swayed in the wind which picked up strength on Tuesday. This area of the garden was now shut off; no one was allowed to approach, as I feared doing so would disturb her and she would fly-off. Tuesday came and went and even though it was a nice sunny day with a decent temperature she did not move. So, there it sat 24hrs motionless, not even a twitch. Then on Wednesday morning at around 10am she lifted off and fluttered away. She’s not been back since, nor have we seen any other Orange-tips visiting the garden. I did go and take a picture of her mid Tuesday afternoon, approaching very carefully and slowly. Luckily, she seemed unbothered by her picture being taken and as we will soon discover she was very busy.
After she had gone, I found the flower she had settled on. It was right at the very end of the Garlic Mustard border so I examined it carefully, hoping she might have laid an egg— Orange-tips are known to lay their eggs singly within a flower head.
I must admit, at first, I felt a little disappointed. There was no immediate sign of an egg. Had she simply been resting there for the past couple of days? Could the temperature have dropped low enough for her to enter a state of torpor? Surely not. It was puzzling.
I examined the flower again and again, at different angles, turning it this way and that, trying to catch the light just right. I even used a hand lens to magnify the floret, but still nothing revealed itself. I must have spent a good ten to thirty minutes searching.
Then I noticed it—a tiny, green, oval speck tucked just beneath one of the florets, with a faint trace of white extending from it. At first, I dismissed it as nothing more than a fragment—a petal or anther dislodged by my disturbance. But something kept my attention. Then I remembered reading that Orange-tip eggs are green when first laid.
So, I returned the following day. And there it was—the same spot—but now transformed. The tiny green speck had turned into a vivid orange egg.
It’s an egg. Wonderful!!!!
I continued checking it and despite the poor weather, the start of May Bank Holiday week – with spells of heavy rain - it had now settled securely on the stem of one of the florets (see photographs below).
I wonder whether, as with hoverflies, the egg has a protective coating—one that prevents it from becoming waterlogged or drying out, while still allowing oxygen to diffuse in and waste gases to escape. I am sure it does.
It also appears to be attached to the stem of the floret itself. Perhaps it was always fixed in this position, and as the floret continued to grow it gave the impression that the egg had moved. The white attachment I noted earlier now seems to have detached, clinging instead to a leaf a little further down the plant. Maybe this was some afterbirth from the female laying the egg.
So, what happens next…?
The larva will now develop within the egg for a short period before hatching. This can take a week, so come the following Thursday there was the anticipation of a new arrival.
Unlike many other butterfly caterpillars, which feed on leaves, the Orange-tip larva feeds primarily on the developing seed pods of Garlic Mustard. They are also notably aggressive, even cannibalistic, consuming any rival larvae they encounter. This behaviour explains why the female lays only a single egg on each plant—whether on Cuckooflower or Garlic Mustard.
It does make me wonder, too, whether some form of chemical signal is left behind, effectively marking the plant as “occupied.” That might explain why I have not seen other Orange-tips using the same patch, despite there being an abundance of suitable plants. There seems to be more than enough Garlic Mustard to go around, so this absence of more eggs in the border remains something of a mystery.
It has also led me to question the timing of egg-laying. Does an Orange-tip require a period of isolation before laying? What accounted for her apparent hesitation—those two days before the egg finally appeared? Was she simply assessing the plant, waiting until it reached the perfect stage? Maybe it was laid within the first hour of her arrival and she was just protecting it?
I suspect I may never know for certain. A search through the literature offers little in the way of a clear answer.
Drop me a comment below if you have noticed this type of behaviour yourself, I would love to hear from you, especially if you have any answer to my questions.
The Following Week…….
After checking our little egg daily nothing seemed to be happening, although as the photograph above shows I think the egg lost its vivid orange colour turning much paler.
Then on the 8th of May at around midday, I was pleased to announce to family and friends the arrival of little Clementine. Well Clementine if a girl, Terry if it is a boy. I prefer Clementine being no fear of copyright infringement.
She is a pale tiny orange caterpillar with little black hairs. Tiny, no bigger than the egg from which she hatched. So, apologies for the fuzzy photographs, this was the best I could to with an old iPhone. The caterpillar being no bigger than a hairs width 0.1cm.
Hopefully over the next 25 days she will grow and change colour, blue green top half and dark green underneath a better blending to her environment. This phase of its lifecycle should last a few a weeks before she attaches herself to a woody stem to form a chrysalis, imitating a sharp thorn.
I am excited to continue to observe and follow her progress over the coming weeks, assuming nothing happens as this next phase is a very precarious part of her lifecycle. There are many small birds in the garden which no doubt would love to find and feed a juicy caterpillar to their young. Tragic for my story if this happens and why I have written it now. Whether predator or farmer she has attracted an Ant (Aunt) who visits regularly.
At the publication of this article 13th of May Clementine is still present on the same floret she was born.
Once she reaches the pupa stage, and for the next 10 months she will be completely still and exposed to the elements. However, her camouflage will protect her from birds and other predators through summer, autumn and winter. I certainly won’t be cutting back the border or replanting it with anything else this year that’s for sure.
I hope, like me, you have found this story fascinating —proof of just how much can be discovered in your own garden if you let nature in. To witness not only the butterfly itself, but the very beginning of the next generation of Orange-tips, feels like a real privilege. It also stresses the importance of leaving areas wild and untouched, giving wildlife time to develop, grow, and pupate to form the next generation.
It is remarkable to think that the Orange-tip spends most of its life hidden in plain sight, mimicking a fragment of a plant. Its survival is not built for speed or strength, but on precise timing and extraordinary disguise—a quiet but powerful reminder of how finely tuned these insects are to their world.
I do hope you have enjoyed this small glimpse into one of nature’s joys. I will, of course, update this article with photographs should there be any further developments—so please come back and check later in the season.
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| Photo by Erik Karits on Unsplash |
This gives me plenty of time to sit and drink coffee, so if you would like to help me keep watch over little Clementine then please consider buying me a cup of coffee. It would be very much appreciated.
Sources:
Thomas.J: 2007 Guide to Butterflies of Britain and Ireland. Philip’s
Lewington.R: 2003 Pocket Guide to the Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland. British Wildlife publishing
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