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GETTING READY FOR OUR NZ BUTTERFLY SUMMER

8/8/2019

Every Summer I plant 3 cabbages for the white butterflies.
White butterflies are much maligned in New Zealand, as perhaps they are in the other countries they frequent.

Pieris rapae is our only species of white butterfly in New Zealand - a white or creamy white butterfly with greyish/black wing tips. The difference between males and females can be seen on their forewings. Males have a single black spot - females have two black spots.

In the main they are disliked because of the damage they do to broccoli, cabbage and other brassica vegetable plants. I, in particular, love white butterflies and absolutely look beyond this aspect of them. Their caterpillars have to eat, after-all.

If you're not a fan of white butterflies I urge you to look past their destructive tendencies in vegetable gardens by finding other ways to cover your vegetables. Then you will be able to enjoy this hardy and fascinating butterfly that is different to any other that we have in New Zealand.

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BUTTERFLY HAPPINESS

12/2/2019

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Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote -

"Happiness is like a butterfly. When pursued it is always beyond your grasp but, if you sit quietly, it may alight upon you." 🦋

Ref: Wikipedia

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BUTTERFLY PHOTOS FOR WINTER

8/7/2016

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It's mid winter here in New Zealand and the weather is cold and dreary.
Here are just a few of the butterfly photos I took during summer, as a pick-me-up for the winter blues.

Click on each picture, below, to see a larger view.....

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BUTTERFLIES MAKE ME HAPPY

10/3/2016

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PAINTED LADY_Vanessa Kershawi

A happy Julie is Julie with camera in hand and grovelling around in the grass and weeds, usually on all fours, searching for butterflies. It's amusing the number of people who stop and ask what on earth I am doing.
Click click.

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PHOTOGRAPHING BUTTERFLIES

8/3/2016

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Long-tailed Blue (Lampides boeticus)

I went out photographing butterflies this morning. I'm sure most people will have an idealistic idea of what that might look like, with pretty flowers and nice gardens, however here is my reality.

1) I find the scruffiest bit of ground I can, with specific low-growing weeds that the types of butterflies I am wanting to photograph will go for.

2) I crawl along the ground on hands and knees, preferably at the side of the road where everyone can drive past and see me at my best.

3) When I find a butterfly I dive - head down, bum up - steadying myself until I have taken the photograph.

4) Eventually I arrive home, muddy, dirty and usually triumphant, but looking like I've been caught in a rugby scrum.

Click on each picture below, to see a larger view.........

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WHITE BUTTERFLIES' NIGHT ROOST

6/3/2016

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Roosting White Butterfly

In the past two weeks I've seen several roosting butterflies at night, which is interesting because prior to this I have never before seen any.

This evening, just before dusk, I noticed a White Butterfly flying low around a small area of Clivia that we have growing at the side of our house. It's flying pattern was small and it was keeping quite close to the leaves. I watched it fly back and forth, back and forth and, after about 15 minutes of this, it settled under a Clivia leaf and just stayed there. An hour later I looked back there and saw that another White Butterfly had joined it. Although not hanging upside down under a leaf, the second butterfly was quite settled on an adjoining leaf.

Given my enormous interest in butterflies, I'm surprised to realise that I've not really given much thought to where they might go at night.

I've asked about and found this information..............

Butterflies almost always ‘sleep’ hanging upside-down and underneath a leaf. This hanging requires minimal energy, as their tarsi (aka ‘claws’) can grasp on to the leaf with little effort, opposed to standing right side up.

Why under a leaf?

Two main reasons. For one, they gain protection from rain that often falls at night. Secondly, they are more hidden from early-rising birds looking for a meal that may be active before the butterflies are warm enough to take off.

I have often noted that butterflies with warning coloration (black and bright yellow, orange wings) sleep more exposed, for example under a thin twig rather than under a covering leaf. This coloration is there as a signal to warn birds that they may be poisonous to eat. So, it may work to the butterflies’ advantage to show their entire color signal (aka wings) to birds, rather than keep their wings partially hidden under a leaf, explaining why they may tend to sleep more in the open.

So, are they actually asleep?

Depends on your definition of sleep. If you want to define sleep as an inactive, low metabolic state: yes. This low metabolic state is often driven by the temperature in the air itself; ectothermic butterflies require outside heat-energy to become active.

There’s really no use in being active at night for most butterflies- they can’t see each other to mate, and empty flowers are restocking themselves with nectar for the following day. So, it makes sense that they would go into this ‘sleep’ state which likely helps them digest the day’s feed, produce eggs/sperm, and basically take advantage of a time in which there is nothing better to do.

During this nocturnal state they are still capable of flying off if disturbed. Also, there are some butterflies that specialize in roosting together at night in groups, and others I’ve seen regularly in pairs. Some butterflies in temperate climates are capable of overwintering as an adult, which is basically a physiologically extreme version of this normal sleep, kind of similar to hibernation.

REF: Rainforest Expeditions - Do Butterflies Sleep?

The word “roost” probably brings to mind chickens perched on their nests, snuggling down for the night. But chickens aren’t the only things with wings who make roosting a part of their regular activity – butterflies do it too! Sometimes species roost on their own, while others prefer large groups, but all butterflies need safe places to take shelter from time to time, and your butterfly garden can help provide those spaces.

Roosting is the word used to describe butterflies at rest for more than a few minutes at a time. All butterfly species roost overnight, and during wet or chilly weather. Some species even roost all winter long, such as the migratory monarch population that overwinters in Mexico. During the roosting period, butterflies sometimes enter a state known as “torpor“, in which they drop their body temperature, heartbeat, and respiration as low as possible to conserve energy.
Most butterflies roost upside-down under the shelter of leaves, but others choose cracks in rocks or the trunks of trees. Because butterflies are most vulnerable when they’re at rest and unaware of their surroundings, it’s vital that they blend in to avoid the notice of predators. Most butterflies have duller patterns on the undersides of their wings that will help them camouflage or fade into the background as they roost.

In your own butterfly garden, you can help roosting butterflies by providing places for them to take shelter. Some companies offer so-called “butterfly houses” for this purpose, but in my own experience, butterflies rarely use these and they generally just wind up providing a place for wasps to build nests. Instead, be sure to make shrubs, tall grasses, and even trees a part of your butterfly garden. Snags of dead branches or rock piles can also provide shelter. Most importantly, if you come across roosting butterflies, resist the urge to touch them, even just “to see if they’re still alive”. They will move when they’re good and ready.

REF: Birds and Blooms - Roosting Butterflies

Two roosting White Butterflies

ADDEDUM:
This morning (the morning after) I checked at 7.30am, just as the sun was rising, and noticed that the butterfly under the leaf was still there whilst the other had gone.

The butterfly under the leaf was just beginning to feel the suns rays on it's wings. When I checked back 30 minutes later the suns rays were fully shining on its wings.

Knowing the cleverness of butterflies, coupled with my observation as to the length of time the butterfly took, flying around and around the patch of Clivia checking out leaves, there is no doubt in my mind that the clever thing deliberately chose the location because it provided (1) protection from above (by way of the wide, flat, Clivia leaf) and (2) was directly in the path of the rising sun's rays that would warm its wings and enable the butterfly to fly.

Roosting White Butterfly receiving the rising sun's rays on its wings at 8.00am

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White Butterfly Beautiful

29/6/2015

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I think White Butterflies are beautiful. Don't you?
I must admit, however, that for most of my life until now, I (like many other people) saw them as a pest eating my cabbage and lettuce plants. Since taking up photography in a serious way, and developing a huge love of butterflies, I have seen their splendour through different eyes.

From the first day I took a photo of a White Butterfly with my macro lens, my love affair with these much maligned butterflies began. By laying their eggs on host plants for their caterpillars to feed on and grow into butterflies, they are only doing what nature has hard-wired them to do. That we like to eat cabbages, lettuces and similar, is certainly not the butterfly's fault.

Cabbage White

Cabbage White in flight

The small white (Pieris rapae) is a small- to medium-sized butterfly species of the whites-and-yellows family Pieridae. It is also known as the small cabbage white and in New Zealand, simply as white butterfly.

The names "cabbage butterfly" and "cabbage white" can also refer to the large white.
The butterfly can be distinguished by the white color with small black dots on its wings. They are distinguished from the smaller size and lack of the black band at the tip of their forewings.

Ref: Wikipedia

Cabbage White in tatters

Cabbage White on lavender

The White Butterfly is suspected tho have first arrived in New Zealand in the summer of 1929-30. It was first recorded in Napier in March 1930.

It quickly spread throughout New Zealand by the autumn of 1936, however there seems to be 'jumps' in its dispersal over those few years. For example the first specimen in the South Island was in the port town of Timaru, not in the Marlborough region as one would expect by natural dispersion.
The logical conclusion is that some specimens where transported around the country along with our shared food of the cabbage family. This is the way it is suspected that the White Butterfly made it to New Zealand (just like North America in the years before and Australia in the years after). No one is sure whether the New Zealand stock came from Hawaii, North America, Europe, Asia or a combination, but most likely it travelled as a pupa in diapause as this would give it the best chance of surviving in a cold store.
It is recorded as having up to 5 generations a year in the north and 2 generations in the south.

The White Butterfly is considered a pest in New Zealand, so several parasites (Ichneumon's, the wasps Pteromalus Puparum and Apanteles glomeratus) have being released to control it.
Unfortunately they are negatively effecting other species of butterfly, especially the Red and Yellow Admirals and the Monarchs.

The White Butterfly has characteristics not seen in other New Zealand Butterflies, namely the aforementioned diapause, a seasonal difference in size, and less black markings on the spring generation.

The Maori name "Pepe Ma" is translated from the English name.

Ref: NZ Butterfly Info