THE ORANGE TIP SAGA CONTINUES

As regular readers will know, Graham and I were very pleased last week to be able to confirm that the Orange Tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) has returned to the lanes around Woolsery after something like a thirty year absence. However, the plot thickens.

In North Devon the primary foodplant for Anthocharis cardamines is Cardamine pratensis, known as the Ladies Smock, or Cuckoo Flower (or locally, Meadowsweet, although this is generally used for a totally different flower).





It has always been locally common, but this year it is EVERYWHERE. Just check out these pictures of the bank next to Asda (below) and the corner of the CFZ lawn.

There must be some link between the population explosion in Cardamine pratensis and the re-occurence of the butterflies, but what is it? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?





Please give me your ideas on this because I am getting monumentally obsessed with the conundrum..