Everywhere you look, natural wonders can be found on the Common Lands.
Late April into May is when the orange-tip butterfly takes to the wing. You may have seen a male with bright orange markings flit past you in recent weeks. Like all newly hatched male butterflies, they are constantly on the move, as they search desperately for nectar and a mate in equal measure.
The female is a small white butterfly and in place of the orange markings, has black wing tips and a dark spot on each wing. They are less active and more secretive but like the male, have wonderful mottled green markings on the underwing that provide excellent camouflage.
I spotted a female last week clinging to a cuckoo flower, a plant whose story is intertwined with the orange-tip’s life cycle. This delicate herb with lilac-pink flowers favours the damp banks of ditches and is so-called as the timing of its blooms coincide with the arrival of the cuckoo.
The female orange-tip lays her eggs on the cuckoo flower stem. These eggs turn bright orange before a green caterpillar emerges to feed on the seedpods. After about a month, it becomes a brown chrysalis hidden in the vegetation waiting to emerge as a butterfly next spring.
Just one of the many wonderful cycles of life that the meadows support, which, like the returning of the cattle at this time of year, we should celebrate each spring.
Suffolkwilds 