Painted
Lady Vanessa cardui (Linnaeus, 1758)  |
| Status
.....Occurs purely as a migrant here in varying
numbers, with occasional Spring influxes of enormous proportions and
involving millions of individual Painted Ladies. There have been two
such invasions in the past few years, with many remembering the first of
these back in 1996. It was of a larger scale than a similar event in
2009 and was an astounding experience for those lucky enough to witness
it. Most years, it is less frequent than the Red Admiral and there are
considerably fewer individual records from the county as a result. It is a butterfly which will be found in any habitat
throughout the county. |
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| Photographed
at Eakring Meadows July 2003 |
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Early stages |
| Full grown larva on Spear Thistle
Cirsium vulgare. Photographed at Eakring Flash June 2003. |
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| Full grown larva in larval
tent on Spear Thistle Cirsium vulgare. Photographed at Eakring
Flash June 2003. |
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