Nature on our doorsteps: The Painted Ladies have arrived…

Rosaleen Dwyer is the County Heritage Officer at South Dublin County Council – every week she gives us an insight into the natural heritage around us and the beautiful biodiversity of the plants and creatures.

Depending on weather conditions, the beautiful Painted Lady butterflies normally begin to arrive from southern Europe in good numbers in May.

This beautiful butterfly’s story begins early in March in the Atlas Mountains of northern Africa when adult butterflies mate and lay their eggs.

When these hatch and mature into adults, thousands of new Painted Ladies begin their long migration northwards to escape the excessive heat of the north African summer.

Flying north over mountains and desert, the migrating butterflies stop first in southern Spain.

Here they replenish their vital energy by feeding on nectar-rich springtime Mediterranean flowers.

Some butterflies stay and breed in Spain, while most will continue the journey northwards as far as Scandinavia and eastwards into eastern Europe.

As the butterflies travel up through Europe, many will stop along the way to breed.

Some of the offspring from these butterflies will then also join the migration journey northwards when they themselves are mature.

On their 2,500 km journey to Ireland, Painted Lady butterflies can travel as far as 130 km in one day, sometimes flying as fast as 50 km per hour.

Depending on the weather conditions in Europe in March and April, they can begin to appear in Ireland in May or early June.

On arriving, they will mate, and they will search out the right food plants upon which to lay their eggs.

In Ireland, the preferred plants for their caterpillars are  Thistles and Nettles.

It was once thought that the adults that hatched in Ireland died away in autumn because they could not survive our cold winters.

Now, however, it is understood that Painted Ladies make a return journey to Northern Africa at the end of summer.

During this return migration, they fly at very high altitudes of around 3,000 feet.

At these heights, the butterflies avoid any bad weather closer to the ground and can hitch a much quicker ride home on high altitude southerly winds.

The phenomenal migration of the Painted Lady butterflies is truly one of nature’s natural wonders.