Butterflies and their survival strategies to get them through the winter
Butterflies are creatures of the summer, of flower-filled days and long, sunny evenings. But, like all wildlife, they need to survive the winter too. Most adults fade away by autumn, their bright colours muted and their delicate wings in tatters but their life’s mission complete. Hundreds of thousands of eggs have been laid and for nine butterfly species (including chalk hill blue, silverspotted skipper and most hairstreaks) these will be the sole survivors.
Their eggs are minuscule life support capsules designed to withstand the harshest of winter conditions and protect the developing larvae within, which spend up to eight months inside their armoured shells.
They are dormant for much of this time, sleeping their way through winter, but by spring the tiny caterpillars will be ready to eat their way out and begin feasting on their food plants.
Most butterflies (31 species) overwinter as caterpillars, relying on camouflage and a good hiding place to keep themselves safe.
They tend to hide in the leaves of their food plant or tucked away in grassy tussocks, trying their best not to be noticed.
Some caterpillars (11 species including the whites, holly blue and speckled wood) pupate ahead of winter and survive as a chrysalis, wrapping their soft and vulnerable bodies in a tough protective casing and completing their metamorphosis next year.
But a hardy few will overwinter as adults. Brimstone, peacock, comma, small tortoiseshell and some red admiral butterflies spend the late summer months feasting on nectar to build up as much body fat as possible.
By now they will have found a cool, dry and sheltered spot to hibernate, perhaps in a garden shed, porch or garage, or in the natural shelter provided by dense ivy and stacked woodpiles.
Sometimes they attempt to hibernate inside our homes, which can be problematic when the central heating kicks in and stimulates an early ‘spring’ awakening. If this happens, it’s best to carefully move them to an unheated outbuilding if you have one, or else keep the butterfly somewhere cool and release it outside on a sunny day so that it can find suitable shelter and head back to bed. as some that we will soon return to how it was as the changes coronavirus has brought won’t be undone in a hurry, if at all.
The decline of the high street appears to have been accelerated by the virus while the future of many pubs is in serious doubt. We are yet to discover just how severe the financial impact of the past nine months will be, but the politicians have already hinted that tough decisions will need to be made in the months and years ahead.
However, it is the change to society itself that worries me the most as there are genuine signs that post-Covid Britain might be an even less tolerant place than it was before, which I know is hard to believe.
At the start of all of this, a genuine sense of community was one real bright spot amid the gloom, fuelled in part by Thursday nights and the banging of saucepans in honour of the heroes – there is no other word for them – working on the frontline.
Neighbours began looking out for each other more than perhaps they had before and random acts of kindness became commonplace. While this hasn’t gone away completely, there is a sense of increasing intolerance among some, who have quite simply had enough of curbed freedoms and having to spend more time with their families. Perhaps understandably, people are more preoccupied with the behaviour of others now than ever before with curtaintwitching coming dramatically back into fashion. Worrying about whether the bloke going into number 56 is there to fix the boiler or to indulge in illicit scones and a cup of Yorkshire Tea with his great auntie Doris isn’t conducive to long-term community cohesion. Jumping to conclusions has never been helpful but, just by listening to others, it seems that an increasing number are doing just that. The collective patience of a nation is also thin on the ground, especially when it comes to the correct wearing of face masks indoors. Woe betide you if you absent-mindedly venture down the cereal aisle with your hooter poking out the top of your face covering as you will very likely to be put straight by a fellow shopper, who almost certainly has the self-given nickname of ‘Covid police’. It will be argued that community vigilance is important during a pandemic but what worries me is the longterm cost of this and whether neighbours and friends will be able to forgive and forget comments and actions of others during this undoubtedly stressful time. Will the fact that the bloke who recently moved in six doors down had his mates round during Lockdown Two be the source of resentment locally for years to come? Hopefully not and once the nightmare is finally over for all of us, we can get on with living our lives, making long-term plans and enjoying meaningful human contact once again.