CLOUDED YELLOW
The clouded yellow is an excellent flier, and can easily travel thousands of kilometres, migrating from the South to northern Europe. The species is famous for occasional mass immigrations, which are called clouded yellow years. The sexes are similar, except the male’s upper wings are more orange, although you only notice this when they are on the wing. When resting or feeding, their wings are closed, and you can see the females forward wings have a whitish base. My favourite part of the clouded yellow are its eyes which are a wonderful bright green.
This is a large butterfly, with an overall wingspan of 60mm, although the individuals I have so far seen, are no bigger than 50mm. The caterpillar is green, with a yellowish white stripe down its sides. This stripe has pinky red spots. It feeds on a variety of legumes, especially clover. This butterfly can be seen in a variety of habitats, but it likes to congregate in flowery places, where the larval foodplants grow. Open, warm and dry flowery grasslands are favoured, but I have seen this butterfly all over the island, where there are flowers.
