Want to mix up your home Easter egg hunt? Find butterflies and the places they hide their eggs!
April 14, 2020
Even from home, there’s lots we can do to help nature. Assistant Ranger Sophie Brown shares her tips on finding butterflies from your own home and garden.
Butterflies, like many insects, are very particular about where they lay their eggs. It’s important that they are hidden from creatures that may want to eat them, like birds and other insects. It’s equally important they are somewhere that’s not too hot or dry and where the caterpillar can get a quick meal after hatching.
Let’s see how many butterflies and plants we can find! If you’re really lucky, you might even find the egg of the orange-tip butterfly. Below are all the butterflies flying at this time of year in gardens, as well as the plants they lay their eggs on. Share your findings on these apps and post photos to show what you find:
These apps send your findings to a place where scientists can use the information to find out more about our butterflies and plant life. This contributes to conservation research and can help us to understand the effects of climate change.
Butterfly |
Caterpillar plant food |
| Peacock | Common nettles |
| Red admiral | Common nettle Small nettle Pellitory-of-the-wall |
| Brimstone | Buckthorn |
| Comma | Hops Common nettle Elm Currant |
| Orange tip | Garlic mustard Cuckoo flower |
| Small white | Garlic mustard Nasturtium |
| Holly blue | Holly Ivy Snowberries Dogwood Spindle Gorse |
Don’t worry if you only have a small garden, or not even one at all! It’s amazing what you can spot fluttering past.
I have a little garden out back that is mostly shade, so my best butterfly sitings have been a brimstone flying over the road behind my house from the kitchen window, and a holly blue I saw flying over my roof from my top floor window!
Daydreaming while staring out the window has its uses after all.
Information gathered from The Butterflies of Britain & Ireland by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Lewington