Great British Lepidoptera

Red Admiral

(Vanessa Atalanta)

The bright colours of the butterfly earned it the 18th Century name of the Admirable, from which its modern name evolved.

Its wings so resembled the robes and livery colours of noblemen and dignitaries that it was also called the Alderman.

The Red Admiral is a familiar butterfly with influxes from the continent bringing  numbers from abraod each year.  The first butterflies start arriving in May and produce the eggs which give rise to a resident generation in the summer.

It is a fast flyer which patrols small territories such as sections of hedgerows, lanes and woodland clearings, driving away intruding butterflies. It often rests and suns itself, displaying the brilliance of its outstretched wings. Usually for a butterfly, it sometimes flies at night.

Gardeners know the Red Admiral as an autumn visitor to ice-plants, buddleia and Michaelmas Daisies. In the wild it feeds on the nectar of teasel, scabious, clover and the flowers of Ivy. It drinks water from puddles and the sap exuding from trees. It flocks to windfall apples rotting on the ground- a scene captured by William Wordsworth in his poem To a butterfly: 'This plot of orchard-ground is ours'