This afternoon, on my way to work in Oxfordshire, I took advantage of the continued sunny weather and stopped off at Thrupp, near Abingdon. Members of the local butterfly conservation group had shared a collage of Clouded Yellow butterfly images from the area on the UK Butterflies Facebook page, so I thought I would take the opportunity to try and see them.
I parked my car and quickly found the clover field where the Clouded Yellows had been reported. It didn't take long before I spotted my first one as I walked around the field; however, photographing them would be a challenge. I spent the next couple of hours walking along the edge of the field and counted seven individual butterflies, but not one landed near me. They just kept flying past and heading towards the centre of the field. Eventually, while walking along the field's edge, I finally found one.
The Clouded Yellow is a migrant butterfly from southern Europe and North Africa that can arrive in Britain in large numbers, and its occurrence in Thrupp is a specific instance of this migratory phenomenon.
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