[Pete Collins]

Originally Posted by harasseddad

Global warming - the weather in the Atlas mountains was exceptionally wet, producing abundent flowers. This allowed populations to build up. Normally they migrate to southern europe, breed there and we get an influx of that european generation in July. This year we're getting to overflow because europe is full! If you think there's a lot now, imagine what July will bring if all those in europe now succeed in breeding!

Originally Posted by Susie

Apparently there are many millions of them heading northwards. The influx is due to good winter rains over the Atlas Mountains in North Africa which has resulted in a bumper brood of painted ladies this year heading northwards in a search for new breeding territories. Obviously these will produce young of their own and I understand that in good conditions a new brood of PLs can grow to adult-hood in a month so we should have many fresh, large, painted ladies of our own throughout the coming summer. Bliss!

Thanks for the info/explanation. I've only seen a couple of Painted Ladies so far this year, I'm looking forward to seeing many more.

Originally Posted by Wild-Woman

Yesterday (26th May 09) I witnessed with a friend, something that I've never seen before. Literally 1000's (yes thousands) of Painted Ladies along the coastline between St Margarets and Kingsdown in Kent. As we walked, clouds of them rose up from the pathway and we had to be careful not to tread on them.
As I've mentioned earlier in this thread, the day before we saw hundreds, near Hastings, but this was a significantly larger, many times larger. It was an amazing experience.
Hopefully with all these butterflies arriving, all the country will get the pleasure of their company.

That must have been an amazing experience Jules!