Leijpark013

@leijpark013 · 16 Sep 2021

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Leijpark 013 Hummingbird Butterfly

#leijpark013   #hummingbirdbutterfly

Published by Thierry P. Dinjens · September 7th at 5:56pm ·
The chances that we encounter a hummingbird in the Leijpark is quite small. Or a specimen must have escaped from a luxury aviary somewhere, but normally we don't find hummingbirds in our regions. We have to go to America to. And yet it seems every once in a while a hummingbird whizzes past. We walk quietly in the Leijpark and suddenly an orange flash shaves by, which stops by a butterfly bush and there, crowding the wings still hangs in the air, to indulge in the nectar from the flowers with a long tongue. All the behaviors we should expect from a hummingbird. It's not: it's the Hummingbird Butterfly.
For a number of years now, in the same way as warming up the earth, this formerly tropical butterfly has been a regular guest in our country. And not just a guest, she prefers to spend the winter here more and more. Dutch winters are generally mild and soft and the Hummingbird Butterfly loves that. As soon as the mercury falls below ten degrees in the minus, it's out with the fun, but how many times do we see that?
The butterfly used to be called “madder butterfly” because the caterpillars have a preference for the madder plant. Originally we find this plant in the Mediterranean region, but it was grown in Zeeland for hundreds of years. A red dye can be extracted from madder and dyed wool, cotton and leather. When synthetic dyes were eventually invented, the madder disappeared almost entirely from Zeeland.
Another name for the Hummingbird Butterfly is the 'turmoil butterfly '. Anyone who sees the animal flying and especially eating can imagine something about that. The animal never hangs still, flashes from one flower after another and is very difficult to capture on the sensitive plate. That is why Hummingbird Butterfly is the most appropriate name. The Latin name (Macroglossum) literally means 'long tongue'. That name is accurate: the entire tongue of the butterfly is as long as its body. If that happened to us, our tongue would hang on our shoes, literally.
The Hummingbird Butterfly flaps its wings up and down at lightning speed, about seventy times a second! While the butterfly does this, the orange spots are always visible, at the bottom of the wings and on top of the rear wings. These spots serve to scare predators.
The caterpillar also has something of orange in it: it has a small tail with a thorny orange tip on it, also to keep enemies at bay. The caterpillar is a special case. After eating around on madder (or yellow walstraw), he crawls into the ground and spits a white cocoon there. Two weeks later, the caterpillar pushes the cocoon above the ground, and then comes out as a new Hummingbird Butterfly. Then the animal pumps the crumpled wings full of bleeding and after an hour it can fly. On to long flowers full of delicious nectar.
We are probably going to see the Hummingbird Butterfly more often in our country and in the Leijpark. Now is the perfect time to start looking for them. It's September (the butterfly's flight time) and a lovely warm late summer. I wish you all success in finding the orange flash!