Painted lady will steal your heart away

CLOUDS of butterflies and a haze of day-flying moths rose from beneath our feet as we walked the Seven Heads in west Cork on the glorious last day of May 2009.

I hadn’t seen so many butterflies together since I was a child. Vast influxes were reported on web postings from all over Ireland. They flew in their thousands in Kerry, the Burren, Kinvarra, Lough Corrib and Donegal where, “painted lady’s were touching down on the Teelin to Bunglass boat and taking off again in their hundreds”.

I spell them painted lady’s to distinguish them from painted ladies, quite another species, most often seen “flying it” on high heels on Saturday nights. Painted lady’s migrate into Ireland ever year but this year came in huge numbers along with brown-grey moths known as silver ys for a distinctive mark on their fore-wings.