Despite diligent field excursions, sightings of butterflies uncommon remained a few days away and, it is safe to say, a few degrees south thanks to the weekend weather. As innocent blue skies thrashed at the persistent cloudlets today, I spotted the gregarious green-veined white male, delicately fluttering on a whispering breeze, where he finally settled to catch a breath on a bramble leaf.
His wings in the early season can frequently be devoid of any dark marks, as seen in this photo, setting him aside from species of other whites. Fulwood Rd folklore dictates that green-veined white males often spend too much time under the icing sugar and sieve of Mrs Rung when she is in the process of cake making, with an ambition to get the desired dressing of sugar dust on their forewings for the summer flutter. Mission accomplished Sir!
The underwing of the GVW has lightning bolts of mossy green veins that invigorate an otherwise colourless complexion. A complexion which I tried and regrettably failed to capture, when on bended knee I pointed the clicker at a permanently nodding ranunculus specimen (the species of which I did not care to investigate after a sports team of clicks).
