Clouded yellow butterflies in the Netherlands

This is a video about a Common Clouded Yellow butterfly.

Translated from the Butterfly Foundation in the Netherlands:

Thursday, October 2nd, 2014

The next generation of the Common Clouded Yellow, a migratory butterfly, is currently flying again. In places where the species bred in August you can sometimes find ten to fifty butterflies together.

These reports of large numbers of Common Clouded Yellow butterflies come for example from the floodplains of the major rivers and from Zeeland, but the Maasvlakte has the biggest numbers. Here 100 Common Clouded Yellow butterflies can still be seen together on flowery fallow land.

Common Clouded Yellow butterflies come in the spring, in May and June, from the south to our country and reproduce here. The descendants of those immigrants appear in August and these reproduce again. The third generation is now flying, especially places where reproduction went well and where sufficient flowering plants are present are favourites. They will also migrate again and can then be seen everywhere in the country, but large numbers together you will find especially on the breeding sites.

Related articles

• Monarch butterfly: Single gene holds key to understanding 3,000 mile migration feat
• How One Gene Gives Monarch Butterflies the Power to Migrate
• Rare moth discovered in the Netherlands