24 March 2013

Painted Lady Invasion – Eastern Province


Whilst birding various sites to the north and west of Jubail we noticed lots of Painted Lady butterflies. At first light around Hanidh we saw a few flying around but had no idea how many we would see during the day. As the day progressed we started seeing more and more with over 1000 seen in an area where some water had spilled onto the ground from a water storage tank. We assumed there must be some sort of salt lick here as there were so many butterflies but after heading to some large spray fields we saw maybe 5000 butterflies in one field. During the day we must have seen over 10,000 butterflies that is a sight I expect I will not see again. We also saw a couple of large blue butterflies some Clouded Yellow butterflies and a number of both red, Seven Spot Ladybirds and Eleven Spot yellow Ladybirds.
Painted Lady
Painted Lady
Painted Lady
Painted Ladies
Blue Butterfly species?
Seven Spot Ladybird