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The wood white butterfly has a wing span of 42mm. These yellow-white oval-shaped wings are covered in grey scales that have no characteristic pattern to them and which remain closed when at rest. The upper fore wings of the male have black tips, where the female tips are grey.
Thousands of adult butterflies can form one colony, commonly in the vicinity of foodplants such as meadow vetchling (Lathyrus pratensis), bitter vetch(L. montanus) and tufted vetch(Viccia cracca). Often males are seen slowly flying close to the ground in pursuit of females, usually in sunny patches of cleared woodland.
The whitish bottle-shaped eggs, are deposited in June on the undersides of the vetch leaves, which the resultant caterpillars will feed on. These caterpillars are light green with a darker green stripe along the back, and yellow stripes across theflanks. The chrysalis is also green with subtle pink markings.
Increase the amount of ash maple woodland by 10% by 2010, through removal of conifers on ancient sites
Increase amount of ash maple woodland by 10% by 2010, through new planting
