The Small Tortoiseshell is a familiar and much-loved garden butterfly, with bright orange-red wings patterned with black and yellow blocks along the forewing and a border of blue crescents along the wing edges. It is a common sight almost everywhere in Britain, from gardens and parks to farmland and mountainsides, and is one of the first butterflies to appear on warm days in early spring, having overwintered as an adult. It feeds readily on a wide range of garden flowers and, like its close relatives, relies on common nettle as its foodplant.

Females lay large clusters of eggs on the underside of young, sunlit nettle leaves, and the caterpillars live and feed gregariously within a communal silk web for their early stages before dispersing to feed and pupate separately as they grow larger; they are black and speckled with yellow markings and covered in branching spines. There are typically two generations between spring and autumn in most of Britain, with the summer brood’s adults feeding up on nectar before seeking out sheds, log piles, or house eaves in which to hibernate over winter.

The Red Admiral is a large, powerful, and unmistakable butterfly, with velvety black wings crossed by bold orange-red bands and marked with white spots near the tips. It is a strong, fast flier and a familiar sight in gardens, where it is especially fond of buddleia, ivy blossom, and fallen fruit, though it can turn up almost anywhere from woodland to coastal cliffs. Rather than being a true resident in the traditional sense, much of the British population arrives each year as migrants from continental Europe, though increasingly mild winters mean more individuals now survive here year-round. Its foodplant is common nettle.

Eggs are laid singly on the tips of nettle leaves, and the solitary caterpillars — variable in colour from black to greenish, studded with branching spines — construct a protective tent by folding and silking a leaf around themselves, feeding from within this shelter. There are usually two generations in Britain between spring migrants and the summer brood that follows. The species cannot reliably survive harsh frosts at any stage, so while some adults now attempt to overwinter in sheltered spots in the south, the population is topped up each year by fresh arrivals from further south in Europe.