Yellow Admiral visitor
- Birkenhead Butterflies
- Apr 14
- 3 min read
Updated: May 13
Another first year success for the butterfly garden
April 2025
You can definitely feel it is autumn. It's cooler in the shade during the day and the nights are getting crisp. We've lit the fire a few times now in the evening. The paper wasps are still around in numbers and the way they buzz around the ti kouka / cabbage tree by our deck, suggest they might still be looking for moth caterpillars. It's hard to know, given the colder weather, but I'm not taking any chances.
I came across a beautiful female yellow admiral today, laying eggs on the potted nettle by the house. Yellow admirals are native and can be found in Australia and Norfolk Island as well. Their Māori name is kahukowhai, meaning 'yellow cloak.' So evocative. I admit to acting like a little girl, running through the house, calling to my husband in excitement, who thought something was terribly wrong and nearly had a heart attack. When he caught his breath, I dragged him outside to see for himself. Sharing my interests or at least faking interest is a mandatory part of this marriage and I have spent plenty of time admiring his latest power tool and nodding when he reels off the technical information. Anyway, he was suitably impressed.
I have only ever seen a handful of yellow admirals in the wild. They are considered common, but they don't flit around like Monarch butterflies and are more likely to be found outside of Auckland and its urban sprawl. They are a species known for hilltopping - finding a mate (and sunbasking) on peaks of high land in areas of low density butterfly populations - and in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland we have some handy volcanic cones. Unfortunately we also have pesticides, a history of spraying the city for invasive agricultural moths, introduced parasitic wasps and a dislike for nettles in built up areas.
At the old house I did have yellow admirals lay on the nettle I was growing for a couple of summers, but I didn't see them, partly because the nettle was hidden at the side of the house to protect the kids and partly because I think they breed a little ninja in there too. They come, do what they need to do and are off in a blink of an eye. They hadn't visited since November 2021, despite me expanding the number of nettle pots and growing native varieties. The moving company who carefully shifted us a suburb over carried all the potted nettles and some suffered the consequences of choosing shorts that day. Today all that fuss and those rashes were worth it.
When they emerge, the caterpillars will make little tents for themselves from the nettle leaves to help protect them from predators and to eat in comfort and privacy. As an introvert, I commend those choices.
When the caterpillars are in their later stages, they eat more openly.
Then comes the chrysalis...
...And the new butterfly emerges. You can see from the photos below that the underside of the wings are cleverly patterned for camouflage, whilst the tops are brightly coloured.
I've found some of the eggs the yellow admiral laid and I've taken them inside for protection, away from the ants. Protecting a handful of eggs might not make much of a difference, but I want to tip the scales back just a little. It will be wonderful to watch such tiny elements of life become beautiful butterflies.
This yellow admiral visit, the first I've seen in any garden of mine, I consider a success of the butterfly garden (even though I haven't seen the admirals feeding from the flowers there). The elements are already coming together just months into the project and it feels like it wasn't a fools errand. Crossed fingers that she and her friends continue to come back again and again.
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