For the first time in nearly 50 years we have painted lady butterflies. Is it a particularly good year for them? There seem to be more butterflies than usual this year. Our orange buddleia has been covered with peacocks, red admirals, small tortoiseshells, one small, brown butterfly possibly a dingy skipper, and one painted lady.

A neighbour who has white and purple buddleias had at least three painted ladies. We have great fun showing the butterflies to our three and a half year old grandson and teaching him the names.

Caroline Bonham, Castlepollard, Co Westmeath

I think it may be a good year for the painted lady. There have been lots of sightings around the country. Whether a year is good or bad depends not just on conditions here, but also on the size of the first brood of the butterfly in North Africa. It there is a big emergence of spring caterpillars there, and they eat almost all the sparse vegetation, then the butterflies that emerge in May and June move north wards, and these are the painted ladies that find their way to Ireland in June and July.

They breed here and their progeny return south in autumn, although we saw a painted lady in Connemara in November last year. They do not survive the winter here because, it is thought, they don't have enough sorbitol in their blood at any stage in their life cycle. Sorbitol is an anti freeze agent present in the butterflies which survive our winters.