Brimstones are butter-coloured

The temperature was only 11C which means they came out of heated houses where the temperature was misleading. Survivors are those that hibernate in open unheated sheds or from under tarpaulins covering farm machinery. I once found 40 peacocks under such a cover protecting a grass mower on the downs at Eastbourne which had been covered in October.

Fortunately these insects were seen in time and the machine recovered until needed later in warm weather.

My photo taken in the garden here last year shows the other early riser, a brimstone butterfly. These lovely big yellow butterflies gave the name butterfly to us because people called them butter-coloured flies back in the 16th century.

Even though they are pretty common and obviously yellow, people often tell me that they have just seen a big yellow cabbage white. So just think of sulphur and brimstone and you'll be sure to get it right.

Now comes the tricky bit. Butter-coloured flies refer only to the male of the species. The female is white and does look a bit like a big cabbage white. Except that she does not have black tips to her wings. She has these little pink beauty spots in the middle of all four wings. So does the male.

The outline shape is curious too, pointed like some sort of leaf, and even the veins in the wings are like the veins in leaves. So these insects find safe shelter for six months in the ivy covering trees. A good reason not to remove ivy from trees. It seldom disadvantages the tree anyway.

Brimstones do not hibernate in sheds like all the other unfortunates, so it must have a big ivy shelter.

Brimstones won't attack your cabbages either, because they are only reared on buckthorn or alder buckthorn bushes. You can usually see the tiny yellow eggs stuck to the underside of buckthorn leaves in the spring.

They resemble a skittle, but are less than a millimetre long. The should emerge on a temperature above 13C. Soon the countryside of Sussex will be alive with about 33 species of butterfly over the next few months.

Something to look forward to.