Brown-veined White

There were two more postings to the bird group on February 14 under the title

"More on those Migrating Butterflies"

"Incidentally we went through the largest butterfly migration I have
ever seen on the way back from Moshi. Millions of whites all heading
south from Moshi all the way to Karatu (Karatu is in the Crater Highlands along the western edge of the Rift Valley). In places it resembled a blizzard. We've collected a few off the radiator.
Grant Hopcraft - Frankfurt Zoological Society"

"Those Brown-veined White butterflies that were mentioned the other day. They passed through Naivasha and the Rift last week, laying thousands of eggs everywhere. Their favoured food plant is a three-leaved indigenous bush that becomes devoured by the caterpillars before they move into the grass.
Am sure your local agricultural officers are well aware of it all and are spraying (sic!).
Don Turner, Naivasha, Kenya"

Anabel Harries wrote to me: "I first saw this Brown-veined White Belenois aurota migration on the 30th of January, I have already mentioned (as you were not around) it to Neil Baker in my bird list for that month.

So here at Magongo (8km west of Arusha) ever since that day (excepting maybe a couple of days when I didn't go up to the hill) I have been seeing the movement , I must say the peak in this place was on the 3rd February; as I wrote in my bird notes, it was amazing, they were literally surrounding me!

Over the past three million years or so, at approximately three degrees south of the Equator, three great mountain blocks have risen above the East African plateau. They form a broken wall, extending for 300 km and more, about half way between Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast and Mwanza on the south east corner of the vast blue expanse of Nyanza Lake (aka Lake Victoria).

The area and duration of the current Brown-veined White Belenois aurota movement in Tanzania and Kenya would seem to be quite extraordinary.

Brown-veined White in Arusha 14 February, 2007 (Anabel Harries)I first became aware of this Brown-veined White (et al.) migration on Tuesday afternoon February 6 as we drove south on the main highway toward Dar with Jack & Kathy Wigan heading towards Chalinze from the Saadani NP junction.