Caterpillar of the Orange Tip butterfly

We have a small, fragile colony of Orange Tip butterflies in our garden in West Sussex. I have protected them for many years and am always so pleased when the first adult male (the one with the orange tips) appears in early April. He patrols the garden waiting for a female to emerge and I have seen mating take place within 14 seconds of his finding her! She then has to find the correct food plant which could be Lady's Smock, Honesty or Garlic Mustard. Although we have all these in our garden she only uses the latter and lays a single, conical, orange egg amongst the white flowers at the top of the plant. Within a week a tiny slightly orange caterpillar emerges eating the eggshell as it's first food. By the time it has hatched the flowers have started to go to seed and this is what it lives on as it grows. It will change its skin four times and becomes a beautiful green caterpillar with a white go-faster stripe along the length of the body. The one in this photo is almost on the point of pupating so it will find a safe place, away from the food plant and make a very unusual chrysalis in the shape of a coat- hanger! Here it will stay until next April when the chrysalis will show the sex of the butterfly within it, hatching will take place in a couple of days and the whole wonderful life cycle will start all over again!