We are all assured by the opening lines of an old song ‘birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it’.

But I’m not sure about those fleas but it certainly applies to all other insects.

The courtship ritual of the small tortoiseshell butterfly is an elegant and protracted affair.

Sometime during a sunny morning or early afternoon, males find prospective mates. There follows a series of undulating pursuits low over grass during which the female frequently stops to perch on vegetation at ground level.

Each time the male alights directly behind her and, using his antennae like a pair of miniature drumsticks, rapidly taps her open wings, the sound clearly audible.

Some hours may elapse before the pair finally disappear into dense scrub where mating occurs overnight, an event rarely witnessed, as with small tortoiseshells, red admirals, peacocks, and commas.

This form of ‘playing hard to get’ does not apply to all butterflies. The male meadow brown patrols a specific area of long grass searching for a female and when a fresh one is detected he pounces with no little ceremony and pairing takes place at once!

Brimstones and white indulge in an aerial ‘ring-a roses’ where speckled woods exhibit strong territorial tendencies in common with most browns blues and hairstreaks.

Female butterflies of any species rarely pair twice, whereas males may impregnate a succession of females. A female having mated will raise her abdomen vertically at the approach of a male and emit a ‘put off’ pheromone which effectively signals that she is not interested.

Another ploy that I have witnessed is adopted by a female speckled wood which, when hassled by a male closes her wings, drops to the ground and feigns death. The frustrated male stands up after a few minutes fruitlessly probing and fussing and flies off while the female stands up looks around to see if the coast is clear, then flies back to the shelter of her oak or resumes egg-laying in the grasses.

Sight plays and important role with butterflies in locating partners, followed by the dispersal of pheromones contained in dark wing patches acting as a valuable aphrodisiac to persuade the female to submit to his advances.

In contrast to butterflies, most day-flying or nocturnal moths rely on scents alone. So anxious is the male burnet moth to open proceedings that, scenting a female, he patiently sits for hours on a grass stem adjacent to her as yet un-opened cocoon and mates as soon as she emerges without granting her the courtesy of drying her wings or applying her lippy!

One of the most remarkable of all mating games must be the day-flying emperor math. Experiments reveal that a male is capable of detecting a female up to six miles away. So one flying in Bushy Park finds no difficulty in homing in on a female resting in, say, Richmond Park.

Expert opinion is that he either flies along a scent trail, albeit rather erratically, or follows an infra-red signal using his feathery antennae.

The picture this week shows a pair of winter moths, the female being flightless to save energy for egg laying.

As well as insects doing it, I say come on you fleas! I bet you’re just itching to get on with it.