In Pursuit of Butterflies

by Matthew Oates

  Like so much of the best of British wildlife the Long-tailed Blue looks too exotic to be British. The uppersides of freshly emerged males display an iridescence which hints at both the Large Blue and the Adonis Blue, whilst a fresh female can flash vivid turquoise at you. Conversely, a faded male could be mistaken for an old male Common Blue, albeit a large one, and a worn female for a female Chalkhill Blue – which makes one wonder whether it might have been overlooked, mistaken for commoner species. To make matters worse, Long-tailed Blues are active only intermittently, disappearing mysteriously for periods of time. With the males, they seem to hop from territory to territory, occupying several during a day on some sort of rota system. When two meet a vicious battle ensues, in which they spiral high up in a speeded-up version of Duke of Burgundy male combat. The females are even more intermittent in appearance. In flight, both sexes fly, or rather flit, more like a hairstreak than a blue, using a flight pattern reminiscent of that of the Brown Hairstreak. A great many UK butterfly enthusiasts made the effort to see this most lovely of butterflies in 2013, and so will know how to look for it should it grace our shores again – and it will. It has designs on the United Kingdom.

  Eventually the great butterfly summer of 2013 was blasted away by the autumn rains, which arrived with a vengeance in late October. From humble origins it had become great and, more importantly, had set up its successor well, at least for most of our butterfly species. My fiftieth summer of butterflying had been like none of its predecessors; or rather, it had been like each one of them, in that it was, as all others had been, intrinsically unique.

  Butterflies exist within a perpetual whirligig of change that prohibits repetition, and which ensures that those who study them remain forever entranced, dancing in the sunlight with them. For fifty years I have just been scraping the surface, dabbling in the shallow end. It is time to venture deeper. That may consist of giving up all butterflies bar one, and concentrating only on the one that matters most – His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of the Woods, the one of whom the Nightingale sings, the Purple Emperor, Apatura iris, whose very name captivated a small boy half a century ago.

  Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.

  Live the life you imagined.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Towards some meaning

  I want the inner meaning and the understanding of the wild flowers in the meadow. Why are they? What end? What purpose?

  Richard Jefferies, Field and Hedgerow (1889)

  Nature has never been an easy path to follow, particularly in an increasingly materialistic society run by increasingly convoluted systems and forms of usury. It seems we seek perfection in (rather than through) systems. Naturalists would rather pursue Nature's wealth, and the freedom and depth of experience that Nature offers. Many of them, perhaps those who feel most fulfilled, decide at an early age that they would rather have time than money, realising of course that one cannot have both, and that money does not buy time. Time in Nature is what they seek.

  Naturalists used to be loners, and were often regarded as odd individuals. To many social strata they were at best eccentrics. Certainly that is how it felt as a young person during the false dawn of the hippy era, which opted for Flower Power when Butterfly Power would have been more effective, then through the mindless nihilism of punk and the hedonism of the Thatcher years. But during the 1990s things changed, mercifully. It was the birders – clothed in anoraks and bobble-hats, by reputation only – who broke down the barriers of social inhibition, perhaps by sheer weight of numbers and downright persistence. In parts of the country, notably along the north Norfolk coast and on the Isles of Scilly, servicing their needs became a significant part of the local economy, at least seasonally – even if what they were actually seeking was poorly understood, by others and perhaps by themselves.

  Butterfly people are little different, now that they no longer carry nets and killing jars. Like birders, they stand around for ages in one spot, waiting. They loiter with intent. Above all else they are seeking glory moments, moments within Nature's glory; they seek discovery, and freedom – freedom to exist purely within the moment of being. They need patience, the ability to move without disturbing butterflies, to be able to read what is going on around them, phenomenal powers of visual observation, and they need to develop an intense, intuitive relationship with Nature. These essential skills are not easily learnt. Butterfly followers who have spent time fishing should be greatly advantaged.

  Rather suddenly, and perhaps due largely to the focus and fellowship provided by the dynamic charity Butterfly Conservation, and the clear conservation messages the organisation has successfully conveyed to public and politicians alike, butterflies have become cool. Butterfly people, like birders, are no longer stigmatised outcasts. Without Butterfly Conservation, though, they might still be eccentric loners. With it, they can grow and make effective changes. Anyone who has read so far in this book is effectively a member of Butterfly Conservation, though some may not have paid their subscriptions yet.

  Sublimation

  The truth is that people rather yearn for Nature, and perhaps especially for one aspect of it, wildlife – or wilder life. At the very least we belong alongside Nature, though some of us would be happier actually living amongst her. The success of wildlife television owes much to this poorly recognised desire, this sense of belonging, and of current separation. Interestingly, wildlife TV is based on appreciating and understanding wildlife, rather than exploiting it – there are no TV programmes about country sports, except for occasional series on fishing. At the very least TV has provided a lifeline between an increasingly urbanised and acquisitive society and Nature. The problem, of course, is that direct experiences with wildlife are infinitely greater than remote, two-dimensional sublimations – but only to those who have experienced the real thing. Super slow-motion TV can show butterflies, not as they are, but as we might like them to be – nice and cooperative, our toys.

  There is a danger of augmented or supplanted reality taking over here, particularly when computer screens, IT packages and sophisticated photographic equipment are brought into play. In this context the second verse of George Herbert's hymn ‘Teach Me My God and King’ is worthy of consideration:

  A man that looks on glass,

  On it may stay his eye;

  Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,

  And then the Heaven espy.

  There is a friendly warning for butterflying here, as increasing use is made of digital photography – a great hobby, for sure, offering the thrill of the chase, the warm glow of satisfaction, clear memories, and great days out in Nature. But we must be careful that the camera does not dominate our relationship with these creatures, or we will revert to becoming butterfly collectors again in spirit (to practise what I preach, I have determined not to photograph butterflies on Sundays).

  The message here is simple. With butterflying, do not settle for two-dimensional experiences – go the whole way, seek depth of experience; it is there on offer, even though the true meaning may not kick in until much later.

  Psyche revisited

  In the autumn of 2010 the National Trust website ran a competition asking people to write down what butterflies meant to them. Copies of Patrick Barkham's book The Butterfly Isles were offered as prizes. The volume and depth of the responses were nothing short of astounding. Clearly, a great many National Trust supporters value butterflies greatly, considering them vital to the health of the environment and to their own lives and wellbeing. The results were summarised in an article in the National Trust Magazine (summer 2011 edition).

  Most readers had fallen under the spell of butterflies in childhood, and expressed a view that these winged creatures reminded them strongly of those halcyon days. One reader wrote: ‘These fragile, winged beauties make me feel the enthusiasm and sheer joy that children know and adults forget.’ So butterflies are symbols of something precious that has been lost, some much-missed part of ourselves, o
f yesterdays gone by. Perhaps some fall from grace has taken place? Perhaps our understanding of metaphor?

  Several readers wrote in to report profound experiences involving butterflies, including at times of bereavement. One recalled encountering the exquisite Koh-i-noor Morpho whilst preparing to lead an infantry charge in the jungle. Others described how timely appearances of butterflies had helped them come to terms with the loss of a loved one. One lady reported two butterflies flying together high up in the church rafters during her grandfather's funeral service, where a single butterfly had flown there during her grandmother's funeral a year earlier. Another freed a red butterfly battering itself against her recently deceased red-haired mother's bedroom window. I had a comparable experience at my mother's funeral, as described in Chapter 24 – only I was expecting it.

  Memory, heartland and loss

  People collect memories, often inadvertently, so much so that some major industries are heavily reliant on this, notably tourism and recreation. Modern naturalists collect memories, as photographs, in diary accounts and, most notably, as after-images in the mind that coalesce to provide some curious warm glow of fulfilment, of belonging to the places they have experienced, of belonging in or at least with Nature. Butterflying is exceptionally good at providing such memories, as no two days out in the woods or fields are ever alike, for butterflies are grand masters of the art of constant change, even more so than the seasons and the places they inhabit. No two butterfly seasons are remotely alike, all are unique. Butterflies take us into the living pulse of spring, and far into the totality of summer, and then provide us with memories that become distilled and enhanced over time, gilded or silvered in sunshine and framed by green leaves.

  Also, and more importantly, butterflies take us deep into many of the most wonderful landscapes in the British Isles, and when those places are at the very zenith of their annual cycles of natural beauty, on sublime days in spring and summer. They take us out of the material world in which we are entrapped. They take us to where the sense of spirit of place is so awesome that when we leave part of ourselves remains behind, and we take some microbe of the essence of that place away with us. Consequently, we are duty-bound to return, and the place leaps to greet us when, almost as prodigal children, we return. This experience is deeply poetic, spiritual and, for people who like the term, religious – and should be recognised and celebrated as such.

  We do not merely fall in love with each other (something we may not be as good at as we think), but with places. Such places become our spiritual heartlands, places of treasured memories, of belonging and rootedness. The Welsh language recognises the concept of places of deep belonging through a conceptual term that does not readily translate. Strictly, cynefin means one's personal habitat – cultural, ecological, geographic, historic, social and spiritual. It translates poorly into English as heartland, only a deep and highly personal heartland. There is also a Welsh concept with which naturalists, especially birders, will readily identify – y filltir sgwâr, which translates as the square mile, or home patch. All my life I have sought to develop deep cynefin. At times I have almost got there – only to be forced out, obliged to move. I am now left with a vast amount of incipient cynefin (plural cynefinoedd) – modest spiritual homes, or loving heartlands, scattered throughout the British Isles. These range from the shores of Loch Arkaig in the north-west Highlands to the cliffs of Dover, from the Lake District high fells down to the limestone hills of Morecambe Bay and across the Irish Sea to Murlough Dunes and the Mountains of Mourne, from the Ceredigion coast, through the Malvern Hills and across to the Norfolk Broads, and too many to mention which are scattered across southern England. Eventually I will settle in one, and seek to grow my true cynefin. That single word needs to penetrate the English language, and take English culture by storm – but without losing its depth. Too many of us are rootless, and are searching for rootedness, as is suggested in much of today's new nature writing.

  Conversely, Welsh culture and language also include the concept of hiraeth – a longing for home. This can be positive or negative, the latter equating readily to the homesickness felt by new pupils at boarding school. At its darkest, hiraeth is the spiritual sickness that develops when one's cynefin is broken by dramatic physical change to one's heartland, or by being forced to move away from where one's cynefin dwells. The life of John Clare (1793–1864), poet, superb self-taught naturalist and devout countryman, is worth examining through the perspectives of cynefin and hiraeth. The landscape of his homeland, around the village of Helpston in east Northamptonshire, was his heartland, his real and fantasy worlds combined. But that landscape was ruthlessly destroyed by Enclosure Acts early in his adult life. Furthermore, he was lured to London by his publisher, and by the bright lights – wine, women and song, which he liked. There, however, something fundamental was missing, so much so that he broke down and became confined to a mental asylum. Yet Home was calling him. He escaped and walked back to Helpston, starving, a beggar forced to eat grass. Only Home was no longer recognisable, beyond the village buildings; his deep cynefin lay shattered by agricultural changes. In such situations there may be no safe place to go this side of cloistered religion, or madness. Clare succumbed to the latter, and spent the last thirty years of his life confined to the asylum in Northampton, suffering from severe delusions. This interpretation should have resonance amongst environmental conservationists, and amongst people for whom the countryside is dear. His tale is perhaps a mighty metaphor for the present human predicament in the UK.

  Fortunately, butterflies seldom take us to desecrated places. When they start to do that our relationship with them will break, for their heartlands will have been destroyed and they will be making last-ditch stands, their vital metapopulation structures shattered. Certainly, an increasing number of quality butterfly sites are devalued by traffic noise pollution which reduces the all-important sense of spirit of place – and is also a symptom of habitat fragmentation and isolation. Seeing the spring-flying fritillaries in young conifer plantations was always a struggle, knowing that those places had had their souls sold to the devil, and would develop into arboreal slums, and their joyous inhabitants – flowers, insects and songbirds – would all be lost. At times naturalists leave such places in a state of mourning.

  Indeed, most of the older naturalists alive today have witnessed so much species loss and habitat destruction that they are traumatised by it, and are living in a state of unrecognised but profound grief – especially those who have worked in nature conservation and environmental conservation. Yet conservationists carry on, they have no other choice. They are Nature's spokespeople. Some may even be part of Nature itself.

  Symbolism and beauty

  Yet, as John Masefield so aptly puts it late on in his gipsy-land story-poem ‘King Cole’, butterflies are ‘the souls of summer hours’. They help transport you into the vortex of spring and into the very epicentre of summer. They do not merely lead you into special places, but into special – ultra-special – time, time that is almost too virtuous and ecstatic to be of this earth. So the highs and lows, the weather-borne vicissitudes, of butterflying are massive. The problem for butterflyers in the UK is that spring and summer weather provides rather an imbalance between down-time and rapture. Also, the closer one lives to Nature, the more one exists under the thumb of the weather and the darker seasons.

  If butterflies take you to special places in special times, then they are offering great depth of experience and immense freedom. Not for nothing are they forever seen as symbols of freedom, the freedom of the immortal soul, and the freedom of beauty. Butterflies can be viewed as keys to the freedom of Nature. However, their transience and vulnerability are such that they must not be regarded as symbols of perpetuity, especially as in Nature nothing persists indefinitely, everything occurs in successional phases, everything is Phase.

  Those of us who are hard-wired to Beauty – which should be all of us – will find that butterflies have much to of
fer. This is not simply because of the beauty of their wings, and the grace of their flight, or their juxtaposition to and relationship with flowers, but because they exist in the most wonderful places, in the best of all weathers in the greatest of seasons – weather permitting, that is. Beauty will always win people over, providing it is communicated in appropriate language. The UK nature conservation movement desperately needs poets, and story tellers, to articulate this better; not least because the real battle for nature conservation lies not so much out there on the land but in the hearts and minds of people – win the people over, and the politicians will follow.

  Knowledge, science and conservation

  Perhaps above everything else butterflies feed a thirst for knowledge. This may well be the main reason why so many scientists, including some of the world's leading biologists and ecologists, are attracted to butterflies as objects of study. Metamorphosis does not over-excite scientists these days. They are more interested in butterfly interactions with climate, with habitat fragmentation, isolation, quality and quantity, the problem of habitat patches jumping in and out of suitability according to factors such as seasonal vegetation growth rates, as well as butterfly population structures and mobility, and with genetics. Predation, parasitism, viruses, pathogens and diseases are also on the research radar – and rightly so. One crucial area for research is the factors behind the long-term cycles of expansion and contraction, ebb and flow, rise and fall.