Something for the weekend: butterflies
|16:17 UK time, Friday, 29 October 2010
The weather may have got a bit milder in the past few days, but there’s no doubt that autumn is well and truly here. The swallows have now departed from the barn, the redwings and fieldfares are roving around the fields, and squadrons of starlings fly over my Somerset home each morning and evening on their way to and from their famous roost, a few miles down the road.
So what better time to think about that classic symbol of the season just gone - butterflies?
One of our conservation partners, the National Trust, is running a competition designed to remind us of the beauty and importance of butterflies and what they mean to us.
All you need to do is write about a memorable encounter you've had with butterflies. It may be your earliest memory, or something that happened this summer - what's important is that you write about what it meant to you.
Meanwhile my red admirals, usually the last butterfly I see in my garden, disappeared about a week ago. In their place I content myself with goldfinches and a great spotted woodpecker on the bird feeder, ravens croaking overhead, and, best of all, a flock of about 15 long-tailed tits which flitted past me on my walk down the back lane this morning.
These gorgeous little birds are one of my favourites, and they always seem to let you get a close-up view as they flit past, uttering their gentle little call. Look out for them in hedgerows, gardens and even car parks - we have a regular flock at the BBC!
Stephen Moss's new series, Birds Britannia, starts on BBC Four on Wednesday 3 November.
Comment number 1.
At 14:42 31st Oct 2010, teal_and_ozzy wrote:i have a butterfly in my house which has just fallen off my wall!!!! what should i do????
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Comment number 2.
At 14:44 31st Oct 2010, teal_and_ozzy wrote:the butterfly is now drinking the water vapour on the window
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Comment number 3.
At 22:08 31st Oct 2010, LazyRizzo wrote:Around the age of 7 or 8, my best friend Sue and I became wildlife mad. We would search for signs of wild creatures, spend hours lying by the big field pond looking at pond skaters and hoping to see newts. That summer, we were playing in Sue's back garden which backed onto a big field which was being grown for hay, it had poppies and lots of wild flowers in amongst the grass. We noticed an older boy, maybe 13 or 14, who lived at the other end of our road - and in an instant we realised he wasn't just chasing or watching butterflies, he was catching them in a net and putting them into pots and in his bag. Sue asked what he was going to do with them. He said he killed the butterfiels with a chemical and then put pins through and mounted them in frames.
We were horrified. The pair of us legged it over the gate into the field screaming at him, both of us crying, calling him a murderer and a horrible nasty mean pig. (we didn't know many rude names back then!). He soon packed up and scuttled off and we patrolled that field all summer whenever we were able, to "protect the butterflies." We told all our friends and our teacher that SP (initials of boy) killed butterflies for fun - and even the teacher was disgusted. I don't know if he gave up his hobby but we never saw him catching butterflies in "our" field again.
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Comment number 4.
At 15:59 3rd Nov 2010, TashaDurden wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 5.
At 01:42 4th Nov 2010, rimo wrote:Teal & Ozzy - the best thing to do is to put the butterfly either outside or in an unheated sheltered place such as a shed or porch - if it stays inside with the heating on it won't enter torpor, so will run out of energy part-way through the winter and die
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