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The Butterfly Isles: A Summer in Search of Our Emperors and Admirals
Butterflies animate our summers but the 59 butterfly species of the British Isles can be surprisingly elusive. Some bask unseen at the top of trees in London parks; others lurk at the bottom of damp bogs in Scotland. Several are virtually extinct. This book charts the author's quest to find all 59, from the Adonis Blue to the Dingy Skipper.
372 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
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About the author
Patrick Barkham
12 books36 followersPatrick Barkham first went butterfly spotting as a child with his father in Norfolk. His book The Butterfly Isles documents his search for as many species as possible as an adult.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
May 23, 2011
A lovely account of the butterfly season in the UK of 2009 which is roughly March to September in which Patrick Barkham searches out the resident species, 59 at the last count. It was thoroughly enjoyable though, as these books always seem to do to me, it made me envious of the freedom to pootle around the UK looking for them, excited by the possibility of doing the same stretched over a few summers rather than one and then demoralized by the whole insurmountable prospect. It was an interesting mix of anecdote, fact and description and is a great resource for amateur seekers like myself. Barkham seemed at great pains to assure us that he had a girlfriend as her name peppered the story...she's called Lisa by the way..and we encounter their trials and ups and downs of their relationship, well sort of. Its a bit of an annoying sideline. Though I wish them well I couldn't help thinking sometimes it appeared a little bit of the ' methinks the lady doth protest too much'. He makes comments about effeminacy or homosexuality as linked to a traditional image of butterfly hunters and it was as if he still had himself not come to terms with the stupridity of that sort of misplaced archetype and so needed to tell us over and over again that he has a girlfriend. Congrats patrick, now tell us about the butterflies. i did enjoy it though and it certainly fires you up to go in search of the little miracles, 'the fragrance of summer made visible' .Though having said that it is extraordinary how many of these beautiful creatures have a penchant for dog poo so not the fragrance one would expect.
November 14, 2014
Enjoyed this account of Patrick Barkham’s attempt to spot all 59 species of British butterfly during one summer.
Before I read this I would classify every pale butterfly as a ‘Cabbage White’ and every other sort as ‘probably a Red Admiral’. He’s got me rushing into the garden every time I spot a butterfly to try and see if I can identify it – not had a lot of luck so far but (with the help of google images) I should be able to rectify some of my ignorance.
One thing lets this book down and that is part where Barkham’s personal life intrudes on his mission. His girlfriend ‘Lisa’ is a shadowy but curiously shallow and immature personality who spends her spare time ‘partying with her mates’. As Barkham is a self confessed geek who loves being alone poking around the countryside and stroking slugs this hardly seems a partnership made in heaven. The relationship inevitably hits the skids and he gets the old heave ho, something that seems to surprise him although they seem to reconcile later. I could have done without all this – it added nothing to the book.
Looking forward to reading his more recent book Badgerlands.
Before I read this I would classify every pale butterfly as a ‘Cabbage White’ and every other sort as ‘probably a Red Admiral’. He’s got me rushing into the garden every time I spot a butterfly to try and see if I can identify it – not had a lot of luck so far but (with the help of google images) I should be able to rectify some of my ignorance.
One thing lets this book down and that is part where Barkham’s personal life intrudes on his mission. His girlfriend ‘Lisa’ is a shadowy but curiously shallow and immature personality who spends her spare time ‘partying with her mates’. As Barkham is a self confessed geek who loves being alone poking around the countryside and stroking slugs this hardly seems a partnership made in heaven. The relationship inevitably hits the skids and he gets the old heave ho, something that seems to surprise him although they seem to reconcile later. I could have done without all this – it added nothing to the book.
Looking forward to reading his more recent book Badgerlands.
November 25, 2021
> The great Victorian naturalist and collector Alfred Russel Wallace famously described how the excitement of discovering the world’s biggest butterfly, Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing, in the tropical forests of Malaysia caused him to retire with a headache for the rest of the day. In his 1869 book, The Malay Archipelago, he wrote: ‘My heart began to beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt much more like fainting than I have done when in apprehension of immediate death. I had a headache for the rest of the day.’
> One species, the Large Blue, became officially extinct when I was a boy, but was deliberately reintroduced in a secret location known only as Site X
> The most magical sixtieth species would be the Camberwell Beauty. Like many butterfly lovers, since I was a boy I had longed to see one of these large, romantic butterflies with brown wings so rich they were almost purple, bordered by lemon yellow. My heart still lurches every time I spot a dark silhouette against the sky that is big enough to be a Beauty; so far, it has always turned out to be a common Red Admiral or Peacock.
> In favourable conditions in the UK, a Painted Lady can race through its life cycle in a flash: from egg to rapidly growing caterpillar, to chrysalis and then adult in barely eight weeks. Other butterflies, such as the Chequered Skipper, may spend a hundred days feeding up as a caterpillar and take a year to go through one turn of its life cycle. Most British butterfly species spend the winter in the form of a caterpillar, which is surprising because they seem at their most vulnerable when a soft, juicy worm
> a Swallowtail chrysalis can survive submerged in water, while the pupa of various Blues and Hairstreaks produce audible squeaks to attract ants. Butterflies need warmth and sunshine to hatch from the chrysalis; when they do, they cannot fly immediately but must pump haemolymph (a butterfly’s equivalent of blood) into their crinkled wings to inflate them, spreading them out until they are dry, firm and ready to take to the wing.
> Psyche is the Greek word for butterfly. It is also Greek for soul. The demi-goddess Psyche appeared as a butterfly and both ancient and modern societies have seen butterflies as our souls, elevated from the earthy constraints of living in a body and liberated from suffering. In seventeenth-century Ireland, an edict forbade the killing of white butterflies because they were seen as the souls of children
> Whenever it settled in the sun it, characteristically, refused to open its wings. Brimstones are one of several butterflies which never bask in the sunshine by spreading their wings wide open.
> the caterpillar at first fed on thyme. When it reached its final instar, or stage of growth, it was still tiny. Waiting until the end of the day, it threw itself from the thyme flower to the ground and secreted a seductive fluid to attract the attention of a red ant. Upon finding the caterpillar, the ant tapped it. There ensued a frenzied ‘milking’ of the creature as other ants clustered around it. Eventually the caterpillar reared up into an ‘S’ shape and, at this inscrutable command, the ant became agitated, grabbed the Large Blue in its jaw and took it to the safety of its nest. Having entered the nest, the caterpillar turned tyrant
> Even more exotic than a Continental species of Large Blue was a rare parasitic wasp which could enter the ants’ nest, disable opposition by spraying a chemical around the nest that turned the ants against each other and, while they were fighting, inject the Large Blue caterpillars with its eggs. So the ants would still be duped into feeding the caterpillar, thereby providing food for the wasp grub growing monstrously inside it
> In this ordinary-looking patch of recently coppiced woodland there were at least 1300 Heath Fritillaries flying. Half the entire British population of one of our rarest butterflies currently on the wing were in this quarter of a hectare.
> The Camberwell Beauty is not the only butterfly named after what became a London suburb: the Speckled Wood was originally called the Enfield Eye, such was its popularity in the woods that bowed to the frenetic development of north London. On Enfield Chase, Dru Drury, a wealthy entomologist, recorded ‘Black veind white Butterfly plentiful and fine’ in the 1760s; 150 years later, the Black-veined White would be extinct across the whole of the country
> Wings are not like solar panels, and blood does not circulate around them (you can cut the wing off a butterfly and it will not bleed to death). Butterflies keep warm by trapping air around their body, which is why when you look at them closely most butterfly bodies are almost obscenely hairy. When butterflies settle and open their wings on a flat surface, these trap warm air beneath them. This is what warms them up. White butterflies – the Large, Small and Green-veined White, for instance – are a bit different: they always sit with their wings in a stiff ‘v’ shape. They don’t hold their wings flat and outstretched. This is because they are reflective baskers. The sun hits their pale wings at an angle and is directed onto their bodies, which are dark and absorb the heat.
> I clocked up twenty-six species of butterfly that August day on the Downs – the most butterflies I had ever seen in a day
> There seem to be more narrative books about butterflies for the general reader in America, where the best I found was An Obsession with Butterflies by Sharman Apt Russell, who has written an excellent, accessible exploration of butterfly science with a global perspective. Miriam Rothchild’s Butterfly Cooing Like a Dove is a clever sideways look at butterflies in literature and art.
> One species, the Large Blue, became officially extinct when I was a boy, but was deliberately reintroduced in a secret location known only as Site X
> The most magical sixtieth species would be the Camberwell Beauty. Like many butterfly lovers, since I was a boy I had longed to see one of these large, romantic butterflies with brown wings so rich they were almost purple, bordered by lemon yellow. My heart still lurches every time I spot a dark silhouette against the sky that is big enough to be a Beauty; so far, it has always turned out to be a common Red Admiral or Peacock.
> In favourable conditions in the UK, a Painted Lady can race through its life cycle in a flash: from egg to rapidly growing caterpillar, to chrysalis and then adult in barely eight weeks. Other butterflies, such as the Chequered Skipper, may spend a hundred days feeding up as a caterpillar and take a year to go through one turn of its life cycle. Most British butterfly species spend the winter in the form of a caterpillar, which is surprising because they seem at their most vulnerable when a soft, juicy worm
> a Swallowtail chrysalis can survive submerged in water, while the pupa of various Blues and Hairstreaks produce audible squeaks to attract ants. Butterflies need warmth and sunshine to hatch from the chrysalis; when they do, they cannot fly immediately but must pump haemolymph (a butterfly’s equivalent of blood) into their crinkled wings to inflate them, spreading them out until they are dry, firm and ready to take to the wing.
> Psyche is the Greek word for butterfly. It is also Greek for soul. The demi-goddess Psyche appeared as a butterfly and both ancient and modern societies have seen butterflies as our souls, elevated from the earthy constraints of living in a body and liberated from suffering. In seventeenth-century Ireland, an edict forbade the killing of white butterflies because they were seen as the souls of children
> Whenever it settled in the sun it, characteristically, refused to open its wings. Brimstones are one of several butterflies which never bask in the sunshine by spreading their wings wide open.
> the caterpillar at first fed on thyme. When it reached its final instar, or stage of growth, it was still tiny. Waiting until the end of the day, it threw itself from the thyme flower to the ground and secreted a seductive fluid to attract the attention of a red ant. Upon finding the caterpillar, the ant tapped it. There ensued a frenzied ‘milking’ of the creature as other ants clustered around it. Eventually the caterpillar reared up into an ‘S’ shape and, at this inscrutable command, the ant became agitated, grabbed the Large Blue in its jaw and took it to the safety of its nest. Having entered the nest, the caterpillar turned tyrant
> Even more exotic than a Continental species of Large Blue was a rare parasitic wasp which could enter the ants’ nest, disable opposition by spraying a chemical around the nest that turned the ants against each other and, while they were fighting, inject the Large Blue caterpillars with its eggs. So the ants would still be duped into feeding the caterpillar, thereby providing food for the wasp grub growing monstrously inside it
> In this ordinary-looking patch of recently coppiced woodland there were at least 1300 Heath Fritillaries flying. Half the entire British population of one of our rarest butterflies currently on the wing were in this quarter of a hectare.
> The Camberwell Beauty is not the only butterfly named after what became a London suburb: the Speckled Wood was originally called the Enfield Eye, such was its popularity in the woods that bowed to the frenetic development of north London. On Enfield Chase, Dru Drury, a wealthy entomologist, recorded ‘Black veind white Butterfly plentiful and fine’ in the 1760s; 150 years later, the Black-veined White would be extinct across the whole of the country
> Wings are not like solar panels, and blood does not circulate around them (you can cut the wing off a butterfly and it will not bleed to death). Butterflies keep warm by trapping air around their body, which is why when you look at them closely most butterfly bodies are almost obscenely hairy. When butterflies settle and open their wings on a flat surface, these trap warm air beneath them. This is what warms them up. White butterflies – the Large, Small and Green-veined White, for instance – are a bit different: they always sit with their wings in a stiff ‘v’ shape. They don’t hold their wings flat and outstretched. This is because they are reflective baskers. The sun hits their pale wings at an angle and is directed onto their bodies, which are dark and absorb the heat.
> I clocked up twenty-six species of butterfly that August day on the Downs – the most butterflies I had ever seen in a day
> There seem to be more narrative books about butterflies for the general reader in America, where the best I found was An Obsession with Butterflies by Sharman Apt Russell, who has written an excellent, accessible exploration of butterfly science with a global perspective. Miriam Rothchild’s Butterfly Cooing Like a Dove is a clever sideways look at butterflies in literature and art.
February 14, 2016
Patrick Barkham's books come highly recommended on "Talking Naturally", a brilliant fortnightly podcast I listen to. I started with "Badgerlands" which was great but this book is even better. I have never really had any interest for butterflies but now I cannot wait for the weather to warm up and the butterfly season to begin. Will be investing in a butterfly guide. Thoroughly enjoyed this book.
September 2, 2025
This book details one man's mission to see all 59 of the UK's butterflies in one year. But it does so much more than that. It's an account woven with natural history, tales of old aurelians, insights into butterfly biology, attempts at conservations (successes and failures) and thoughts on the future for these amazing creatures. Barkham is a journalist which no doubt accounts for how well written this is, but the writing is also overflowing with his enthusiasm for the subject, from his early days looking for butterflies with his Dad, to his ongoing embarrassment with using binoculars (might get mistaken for a birdwatcher). He also includes jarring little comments from the modern world which feel like they come from another planet and, furthermore, oblique references to his shaky relationship with his girlfriend/butterfly widow. The book goes from a rather idiosyncratic challenge in this most ephemeral of hobbies to saying something important about the world today and how we so easily overlook the natural world. It also includes detailed illustrations of all the butterflies and photos he took of some of his best sightings. Just great.
May 26, 2012
Patrick Barkham sets out on a search to see every species of British butterfly during one summer. It is a search that, in the beginning, he views as being about ‘our need to celebrate and capture fleeting moments of wonder as we fly through our lives.’ To start with Barkham imagines 59 (the number of British butterfly species) to be an ‘attractively accessible figure’; yet his quest proves to be ‘deceptively difficult’ to achieve.
What I enjoyed about this book, aside from the many, varied and sometimes bizarre insights into butterflies, was that it is a very human story. As he criss-crosses the UK, Barkham learns much about butterflies, their behaviour and habitat needs, and we along with him. At the same time, he encounters an array of butterfly enthusiasts and conservationists, ponders human attitudes towards and interactions with butterflies past and present and rediscovers his own enthusiasm for butterflies and nature more widely. After his first butterfly sighting of the year, Barkham comments: ‘Being so pleased by something so simple felt like becoming a child again.’
Near the end of the book (I won’t say if his search was ultimately successful or not), Barkham reflects on a journey that had been physically and emotionally harder than anticipated: ‘I had been soaked, stung, bitten, frozen, sunburned and approached by strangers looking for sex.’ Although, as Barkham admits, he probably spent more time in traffic than communing with nature, in the telling of his quest he manages to celebrate the ‘ordinary, everyday beauty of the natural world … on our small island.’
‘The Butterfly Isles’ is entertaining, educational yet accessible, thoughtful and thought-provoking—a great example of current British nature writing.
What I enjoyed about this book, aside from the many, varied and sometimes bizarre insights into butterflies, was that it is a very human story. As he criss-crosses the UK, Barkham learns much about butterflies, their behaviour and habitat needs, and we along with him. At the same time, he encounters an array of butterfly enthusiasts and conservationists, ponders human attitudes towards and interactions with butterflies past and present and rediscovers his own enthusiasm for butterflies and nature more widely. After his first butterfly sighting of the year, Barkham comments: ‘Being so pleased by something so simple felt like becoming a child again.’
Near the end of the book (I won’t say if his search was ultimately successful or not), Barkham reflects on a journey that had been physically and emotionally harder than anticipated: ‘I had been soaked, stung, bitten, frozen, sunburned and approached by strangers looking for sex.’ Although, as Barkham admits, he probably spent more time in traffic than communing with nature, in the telling of his quest he manages to celebrate the ‘ordinary, everyday beauty of the natural world … on our small island.’
‘The Butterfly Isles’ is entertaining, educational yet accessible, thoughtful and thought-provoking—a great example of current British nature writing.
August 31, 2011
Ragged winged male staggers through an exhausting mating display of familial loyalty, only to be spurned by a flighty party butterfly. His prime is ending and the future looks bleak. After the trauma of the breakup the get together is rather understated.
All the stuff about the butterflies on the other hand is really enjoyable. It does follow a little of the fact, anecdote, factoid, lucky discovery storyline several times, but really I don't mind this in such a work of reasonable length, and besides, his love of our flittery friends shines through. It makes me feel vaguely wrong in my desire to heavily weedkill nettles and to take a stern hedgetrimmer to bushes, just in case I unwittingly consign hundreds of butterfly eggs to their doom, but we had some lovely butterflies in the garden this year, and having read this book I need to educate myself to recognise them next time.
All the stuff about the butterflies on the other hand is really enjoyable. It does follow a little of the fact, anecdote, factoid, lucky discovery storyline several times, but really I don't mind this in such a work of reasonable length, and besides, his love of our flittery friends shines through. It makes me feel vaguely wrong in my desire to heavily weedkill nettles and to take a stern hedgetrimmer to bushes, just in case I unwittingly consign hundreds of butterfly eggs to their doom, but we had some lovely butterflies in the garden this year, and having read this book I need to educate myself to recognise them next time.
July 20, 2025
A magical book. My main concern is that this was written about events in 2009. What has changed since then? I could have also done with a few more scientific names, particularly on the illustrations.
April 20, 2023
Review to follow
May 21, 2012
This is the completely beguiling story of the author's determination to see all 59 species of butterfly native to Britain in the course of one summer. His love for these creatures is very apparent throughout, and the depth of knowledge which he so obviously possesses is very lightly worn. I learned more about our butterflies while reading this book than I did in several decades of living among them!
The personal story interwoven with the naturalist's quest is engaging too; his love for his father, who gave him his interest in butterflies, is a steady theme; and for his mother, who helps him tick off seven species in one day. But the relationship with his long-suffering girlfriend is the one that teaches him that butterflies are perhaps not the most important things in his life.
I loved this book; I read it in a weekend and it's been on my kitchen worktop ever since. I'll read it again before long, I’m sure.
The personal story interwoven with the naturalist's quest is engaging too; his love for his father, who gave him his interest in butterflies, is a steady theme; and for his mother, who helps him tick off seven species in one day. But the relationship with his long-suffering girlfriend is the one that teaches him that butterflies are perhaps not the most important things in his life.
I loved this book; I read it in a weekend and it's been on my kitchen worktop ever since. I'll read it again before long, I’m sure.
June 8, 2018
This was a beautiful and well-written book, capturing the highs and lows of searching for elusive butterflies throughout the UK. It was fascinating to understand how each butterfly prefers a specific time of year and specific weather conditions and plants, and all these factors make it a huge challenge to try and plan to find them. Before this book, I thought butterflies were pretty but I had not appreciated their lives and distinct habits. Another impact this book had was to show the distinct habitats and plants the butterflies rely on, and how these unique habitats need to be maintained if we want to prevent these butterflies from becoming extinct.
Reading this book I realised how little I knew about butterflies and their fascinating lives, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in nature and wildlife, conservation or butterflies in general.
Reading this book I realised how little I knew about butterflies and their fascinating lives, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in nature and wildlife, conservation or butterflies in general.
March 15, 2018
Fascinating information about butterflies, which made me want to go out in search of them. Patrick Barkham also skilfully describes the characters of the butterfly hunters, contemporary and historical. He balances discussion of climate change, explanation of his personal emotions and relationships, description of the countryside, contemporary social and cultural details. He writes about mindfulness, being in the moment, identifying with the natural world, the heightened perception caused by focussing on butterfly hunting, but balances this with a warmth about human beings with all their complex contradictions. His strong moral convictions don't lead him to see things in black and white or to suggest that there are easy solutions.
October 29, 2012
An adventures of adventures. It's good to know that it's not just me who hunts these things, and comes over all a quiver at the sight of flashing wings. Good to do chapter by chapter, otherwise I'd be grabbing a camera...
Update: now I've finished, my hat goes off to Patrick Barkham. A man with a mission who puts himself through personal privations, armed only with a book, binoculars and a camera. It's a story of how people with obsessions flock together to seek out the pearl of great price (or the brown hairstreak). A story of camraderie, deception, behaviour, sadness, elation, loss and restitution. Wonderful.
Update: now I've finished, my hat goes off to Patrick Barkham. A man with a mission who puts himself through personal privations, armed only with a book, binoculars and a camera. It's a story of how people with obsessions flock together to seek out the pearl of great price (or the brown hairstreak). A story of camraderie, deception, behaviour, sadness, elation, loss and restitution. Wonderful.
September 26, 2021
4.5 stars
I have never really bothered with butterflies but new to this genre of books and seeing this picked for my online nature book club sparked my interest. I enjoyed it, I loved the style it just seemed to come from the heart with no complexities and I found it easy reading. I loved that the author and his Dad had a shared passion but then in a way Patrick was spurred on because it was one species his Dad knew little about and it niggled him as an adult that he hadn't seen them all & he became consumed by the need ( I laughed when he skived work!). I found it interesting how the enthusiasts share locations and help each other. At the end I was inspired taking down the links, the books mentioned and 'following' pages suggested. I will certainly not 'not bother' with butterflies again and will look at them so differently, maybe even try to identify them. I am inspired to take a trip to a tropical butterfly garden not far from me.
I have never really bothered with butterflies but new to this genre of books and seeing this picked for my online nature book club sparked my interest. I enjoyed it, I loved the style it just seemed to come from the heart with no complexities and I found it easy reading. I loved that the author and his Dad had a shared passion but then in a way Patrick was spurred on because it was one species his Dad knew little about and it niggled him as an adult that he hadn't seen them all & he became consumed by the need ( I laughed when he skived work!). I found it interesting how the enthusiasts share locations and help each other. At the end I was inspired taking down the links, the books mentioned and 'following' pages suggested. I will certainly not 'not bother' with butterflies again and will look at them so differently, maybe even try to identify them. I am inspired to take a trip to a tropical butterfly garden not far from me.
June 26, 2021
I learnt a lot about butterflies, coming from a very low level of understanding. I listened to this over several sleepless, painful and morphine-hazed nights in hospital and maybe this left me with less patience, but the recording is maddening. The entire chapter in Ireland has the narrator trying on crappy accents, I'm guessing for humor? The problem is whether it's that or the regional UK accents it's just bad. Doesn't help that the author seems to sneer at people living in council tower blocks, thinks that most people associate coldharbor lane with riots. It's just comes across as a bit posh and snobby, which is a shame, because Entomology doesn't need to be that.
September 3, 2024
A magical account of chasing butterflies through the seasons. It has given me brilliant inspiration for searching for rarer species. As a fellow Aurelian, it was such a pleasure to join Barkham on the emotional rollercoaster of trying to find all 59 species in one year. His writing is witty and down to earth whilst being highly intellectual and thorough in the scientific history of Lepidoptera. A fantastic read for anyone wanting to reconnect with nature in the most beautiful way.
May 12, 2025
An enjoyable journey to discover some of the butterflies that can be spotted in the UK. Some tidbits about the biology on these species, the natural history, some research that helped to better understand their life cycle and their natural habitat in order to save some of these declining species. And finally a part with some wonderful butterfly illustrations and pictures of butterflies spotted by the author during his search.
May 5, 2024
I loved everything about this book, and it inspired me to start looking for butterflies myself. Not in a sit-for-three-hours-in-drizzle kind of way, but just to be more observant, and mindful of what’s around me. On my first walk after finishing the book, I saw a Holly Blue, my first in all my 53 years ❤️
August 28, 2025
I got about half way through this book and enjoyed what I had read, but by then had had enough. Butterfly-spotting is probably like train-spotting, I suspect i.e. particularly appealing to the neurodiverse.
June 15, 2018
A great summer read. This is not just a book about spotting butterflies, it is a book about living, enjoyment and also desperation.
September 12, 2018
Very enjoyable. Engaging writing. Shared his enthusiasm well. Has made me seek out butterflies and appreciate them again.
July 22, 2020
Really interesting book, I learnt a lot. Sentences a bit clunky in places, I found myself having to go back and read them again. Phrases are also repeated in quick succession.
November 14, 2020
A really interesting read
February 25, 2021
I quite enjoyed this book, as a fellow butterfly enthusiast. Lots of enjoyable historical facts and science contained in these pages. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about our butterflies.
August 14, 2021
Good to read of sightings, and near misses of our resident butterflies. It’s evident that a lot of effort and planning went into this project, and ultimately the book.
December 6, 2021
Small stories of magical creatures wrapped within the story of a year of an eccentric, gleeful and awe inspired butterfly hunters life.
Currently reading
February 23, 2024started 20th feb 2024
July 2, 2025
A nice read, butterfly knowledge mixed with personal stories. I enjoyed that I learnt things from the book that you wouldn't find in most text books.
September 15, 2015
As a non-recommendation from another reader, this book was approached rather tentatively and with full permission to give up. I found it rather endearing - his subjects are small and in a way he keeps the work 'small' and it is all the more enjoyable for it. No epiphanies, no grand claims, no overblown language no great feats unless you count grappling with Britain's crowded road system. That said he did get really rather startlingly poorly in connection with his endeavour to see all British butterfly species in a season.
In some ways, the edge was taken off because he'd already seen the majority of species butterfly spotting with his father in his youth, which did give the narrative a bit of a shove in the geeky, number obsessed direction, but there is a subtle nostalgia in the piece. He never quite says but whilst he wasn't trying to catch the butterflies I did feel he was looking to re-capture something.
He meets some engaging people and discovers some even more fascinating science and conservation work (I was particularly struck by the impact of one person's 3 day bout of flu on the fate of a butterfly colony) I was relieved to find some photographs.
In some ways, the edge was taken off because he'd already seen the majority of species butterfly spotting with his father in his youth, which did give the narrative a bit of a shove in the geeky, number obsessed direction, but there is a subtle nostalgia in the piece. He never quite says but whilst he wasn't trying to catch the butterflies I did feel he was looking to re-capture something.
He meets some engaging people and discovers some even more fascinating science and conservation work (I was particularly struck by the impact of one person's 3 day bout of flu on the fate of a butterfly colony) I was relieved to find some photographs.
November 12, 2012
An account of an attempt by the author to see all the British butterfly species that remain, which, while devastated has surprisingly few extinctions.
It is an eccentric quest and needed a good deal of planning and dedication.
Reading the book was a simple delight and easy to learn butterfly details without feeling preached at.
It is an eccentric quest and needed a good deal of planning and dedication.
Reading the book was a simple delight and easy to learn butterfly details without feeling preached at.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews