On monday (24th) I paid a final visit to my favourite spot on what might turn out to be the last really hot day of the year. Still no sign of the Clouded Yellow butterfly, just this one Small Copper... and a now faded and tattered Commom Blue
The worrying scarcity of butterflies of all kinds this year caused me to reflect on one of the reasons why some of our most beautiful species went extinct in the past... and this is it:
Our Victorian forebears gathered differences in markings with the same zeal as modern-day diecast bus collectors; they had an overpowering need to possess as many variations of the same thing as they possibly could, no matter how small the differences. So much so that they often paid small boys to go out and net specimens in their hundreds, which ultimately drove down the numbers of butterflies such as the Large Blue (shown here) and the Large Copper to extinction levels