What would flowerless beings from another world make of these winged fairies?
EARLIER THIS YEAR, ON A BRIGHT SPRING DAY, a sulphuryellow insect burst from the hedge in front of me and danced into a sky of palest blue. My heart bounced a little, as the hearts of men and women have fluttered for centuries at the simplest of natural pleasures – the sight of the first butterfly of the year.
Butterflies make our hearts leap because they are “the souls of summer hours”, as the poet John Masefield put it. But we have an intimate relationship with these insects that surpasses other invertebrates not simply because of their association with the sunniest of days. A butterfly’s flight makes it a symbol of freedom, and its almost miraculous beauty reminds me of the famous quote by Iris Murdoch: “People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.” What would flowerless beings from another world make of the winged fairies that pollinate our flowers? They might be even more amazed to discover that butterflies were once caterpillars. This life cycle has beguiled us for centuries. In past times, we saw ourselves as greedy, busy caterpillars, and these creatures’ implausible transformation was the promise of an afterlife. Butterflies are symbols of the souls of the dead in many cultures. It is no coincidence that Mexico’s Day of the Dead, when people remember loved ones they have lost, falls exactly when millions of Monarch butterflies return to their winter breeding grounds in that country. In more secular times, we still cherish them as symbols of our ability to transform ourselves, ultimately reaching impossible heights.
A CONCERNING DECLINE
Unfortunately, for all our passion for the insects, they are also a symbol of a less wonderful change in our natural world. Everyone says they see fewer butterflies than they once did in gardens, parks and the countryside, and they are right. This is not nostalgia. We have 400 years of records of butterfly sightings and 41 summers of scientifically collected data. British butterflies are the beststudied group of insects in the world – and this data is alarming. Three-quarters of our 59 species are declining. Last summer was the fourth worst year since scientific records began.
There are far fewer butterflies than there were a century ago, and the main cause of the decline is habitat loss: intensive, chemical-driven modern agriculture has banished butterflies from fields; conifer plantations and the neglect of woodlands has made them too shaded for sun-loving butterflies. But it’s too easy to blame farmers. In fact, new research published this year revealed a startling fact: urban butterfly abundance fell by 69 per cent compared to a 45 per cent decline in rural areas between 1995 and 2015 – mainly due to paved-over green spaces and the increased use of pesticides in city gardens. Climate change is also having a profound effect on butterflies, with