Looking back

[Jack Harrison]

I have no plans to give up just yet as I approach my 86th birthday. However, maybe it's appropriate to look back on some memorable butterfly moments.

Purple Emperor - the Fermyn Woods heyday early 2000s.
For a few years at the beginning of July I would visit.  Parked opposite the gliding club and walk along the track.  Two or three 'triangles' on the ground were male Emperors.  I would hurry on in excitement.

Marbled White 1964.  In June, I went away (it was considered naughty in those days) for a weekend with my girlfriend Audrey.  We stopped in a very secluded spot in the Cotswolds (don't ask why!)  We were surrounded by dozens of Marbled Whites.  My priorities (a 25-year-old) at that point were somewhat divided!

Orange Tip 1947.  I caught one without the Orange.  My inadequate i/d guide didn't illustrate female Orange Tips.

Let's hear from fellow oldies.

Jack

[David M]

I'll never forget the summer of 1976.

Each day of the school holidays was spent in blissful, hot sunshine and we were out all day, cycling endlessly with no helmets and usually with no hands on the handlebars.

I was already interested in butterflies but that summer the local buddleias were overrun by them. Small Tortoiseshells had always been commonplace, and Red Admirals were ones I was familiar with too.

However, I'd never seen a Peacock prior to that summer, and this butterfly simply blew me away with its beautiful wing pattern. There were dozens of them that year.

I still get a kick out of seeing a fresh one almost 50 years later.

[Roger Gibbons]

Mention of cycling brings back a memory of when I was 10 (1957 Easter holidays, I think), when a group of us were cycling along a lane in Bricket Wood, which was about six miles from where we lived in Borehamwood.

I was at the front of the group when I saw a Brimstone. “Look a Brimstone” I said, but in pointing it out, I veered across the road causing a multiple bike pile-up.

I was politely told that if I saw another <expletive> Brimstone, keep it to myself.

Roger

[Trev Sawyer]

Similar but different for me Rog...

Summer of '78 and I was flat out on the tank of my Yamaha FSIE-DX moped (riding position AND speed!) when I spotted a furry caterpillar galloping across the road in front of me. I hammered on the anchors in an impressive emergency stop, only to be hit by my mate who almost managed to avoid me as he went sailing past. Safe to say he was less impressed that the top-box on the back of his moped was left in pieces in the road than I was to discover we had both somehow missed the caterpillar, which thereafter led a sheltered life in a large soil-filled jar in my house until it pupated and hatched out as an adult Garden Tiger moth.
I'd obviously like to think I have a bit more respect for any unsuspecting motorist following me nowadays, but I did exactly the same thing a few weeks ago on the way back from a nearby village when an Elephant Hawk moth caterpillar decided to ignore the Green Cross Code and make a dash for the other side. In my defence, I did check my wing mirror briefly before I hit the brakes and I'm pleased to report that no caterpillars or humans were harmed during the process of completing this manoeuvre