Colourful, delicate sprites of myth, poetry and legend, butterflies fascinate and delight people of all ages - but particularly children. Unfortunately, their numbers are in decline, as their natural habitats become eradicated, Adrienne Murphy writes.
'Stained glass windows of the outdoor cathedral" - that's how one poet, author unknown, expressed his reverence for the butterfly. Awe, joy, privilege, hope, a nostalgic sense of childhood lost - these are among the complex range of emotions that butterflies inspire in the human soul.
Early September is still a good time to see butterflies in Ireland, especially if it's an Indian summer. Butterflies are cold-blooded creatures, so are inactive below a certain temperature but fly in their droves on hot sunny days. We have 29 species of butterfly resident here, ranging from the commonly seen Cabbage Whites to the much rarer Purple and Green Hairstreaks, the Large Heath and the Marsh Fritillary.
The latter two are declining rapidly all across Europe, and are listed on the Berne Convention, an EU directive affording legal protection to endangered species. Ireland has a significant proportion of the European population of these two bogland butterflies; though they've retreated from the whole south-east of the country, the less intensive farming methods in the west and north-west mean that vestiges of their natural habitat still remain.
Besides our residents, migrant butterflies visit our shores from as far as North Africa. Two well-known migrants that fly at this time of year are the Red Admiral and Painted Lady, whose bold colours seem almost brash beside the soft hues of some of the natives.
Clouded Yellow, Pearl-Bordered Fritillary, Silver-Washed Fritillary - their names are like the names of goddesses. Since the oldest known depiction of a butterfly, dated from 6500 BC and found on a wall painting in a shrine excavated from the Anatolian plateau, butterflies have been strongly associated with the feminine and the divine, an archetypal connection still commonly used in advertising today.
We have our own version of the divine female butterfly in the story of beautiful Etáin, who had a passionate affair with an otherworldly lover called Midhir the Proud. His wife Fuamnach was so furious that she cast a spell, turning Etáin into a butterfly which the winds blew around Ireland for a thousand years.
Finally Etáin found refuge in the great banquet hall of Etar, King of Leinster. She fell asleep on a high beam above the festive table and wafted down into the wine glass of the queen, who swallowed her without noticing. Nine months later the queen gave birth to Etáin, who was now the princess of Leinster and even more beautiful than before.
Etáin hovers somewhere between goddess and fairy. In some European folklores butterflies are believed to be fairies in disguise, who go about stealing milk and butter (hence the name "butter-fly"). There's a myriad of ways that human beings have perceived this captivating creature across time and cultures. The butterfly has a powerful role in the history of art and imagery, with Breughel, Picasso and Warhol among their more recent devotees. As for writers, they can't get enough.
As images and symbols laden with meaning, butterflies are thriving. But how are they doing in the ecological world? To answer that, we must tap into the network of Irish butterfly enthusiasts, far fewer in number than the birdwatchers, but just as passionate about their subject.
Ken Bond, experienced lepidopterist withUCC's zoology department, is dedicated to exploring and conserving Irish butterflies and their ever-dwindling habitats.
"Even some of our common species are becoming no longer common," says Bond. "In the last few years, there's been a decline in species that depend on undisturbed grassland, and hedgerows are suffering, too. Hedgerows are the main refuge for species in agricultural areas, so their destruction is having a disastrous impact on butterflies."
Bond believes that farmers and gardeners can exert a beneficial influence by reducing their use of strimmers and hedge-cutting equipment. "If people with fields or extensive lawns are cutting right at the edges, they're destroying the butterflies' habitat. I suggest they leave a margin of long grass and scrub." Gardeners can also help butterflies by foregoing exotic flowers in favour of native blooms, particularly purple ones such as buddleia, which attract butterflies because they emit a wave frequency similar to ultra-violet light, naked to our eyes but adored by butterflies.
"What we have here mainly are open-land species, on grassland, coastal sites and bog. Those are all under threat to various extents," says Bond. Alteration of habitat, like the draining of bogs and wetlands and the removal of peat, as well as the use of fertilisers, are all having a negative impact on our butterflies.
"The REPS (Rural Environment Protection Scheme) is helping to promote some areas of conservation value. What's also happening is that people are being encouraged to plant hardwood trees, the native species like oak, birch, the various sallows and alder. Clearly we must counteract the massive spread of sitka spruce, which has done no good to butterflies or any other insects." Bond's own special area of research is species that are specific to certain native trees. Since old deciduous woodland is a one of the rarest habitats in Ireland, we have very few woodland butterflies. This puts species like the Purple Hairstreak, whose only food plant is the oak, under serious pressure.
In the great web of life, butterflies play a crucial role as pollinators, spreading pollen from plant to plant as they go about drinking nectar from flowers. And with their enormous mortality rate (on average only one out of 200-300 eggs ever makes it to butterfly stage), the fat vulnerable caterpillars (who literally spend every waking moment eating, as in the famous children's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar) provide huge amounts of fodder for bird and animal species. Seen in this light, the dwindling of butterflies has major ecological ramifications.
But thankfully, it's not all gloom and doom. Ian Rippey, a butterfly enthusiast in the Northern Ireland Branch of Butterfly Conservation, mentions a recent Burren siting of the Gatekeeper butterfly, formerly thought to exist only in the extreme south.
"Another very welcome development is that we seem to be getting the Clouded Yellow migrant more frequently over the past couple of years." And a couple of years ago it was discovered that Ireland has two distinct species of Wood White butterfly; the newly-discovered Real's Wood White seems to be absent in Britain, which has almost twice as many species of butterfly as Ireland.
TO help conserve butterflies in Ireland, it's vital that we learn more about how they're distributed. "We need more recorders to get a more complete picture in Ireland," says Rippey who, like many other butterfly-spotters, diligently records and compiles in a database what he sees.
"I'd encourage people to join their local field club or natural history society if they want to help butterflies by recording them." Up-to-date distribution information gathered by Irish enthusiasts over a number of years has been included in the Millennium Atlas of Butterflies in Britain and Ireland, a groundbreaking baseline study published two years ago by Oxford University Press.
Of all the qualities associated with butterflies, from love to freedom to yearning, perhaps the one with the most powerful reverberation is that of metamorphosis. The chrysalis, a magic closet of transformation, is a place of death and re-birth from which the butterfly emerges utterly changed. It's one of the greatest mysteries of nature, full of the sense of hope and renewal. Perhaps by studying and understanding our butterflies - which symbolise both the human soul and nature - we can undergo the kind of sustainable culture transformation needed to make them not just merely survive, butthrive.
The work of accumulating data on butterflies continues. To get involved, contact the Dublin Naturalists Field Club, e-mail: dnfc@eircom.net or visit their website at http://www.geocities.com/butterflyireland Contact Northern Ireland Butterfly Conservation through their website: http://www.bcni.org.uk