www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

The recent thread reminiscing about old books, reminds me of this, which is hanging in my front room....


Trev

I vividly remember, as a 7 or 8 year old, running around with two bits of "treasure" in my shorts pockets.
The first was a couple of pages ripped out of a National Geographic, all about the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania - a place I was determined to visit (and actually did - 44 years later!).
The other was a bundle of Brooke Bond cards - British Birds, British Butterflies, African Animals, Tropical Birds and some others I can't remember now (Tropical Butterflies I think) all held together with a thick rubber band. Swapping with friends aiming for that complete collection............
Anyway, two years ago on E-Bay I got the British Birds and British Butterflies both complete and immaculate in albums for just a few quid.
Real memory lane stuff!

Roger

Me too. I collected lots of the series of brook bond cards and the British Butterflies set together with the observers books went everywhere with me on my butterfly expeditions near Huntingdon, Cambs.
I'm still convinced to this day that I spied a large Copper near St Ives on the river Ouse. Sadly one day i returned home from school to find that my mum had given away all my albums to the jumble sale. I was gutted.
Funny how when you you get older things always seemed better chasing across the fields with a net after myriads of butterflies like blues, brown argus etc.
I have since replaced alot of the albums from ebay. I also have a set of butterfly photo cards issued by players I think from Grandee Cigars.

That's odd... One of my ealry memories involves finding what I still believe was a large copper whilst on holiday with my parents. It would have been in the late 1960's and was in a field near a lighthouse (sorry, but i really can't remember where I was, but it would have been on the East Anglian coast somewhere). I often wonder if it really WAS a large copper (no real markings, just these bright red wings with one small black smudge - in fact just like your avatar!). Is that even remotely possible I wonder, or did I dream the whole thing up?

Trev

The colour illustrations used by Brooke Bond were by Richard Ward and reproduced in a book by CA Hall entitled "Know Your Butterflies" published in 1970 by Blacks. It's a charming little book worth owning simply for Ward's illustrations.

Felix.

Trev Sawyer wrote:That's odd... One of my ealry memories involves finding what I still believe was a large copper whilst on holiday with my parents. It would have been in the late 1960's and was in a field near a lighthouse (sorry, but i really can't remember where I was, but it would have been on the East Anglian coast somewhere). I often wonder if it really WAS a large copper (no real markings, just these bright red wings with one small black smudge - in fact just like your avatar!). Is that even remotely possible I wonder, or did I dream the whole thing up?

Trev

If anyone also wonders if they dreamt up seeing Glanville Fritillaries in the Cotswolds in the 1970s, then they probably weren't. I was a very naughty boy. I had collected about a dozen caterpillars (from different nests to spread the loss in the wild plus to ensure diversity of stock) in 1975, bred them through and got some pairings. By spring 1976, the appetite of caterpillars was totally unmanageable. I had already found a suitable site at Caudle Green (SO943103) with plenty of ribwort plantain so put down a huge number of caterpillars in that spring of 1976. I saw several adults that summer and a handful the following year but no more after that. Apparently they were "discovered" by another lepidopterist. When a note was subsequently published in a journal, (AES I think) I had to come clean.

Naughty naughty. Slapped wrist. But things were DIFFERENT 30+ years ago so what seems irresponsible today wasn't viewed in quite the same light then.

Jack

But things were DIFFERENT 30+ years ago so what seems irresponsible today wasn't viewed in quite the same light then.

You are so right there Jack.
Our activities in our youth would be reprehensible now.
Armed with my Observers Book of British Birds Eggs with it's helpful section in the front on how to blow eggs, I built up a fair collection of common garden bird's eggs, and gained a good knowledge of bird behaviour in the process.
Armed with my Observers Book of British Butterflies, with it's helpful section on how to kill and set butterflies, I built up a fair collection of badly set commoner garden butterflies.
I had a female cousin who filled book after book with pressed wild flowers - some now very rare.
These were perfectly respectable passtimes - encouraged by articles in Annuals, magazines and books.
It didn't even cross our collective minds that we were doing anything wrong.
I learnt a lot from these activities, and they fired off an enthusiasm for wildlife that has carried me happily through life.
However, I would not dream of disturbing a nesting bird, nor catching a butterfly these days, and get quite cross with people who still do, but I still wonder if mere observation is enough to fire enthusiasm in the young?. Perhaps we need to encourage photography or painting to 'get them going'.
Hamearis

Sadly both my teenage girls show no interest in nature at all save that that comes naturally. In fact they regard me as something of a 'geek'
In the cubs I was awarded my hobby badge for my egg collection and butterfly collection
With regard to Glanville frits i once spent an entire holiday on the isle of Wight looking for Lady glanville's house in the hope of seeing some GF's. Funnily enough her house was actually in Lincolnshire. It did'nt tell you that in the Observer's book. By the way i still have my original copy well used and spine taped up with ticks for each species seen.