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Ulster Star
6/07/2001
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IT is said that the butterflies in Italy are thriving. Can you think
of a better reason for going to Italia than to check out the veracity of
this assertion? So here we are in Italy, not interested in the food, the
drink, the people, the weather, our daughter living here, only
interested in butterflies!
So we took with us a new publication, the Photographic Guide to the
Butterflies of Britain and Europe. It is so easy to be insular, and
forget that in other countries other magnificent types of wildlife, rare
or absent here, may be quite common. This book helped to open our eyes
to the magnificence of Lepidoptera in Italia.
We did come across some beautiful day-flying moths, with black-blue
bodies longer than their wings. The wings were black with white spots,
and there was a most distinctive orange band marching, sorry, a static
band, around their middles. Unfortunately, the Guide to the Butterflies
did not reveal too much about day-flying moths, and we have yet to
identify this colourful insect.
The new book is a new concept field guide. Naturally, it is trying to
promote a greater interest in butterflies, and is intended as an aid to
identification when we are abroad on business or on holidays. It
encourages us to be interested in conserving butterflies and butterfly
habitat, and is meant to enable us to identify butterflies on the wing,
so to speak.
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The only problem I found with this book was
that while it did show lovely photographs, the butterfly measurements
were absent. Then I came across some small blues, and was able to
recognise them from home. So knowing the small blue did not hinder me
from using the book, nor did it help me.
What it did was make me appreciate the writer, Tom Tolman's, approach to
butterfly identification in this book. He believes that the impression
of size is judged by wing area. If he were to add information about wing
length, it just might seem somewhat confusing It helps to have an idea
of size, as in my case with the small blue, but he feels that very
little experience is required to gauge, at a glance, the relative sizes
of different species.
So taking this on board, I used this book again using his ideas. Coming
across Duke of Burgundy Fritillarys, I felt that recognition was due to
my familiarity with this insecti s appearance in all British butterfly
books.
The Burgundy appears in south Scotland, south England, then in Europe
from north of the Iberian Peninsula eastwards. The Italian burgundy was
the first one ever seen by ourselves, and this afforded us pleasure, and
the book enhanced the pleasure.
So having the book encouraged us to look further afield for butterflies.
We then came across speckled wood, and felt quite at home. We did check
that the Italian version was the same as ours, and then felt that we
were sitting in our back garden at home with the speckled wood
investigating the hedges. Only one thing, it was somewhat warmer in
Italia. |