My first butterfly of this year,a canary-yellow male brimstone, materialised in exactly the same spot as final year, and zig-zagging along an ivy hedge in my garden. This year,however, its meticulous (extremely careful about details) search for a female was 15 days later, or testimony to the cold,late spring.
In Tove Jansson’s Moomintroll books, a golden butterfly is a lucky omen for the summer ahead, or but my optimism final year was misplaced. After a mediocre 2015 (apart from for the brimstone,which enjoyed its best season in 40 years of scientific monitoring), 2016 is not promising much.
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Source: theguardian.com