Butterfly stalking - a neglected Scottish field sport

by - 15:30 on 09 August 2007

Yes, I know that an important segment of Scottish tourism is about adventure sports and adrenaline – all that stuff that involves roaring around in ribs or ripping up heather and dune with quad-bikes. Even wildlife watching, which sits most unhappily next to this sector, inevitably focuses on the larger and more spectacular denizens: whales the size of cargo ships, huge red deer clashing antlers while the mountains echo with their bellowing. It’s certainly dramatic.

Can I say a wee word about Scottish butterflies? No? Oh, go on. For anyone out there who likes things a bit more peaceful, then I’d like to direct you to this often ignored aspect of wildlife watching. There are great advantages in getting to know a few Scottish species. For a start, they only come out in summer when it’s sunny. You don’t need any special equipment to creep up on them – and they don’t bite. Their worst feature is their short attention span. They just can’t seem to settle on anything for long.

  The Scotch Crumpet          The Biggar Blue (do not confuse with the Lanark Blue)

The other advantage is that you can spot butterflies when birds aren’t very obvious, in the hot still days (hah!) of late summer. For instance, on the short countryside interlude illustrated here, though I saw plenty of butterflies, as for birdlife, all I noted was a pair of chocolate-spotted flapjacks and also a distant bletherskite (unconfirmed – probably a juvenile). Another plus-point for this hobby is that butterfly stalking is usually very safe. The only hazard is that warm sunny days are also favoured by horse-flies or ‘clegs’ but you should be OK unless you make loud neighing sounds while on the stalk. Besides, they only bite because they resent the attention which midges get in guidebooks.

Anyway, these pictures are the result of half-an-hour’s butterfly stalking on rough grass by a sunny bank at the edge of woodland. Barometer of the environment and all that stuff, if you see a lot of butterflies around, then you can be sure you’re in a bit of fairly unspoilt habitat, or, if a golfer, in deep rough.

Bored dog in butterfly habitat. The even more boreder terrier wandered off

Please note, dogs got very bored and do not make ideal companions for the hunt, unless of course they’re papillons, specially bred. (Am I getting too subtle here?) Note to self. Must get a proper butterfly field-guide. Also, must get a proper hobby soon. 

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