It’s at this time of year that our little farmhouse begins to be love-bombed by butterflies, which flutter into its rooms through open windows to perch on the centuries-old walls and bask on its sunny windowsills. They are small tortoiseshells, a common species easily identified by the tiger-like stripes and series of tiny, pale blue dots stippled along the edges of its dark-orange, paper-thin wings. In early autumn the adults go in search of somewhere safe to overwinter, during which time our house is strangely irresistible to them. Clearly the building has always had this special charm. When we first bought it, its old, sun-filled rooms were filled with their tiny, dusty remains, poignant reminders of summers long gone.
Fascinatingly, according to the butterfly expert Jesmond Harding, there’s evidence to suggest that the small tortoiseshell has some form of spatial memory, with an ability to locate and return to sites that are significant to it. The female, for example, will return to the original location of the specific nettle plant on which she laid her eggs, even if that plant is moved to another part of the garden.
Perhaps the butterflies that flutter into our house every September share some similar sort of imprinted genetic memory of it as a safe place in which to overwinter. Unfortunately this isn’t the case any more, not only because of the recently installed central heating (heat disrupts their hibernatory patterns), but also because our two cats take a greedy delight in swiftly catching and devouring them. Now, each time I catch one in my hands to release it safely back outdoors, wings fluttering anxiously, I find myself explaining to it apologetically that times have changed.
The small tortoiseshell is just
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