Butterfly magic in our Indian summer

Damien Enright on the joys an Indian summer brings.

CABBAGE WHITE caterpillars gallop up the wall against which the nasturtiums still bloom in a riot of colour.

The eaves, towards which nature beckons them, are 30 feet above. Upward they climb, per ardua ad astra, to reach these eaves to which they will adhere themselves with a silken thread and grow an outer shell which will protect them through the winter. They will emerge, eight months from now, as white, fluttering creatures, dancing in the sunlight, if there is any sun next year.

Meanwhile, the parent butterflies dip over the dark green nasturtium leaves, half the size of a saucer, and deposit yet more eggs. Those upon which families of caterpillars have fed look like moth-eaten cast-offs, some stripped to their bare bones. Meanwhile, the pupae, aka chrysalis, nestle 30 feet above, some green, some golden brown — “chrysalis” comes from the Greek word for gold.

In the warm September sun — the only sun for most of this dreary summer — other butterflies are also on the wing, especially the small Speckled Woods which flit about amongst the sycamores and brambles.

Anyone picking blackberries is likely to see them, chocolate brown, furry, and with many eyes on the wings. The males establish territories in sunny glades into which they woo females and from which they aggressively expel other males. Fighting butterflies would seem paradoxical, but they do fight, quite fiercely for sex and territory.

Speckled Woods produce as many as three generations of caterpillars each year. Some reach adulthood in a month, some take all winter. It is this kind of adaptability which has made lepidoptera so successful, with over 5,000 species of butterflies and moths in Europe alone.

I read that, at a Coillte sponsored heritage week outing in Windsor Bog in Coolrain, Co Laois, a schoolboy, Oisín Bennett, found a “giant worm” which turned out to be the four-inch long, inch-thick caterpillar of the Goat Moth, a species thought to be confined to Kerry. It gets its name because the caterpillar smells like a rancid goat. The larvae bore in the wood of living trees and take up to five years to reach full size.

Scientists at the National Biodiversity Centre in Waterford have called for funding for a countryside survey of lepidoptera pointing out that they are one of the main indicators of climate change. Unusual occurrences can be reported to the data centre.

I return to the blackberries. An up-side of the weather brought sun after rain and the blackberries quickly swelled and then ripened. By sheer good luck, we got to them before the worms, with every berry a winner: fat, juicy and sweet.

A visit to an ancient orchard completed the Sunday afternoon’s foraging. Apples lay strewn beneath the trees; indeed trees themselves lay strewn in the high grass, engulfed by briars. It is a pity to see an old orchard die. The espalier pear trees are all but withered now; the high walls that trapped the sun are falling. Some years ago, I was asked to identify places where old varieties of apples could be found, and I suggested this orchard but I think no one ever came to harvest seeds. A big tree that only a few years ago carried a heavy crop of an old variety popularly called Sheep’s Nose (so a woman I met gathering fruit there told me) has disappeared altogether. It was blown down, colonised by briars, tall grass and ragwort.

The sea, this September, is warmer than I have ever experienced it, at least in places. Certainly, in west Cork, at Dunworley coves, last weekend, one could stay in it for half-an-hour at a time. Shallow sea, washing in over sun-warmed sand is, of course, always warmer than the sea off rocky shores.

As we sat on the beach in the warm sun, a family of children arrived, all wearing black rubber wet suits, and cavorted about in the surf. Nearby, a middle-aged man came down in bathing trunks, with a face mask, snorkel and flippers, and spent a full hour cruising the far rocks photographing fish. Wet suits on such a day, for children, insulating their bodies from sun and sea water? I doubt they’ll be skin-diving at 40, unless its in the tepid waters of the Red Sea.