Modern grassland control wipes out insects

I’VE been living on the same small patch of rural Ireland for more than 25 years and for all that time I’ve been carefully keeping tabs on the wildlife around me.

At this stage, adding a new species to the list of those that inhabit or visit my garden is a rare experience and, for me at least, rather exciting. And it happened the other day.

I was sitting in my conservatory with an early morning cup of coffee when I noticed an insect flitting around in the sunshine on the other side of the glass. I went outside to investigate and it was not, as I first thought, a moth that had been disturbed from its slumbers. It was a small butterfly, about the size of a five-cent coin, maybe fractionally larger.