In Pursuit of Butterflies: A Fifty-Year Affair

The butterflies of Britain, in the words of one of their greatest champions. Matthew Oates has led a butterflying life. Naturalist, conservationist and passionate lover of poetry, he has devoted himself to these exalted creatures: to their observation, to singing their praises, and to ensuring their survival. Based on fifty years of detailed diaries, In Pursuit of Butterflies is the chronicle of this life. Oates leads the reader through a lifetime of butterflying, across the mountain tops, the peat bogs, sea cliffs, meadows, heaths, the chalk downs and great forests of the British Isles. Full of humour, zeal, digression, expertise and anecdote, this book provides a profound encounter with one of our great butterfly lovers, and with a half-century of butterflies in Britain.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Introduction 1 Starting out 2 Laudator temporis acti 3 Escape to the woods 4 Rebellion 5 Into the green A digression, into names 6 Desperately seeking Rima 7 Walden 8 The long hot summer of 1976 9 The legacy of 1976 Alice Holt Forest 10 Out of the seventies Winter 11 In and out of war: the early 1980s Noar Hill 12 The return of the wanderer 13 Nineteen eighty-four and all that 14 A time of discovery Autumn 15 High-blown years: the Great Storm and afterwards 16 Paradise regained: the great summer of 1989 Spring 17 Spring perfected 18 Moving on 19 High adventures in the mid-1990s The New Forest 20 Summer of the Painted Lady 21 Leaving the nineties 22 Time out of time 23 The Emperor's return 24 Hairstreaks to the fore Some Cotswold places 25 Of Iris and Adonis 26 A fall from grace Summer 27 A tale of two butterflies 28 Adventures with caterpillars Savernake Forest 29 It rained … 30 Fifty years on Towards some meaning Afterword: On Marlpost Road Butterflies of the year Bibliography List of illustrations Acknowledgements Index of butterfly species General index

About the Author :
Matthew Oates is a naturalist, writer and poet who has been obsessed by Britain's butterflies since he was at school. Intimately acquainted with all of Britain's native species, he has made particular studies of the Pearl-bordered Fritillary, Mountain Ringlet and Duke of Burgundy. But no butterfly has entranced him so much as the elusive, beautiful Purple Emperor – a butterfly we now understand much better thanks to his detailed and tireless observation. Since 1992 Matthew has worked for the National Trust, where he is currently National Specialist for Nature. Matthew has written widely for newspapers and magazines, and is a regular writer for the Nature Notes column in The Times. He lives in Gloucestershire.

Review :
Oates ... writes entrancingly, with the sunniest good humour. His book, with its old-school, loving erudition, is nature-writing of the sort that never goes out of fashion. This book is an infectious, instantly joyful love song to butterflies ... Written in prose as delicate and enticing as the creatures themselves, this read will release your inner flutter A joy to read, bubbling with knowledge, enthusiasm and insight. ... a memoir which is knowledgeable, cultured and a welcome throwback to a gently comic kind of English nature writing. Oates is unquestionably authentic and his voice is vivid, witty and unapologetic ... his writing is suffused with a love for the spirit of the English countryside. Lyrical, eccentric, charming and historical, In Pursuit of Butterflies is altogether unique. One of the best summaries of why nature matters and how we should all care. The writing is perfectly judged, combining a gift for story-telling and for conveying fact with an ever-present sensitivity and self-awareness. There is the author's own poetry too, deeply felt and beautifully crafted. It reminded me of my childhood delight in butterflies - and indeed rekindled it. When the weather turns stormy and the butterfly year is over I can turn to this book and be enchanted once again and dream of days to come next year. He [Oates] writes with lyrical affection about the wonderful variety of British butterflies and moths... His enthusiasm is never less than inspiring. It is his infectious enthusiasm as much as his deep knowledge that makes the book so worthwhile ... He writes entrancingly, with the sunniest good humour. His book, with its old-school, almost loving erudition, is nature-writing of the sort that never goes out of fashion.