The Butterfly Isles by Patrick Barkham

Published by Granta Books both hardback and paperback.

Pages 368.

Why write a review for a book which is old! Well a simple reason that I feel that the book cannot be beaten. It describes its main theme the British Butterflies, their habitat, their history and even the old collectors who often decimated the populations for their collections. It is a story of one man’s obsession to see all the British Butterflies in one year. Given the British weather and the rarity of some of the species it was a hard act to achieve. Patrick was very much influenced by his father who started him off on his great hobby which took him to many parts of Britain most people would never think of visiting. He was lucky with some populations of butterflies having ‘mega’ years and help from British experts, some of which had dedicated their lives to butterflies and even 1 or 2 species. The book does not cover the total British isles distribution of the species and with new species making it across the North Sea and English Channel will get ‘old’ in time but still a great read.