Country diary: The fight for life here will carry on without us

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire: A defiantly shabby peacock butterfly and an annual visit by the abbey's bees send us on our wayA butterfly hoists the tattered flag of itself into sunlight at the flower's tip. The mirror-ball eyes on that wonderful prow of its face can still see, the antennae still read the chemical languages of the air, the proboscis taps into sweet spots inside these Rodgersia flowers, but the wings are knackered.The flashing blue eye-spots on its wings, from which the peacock butterfly gets its name, are smudged thin. Their dead-leaf-mimicking undersides are threadbare. What once opened to startle predators or closed to provide camouflage no longer works; Aglais io is all out of defensive strategies now. Frayed and torn it might be, but this butterfly is making the most of flaming June, and its defiant moment in the sun is the culmination of an itinerant life, despite our attempts to wipe insects out. Continue reading...