Flights of Respair by Martin Maudsley

Respair: renewed optimism after a period of despair, fresh hope.

Sometime in the depths of March, before this year’s spell of glorious spring-shine had begun: I’m working quietly in the local bookshop – a one day-a-week job that I’ve had, and held on to, since Covid times. At the end of the day the proprietor pops by to say hello, and points out a darkish moth resting, contrastingly, against a white wall. “What’s this?” he asks, as the delicate creature flutters briefly before resettling again. I peer closely, marvelling at the ornate, symmetrical markings: two opposing chevrons etched in shades of brown and beige. A flicker of recognition switches on in my brain and I find myself automatically saying aloud: “Angle Shades”. I immediately doubt myself, of course, so load up an ID app on my phone, re-focussing the camera until I get the right angle.  I was right – I had got the right Angle! He is suitably impressed, and I’m pleasantly surprised. A lucky guess, perhaps, or a piece of deeply-dredged inner knowledge?

An early autobiographical memory, probably my earliest at around 3 years old: I am alone in the small glass-fronted porch of our first family house, watching an insect – a cranefly – flying upwards and falling again, with thin wings and long, dangling legs. I can still remember the sense of calmness within me as I watched the intricate insect’s movements. It felt intensely personal, but somehow held a deep connection to the wild world around me, which as a young child I was still in love with. Recalling this unfaded vignette, a ‘spot in time’ (to quote Wordsworth), has brought me comfort over the years, and recently become even more meaningful and motivational.

How to make sense of our journeys through life, to connect those disparate ‘spots in time’? Well, it turns out that little boy watching a cranefly went on to study ecology at university and ended up with a Ph.D. in entomology. From there, a career environmental education eventually led to an unexpected metamorphosis into a professional storyteller. It’s an unusual, wandering route, for sure, and the story is partially retold here.

Curiosity in the wild world – and an instilled sense of wonder – are essential starting points for both science and storytelling, and have continued to feed the flow of my work-life. However, insects, as a passion and profession, have dwindled within me, over a similar same time-span as their populations have steeply declined in the outdoor world. Although I’ve maintained a sporadic personal interest in beetles and butterflies, the early fascination with insects somehow felt like a neglected jewel within my ‘breast-hoard’ (a wonderfully evocative Norse kenning for the inner place where we hold the things that are dear to us); waiting to be rediscovered.

Last year my friend Adrian Cooper, director of environmental arts charity Common Ground, fermented the formation of Bridport Swift Town. A small group of us organised and delivered a series of Swift-related events to celebrate the annual arrival of our town’s beloved birds, as well as highlight conservation issues, especially around local nesting sites. I led a bird-related storytelling walk around the wilder edges of town, to help open imaginations towards swifts and other birds. But this year I suggest running a ‘bug-watch’ event instead, ostensibly to highlight invertebrate food resources or Swifts, but also as an occasion to reveal and relish the often overlooked – or underlooked – world of insects.

It’s also an ideal opportunity for me to re-engage with my entomological training, put on my old ‘Dr Martin’ boots. So, on a lazy Sunday afternoon in late May, a few families and several co-opted passersby convene in our local community orchard – a well-loved and well-managed space, that surely contributes to the aerial insect menu of our local Swifts. We spend a happy afternoon in hazy sunshine sweeping long grasses with home-made nets, searching under logs, dipping in the pond and gently shaking tree limbs onto a white sheet. Through sharing the finds in small magnifying pots, many tiny captured creatures suddenly loom large in people’s eyes, some for the very first time.

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As part of the bug-watch event, I borrow a moth trap from Adrian – a chance to demonstrate first-hand some fascinating, beautiful, and otherwise difficult-to-see insects. Since there is no mains electricity at the orchard site, I run the trap from home for a few days: a simple contraption consisting of a UV light bulb suspended over a white canvas box with a funnelled top. On the first morning, I enlist my enthusiastic 13-year-old daughter, Annie, to help ‘look into’ the contents with a useful (but fallible) phone ID app and trusty, illustrated guide book. Both of us immediately gasp on seeing the perfect pink form of an Elephant Hawk Moth, primly perched on top of an egg box. The awe and wonder continue as she carefully retrieves a closely-related Privet Hawkmoth from deeper down in the trap, so huge it covers the whole of her hand. Again, old skills or deep knowledge allow me to identify a distinctive Magpie Moth as it swiftly takes wing, and Annie is thrilled to hear that her fanatically favourite bird has its own tiny namesake. One by one we gently extract each different type of moth from the trap, our eyes increasingly able to pick out the tell-tale details in pattern and colour. Writing out a list of species, we revel together, too, in the treasury of evocative, occasionally provocative, English names. As someone who wrestles words for a living, I delight in the instant poetry formed simply by listing that night’s moth names: Willow Beauty, Flame Carpet, Shoulder-striped Wainscot, Flounced Rustic, Bright-line Brown-eye, Peach Blossom, The Spectacle. Of this latter name, we puzzle a little. There are far more ‘spectacular’ species, but peering more closely we notice that the front of this little moth clearly has a pair of white spectacles perched on the end of its brown ‘nose’.

Although we discover an impressive diversity of moth species in our first night’s trap, most are represented by just one or two individuals. Except one: there are well over fifty Heart and Darts (a common and garden variety), and we relish in their sheer abundance. The common name derives from the two distinctive black markings on each forewing, but its scientific name is even more apt: Agrotis exclamationis. “So many!!” exclaims Annie. They are docile by daytime and soon she has coaxed a dozen or so onto her hands, looking like moth magician. I’m old enough to remember streetlights haloed with fluttering insects, as well as the splattering of soft bodies on the windscreen when we drove to Cumbria or Cornwall on family summer holidays. Now I’m enjoying being able to marvel at moths again, as the curtains are pulled back on a world of wild variety and profusion I thought had disappeared.

For both of us the magic spell woven by moths that morning was utterly instant and completely captivating; a revelation of natural beauty and wild wonder. Moth-trapping has quickly become a shared passion between me and my daughter, providing a regular rhythmic ritual of evening expectation and daily discovery. A few days later, in the middle of the night, my partner and I are awakened by a noisy commotion from inside the bedroom curtains. I jump out of bed to find several fluttering moths drawn to the light reflected against the white curtain lining. It takes a while to usher them carefully back out through the open window, and I then close it to prevent more insect intruders. But it’s a warm night and I enjoy the air-flow through the bedroom, so instead I decide to go outside and turn off the trap-light. Back in bed, however, I feel instantly guilty. I don’t want Annie to wake up to a disappointingly meagre moth catch after our initial delights. So, I tip-toe back downstairs and move the trap from back garden to front, away the bedroom windows.

Next morning, having slept later than usual, there’s a text message from Annie on my phone: ‘When you get up, check the moth trap. There’s some great ones!! A gorgeous blue-green one I haven’t seen before, and another elephant and privet hawk-moth!!’After taking the trap indoors to investigate at leisure, I can’t the find moth book anywhere. Eventually, I ask my partner, busily working in the other room. ‘Check Annie’s bedroom,’ comes the ever-reliable reply. Sure enough, half-tucked under her pillow, is the sacred tome – her bedtime light (trap) reading. I smile, a part of my heart softens, and find my own inner child is now singing a once-familiar song. That morning, I identify twenty or so species, at least half of them different to the previous night’s haul. The ‘gorgeous blue-green one’ that Annie admired was a Light Emerald, although personally I’m more drawn to the convoluted waves of wing patterns on a Willow Beauty. Whilst putting the moths in collecting pots for individual identification, one or two escape with surprising bursts of agility. Suddenly, a chord is resonating loudly from my guitar hanging on the wall, seemingly skilfully strummed by a Large Yellow Underwing.

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Partly inspired by Patrick Barkham’s book, The Butterfly Isles, I’ve been (slowly) trying to see all the 59 native butterfly species in the UK. I’m now down to those that are harder to see: rare or remote. But there is one of those species that has recently been reported as forming a brand-new colony locally, the Wood White, and this is the right time of year for adults in flight. It’s Whitsun half-term and I take Annie to meet a friend at nearby Lyme Regis. Parking at the top of town we wander down the 114 steps to the concrete promenade that almost floats above the shore, where hordes of holiday makers below are busy paddling or fossiling, the sun glinting brightly from sea-water pools left at low tide. Above the walkway is an impressive bank of wildflowers in glorious technicolour. As usual, I see something hopeful fluttering immediately, but then realise that this is a much more common Green-veined White. But soon after my eyes are drawn towards a smaller white butterfly with a distinctly flimsy flight higher up the bank, its slow-motion flapping almost defying aerodynamics. Hopping over a low wall, attracting puzzled looks from passersby, I stand and wait for other butterflies to flutter-by. It doesn’t take long before two alight on a spray of Red Valerian, happily nectaring together, neatly arranged on other side of the flowers. I have a perfect close-up view of these ghostly insects and take decent photos of my first ever Dorset Wood Whites.

The Wood White is one of our rarest butterflies, with a greatly reduced distribution in the UK (largely owing to declines in woodland coppice management). It is estimated that there are perhaps only 50 remaining populations across the whole UK. But now there is one more; a by-product of human disturbance, serendipity and local intervention. It’s only one example, from one side of a seaside town to the other, but surely this is a moment of ‘respair’, of fresh hope? And for me, personally, it is another flickering flame in the rekindling of wild joy.

Local lepidopterist and conservationist Phil Sterling was a key player in seizing the opportunity to create the right habitat for the Wood White’s ‘51st state’. As it happens, we’re both playing cricket at the local village ground the very next Sunday. After the match, over a beer, Phil and I (along with another fine friend and influential conservationist, Nick Gray), chat excitedly about the resurgent Wood Whites.  Phil speaks with characteristic candour of the virtues of direct and immediate interventions on behalf of nature. He had literally thrown handfuls of donor seed – Meadow Vetchling, Tufted Vetch and Bird’s-foot Trefoil – across the bare ground as the cliffside restoration was taking place. The right plants soon appeared, although it took seven years or so before the butterflies (notoriously limited in dispersal range) managed to become resident.

Our conservation conversation winds its way around to recent sightings of Butterfly Orchids, Adonis Blues, and other local wonders of the wild world. Eventually, I mention that there seems to be more insects smeared on car windscreens this year – a sign of fresh hope? His reply is playful but direct: ‘Look yourself in the mirror, and ask yourself that question.’ I know what he means: with so much well-documented evidence of mass declines in invertebrates, any blips in abundance are more likely due to temporary weather conditions or local hotspots, rather than an overall reversal of fortunes. But, looking in the mirror back home, I see a positive change in me, at least – and I’ve already seen something just as hopeful reflected brightly in my teenage daughter.

In his new book Is a River Alive? Robert Macfarlane writes of the possibility of turning shifting baseline syndrome – where we fail to recognise the gradual denudation of nature around us – into ‘lifting baseline syndrome’. Things can get better, sometimes quite quickly, as soon as negative human activities are abated. Rivers can restore themselves, and through the flow of recovery also help to re-wild human natures. Perhaps our (shared) emotional experiences can be a crucial part of the uplift? Last summer Annie and I went to look for another rare butterfly, the Chalkhill Blue, on Portland, whilst her brother was playing cricket. I knew where to look and we found them easily, and in good numbers too, rather incongruously sheltering from the wind amongst the tyre tracks of the large lorries that transport quarried stone from the island. I told her it was the first time I’d ever seen that butterfly species. ‘You’re well over fifty,’ she responded, with brutal honesty. ‘But I’ve seen my first one when I’m only twelve years old.’ In this sense, she’s well ahead of me, and I hope that the baseline of her encounters with wild wonders continues to rise beyond mine in future. It is undeniable that there are far fewer insects around than when I was her age, yet if we can find more meaningful opportunities to interact with them, like she is currently, then maybe we can avoid the pitfalls of generational amnesia, and find fresh hope.

In the local bike shop, the day after seeing the Wood Whites, the owner (somewhere between me and my daughter in age) notices an insect on my shirt collar and gently removes it onto his hand; an act of unexpected insect intimacy. It’s only an aphid, but it sparks another ‘respairing’ moment, as we talk together of a mutual childhood love of insects. He then shows me a picture on his phone of an impressive Ladybird beetle larva that he recently found. ‘I’d never seven one before,’ he says, with obvious delight.

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Recently I have undertaken some consultancy work as an ‘animator’ for the Brit Valley Project: a regenerative agriculture scheme with around fifty local landowners within the catchment of the River Brit. It’s impressive in its innovation and ambition for restoring biodiversity, soil health and cleaner water at a local landscape scale. But the individual dedication of farming participants, alongside a willingness for open-minded co-operation, is equally inspiring. My role is allowing me to document some of the stories that have led to the point where such a project is necessary, as well as witness the personal passions that are driving it forward. One of the founding members is a farmer who, a few years ago, sold a parcel of land in order to invest in and intensify his own Dorset dairy enterprise. The economic consequences of this decision didn’t quite work out, yet he soon noticed the detrimental effects on the ecology of his land. He observed numerous dead insects within cow pats in the pasture fields, and one day, to his dismay, found a lifeless body of a bird that had been feeding on them. Something had to change, and the Brit Valley Project is providing a timely alternative: a framework for farming with less inputs whilst hopefully gaining more for wildlife and humans. It doesn’t take long. A walk through the same pastures this year reveals cattle turds teeming with insect life. He recently sent a phone-photo of hatching bugs from the underside of a leaf that I was able to identify for him as the nymphs of Green Shieldbug. Here’s a farmer, amongst several similarly motivated neighbours, finding fresh hope in the wealth of insect life that is now recovering on the land.

The Brit Valley Project is a pioneer scheme that could be a model for many others, and is therefore being carefully scrutinised by the UK government. Tony Juniper, the Chair of Natural England, recently came to visit some of the participating farmers and see the lay of their land first-hand. That evening he gave a public talk in Bridport to all partners and interested parties. Without any notes or visual aids, he spoke eloquently and urgently of the  environmental crises, as well as possible ways beyond them. The content of the talk was equal measures despair and respair, but consciously delivered in that order. Even against a background of continuing world-wide losses, through passionate landholders, innovative technology, and enlightened policies we can already see the first tangible successes; species and populations brought back from the brink. Simon Barnes once wrote: ‘There’s a worse crime than crass destruction, and that’s crass despair.’ It seems to me that savouring – and sharing – our own moments of sensitive respair can certainly countermand crass despair, and help in taking the necessary next steps towards genuine repair.

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Martin Maudsley is a freelance storyteller and writer based in Dorset, with passion for the natural world and local landscapes. He has a background in ecology, and has previously worked as a researcher and environmental educator. Martin specializes in stories that celebrate nature, folklore, and the changing seasons, using storytelling to help connect people with a sense of place. Martin’s first book Telling the Seasons was published in 2023.

The Photograph at the head of this essay is courtesy of the author.