Naomi’s butterfly-spotting territory, Petersfield Heath
contributed by Naomi Ward
**I’m proud that I’ve completed a new credential this month.**
Butterfly Surveyor 🦋
Once a fortnight I walk – slowly – always the same route around local heathland – and pay attention.
A quickening when I see something, that turns out to be a mayfly or moth. Then the flowing dip and rise of butterfly wings followed by leaning-squinting-efforting to identify the species from detail of shade, pattern and size.
Listen to the beauty and reverence inherent in their naming:
chequered skipper – orange-tip – swallowtail – mountain ringlet – gatekeeper – pearl-bordered fritillary – grayling – brown hairstreak – silverstudded blue – painted lady – peacock – comma – chalk hill blue.
I not only have butterflies for company, but a fellow surveyor, so that we have a little more confidence in our identification. I’ve met people like me who want to learn and protect local wildlife, and knowledge-carriers who recognise grasses, insects and orchids with ease.
To pay attention is to love – a place to begin – in deepening relationship with the more than human, and to recognise the mutual care and opening that is possible.
(The image  is of Petersfield Heath, while failing to capture a ‘marbled white’ drifting through long grass.)
