Feeling the glimmer of January sun this morning I recalled
one of my most vivid memories of last year.
On the morning of Saturday 29 March, at just after noon, I cycled past a
favourite spot amid the woods and waterways of Spreewald, a biosphere reserve
that lies about 100 kilometres south-east of central Berlin. As I passed the point where two canals meet,
next to towering ash and poplar trees reaching up into the sky, an unmistakable
butterfly swooped up into the air: a Camberwell Beauty, Nymphalis antiopa, which owes its English name to an early sighting
in 1748, in what is now part of South London.
I stopped my bike and frantically assembled my camera in time to take a
bad shot of the butterfly sunning itself on the track some ten metres behind me
before it took off over the trees. At
least I had proof of having seen it but otherwise only a blurry likeness. I waited maybe an hour in the vain hope that
it might reappear but there was a strange stillness in the March sunshine and
nothing was to be seen.
The next day I approached the exact spot again, at precisely
the same time, riding my bike quite slowly: to my delight I could see that the
Camberwell Beauty was already there several metres ahead of me so I made
another stealthy attempt to take a photograph.
Again it soared upwards at my approach only to reappear a few minutes
later further down the track, now being pursued by another Camberwell Beauty, flying
even faster. The two butterflies took
off together, spiralling around each other, higher and higher, way above the treetops,
until they were a mere pair of specks in orbit silhouetted against the sky.
I stood by the track and waited patiently, camera in
hand. About twenty minutes later I happened
to glance to my left. A Camberwell
Beauty sat sunning itself on a warm twig jutting out from dead vegetation, this
time just a few metres away. I edged
towards it and this time it did not fly away.
Evidently the strange creature advancing towards it no longer seemed to
present a threat; I had made a temporary connection with their world.
Spreewald, Brandenburg, 30 March 2014
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