In Your Nature Ep 65 - Butterflies with Jesmond Harding
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What makes Bog of Allen a prime spot for butterfly watching?
Hey Niall. Hey Ricky. Welcome back to In Your Nature podcast. First recording this year and we've got a glorious day here at the Boga Valley Nature Reserve in Lullymore in Kildare. It's a perfect
day for it. We're very lucky. The air is full of insects. I see hoverflies, I see bees, I see some wasps and most importantly of all I see some butterflies because this is a place that I have been to many times before to watch butterflies. One of the best places in the whole country for it and I'm really looking forward today because we have a very special guest on the podcast.
We have a wonderful man with a grin on his face and a butterfly net under his arm. And it's Jesmyn Harding, who is the butterfly guru in Ireland. And he has written sort of a tome on Irish butterflies. He knows his onions every time I hear him and see him speak. He's just full of knowledge and enthusiasm. And I'm really looking forward to the next hour with Jesmyn.
Thank you very much indeed. Thanks, Niall and Ricky. And it's wonderful to be here. Lovely, calm day. The sun is shining. It isn't oppressive heat, which we've had recently, but it's very serviceable weather for butterflies and dragonflies and everything else. So I'm looking forward to seeing what we can see. Always on these occasions when you're bringing people out to wonderful sights like this, Fingers crossed that the butterflies don't make liars of me
by not
appearing. But I'm sure they'll do well by me. That's the magic of podcasts. We can make them
up if they're not here. That's it, yeah.
Well, I don't want to make them up. I really do expect to see them. So, please God, we will see them. And the weather's just beautiful for them. So, lots to see here. It's a wonderful area. It's about 5,581 hectares of land. Incredible habitat, wonderful bog of Allen. You've got woodland, you've got heath, you've got scrub, you've got grassland, you've got dry calcareous orchid-rich grassland, lakes, streams. It's just an extraordinary area, worthy of conservation and worthy of protection for the wildlife and for the people of Ireland.
And just to set the scene, perhaps for listeners who aren't familiar with it, or maybe are international listeners, where exactly in Ireland are we right now? We are in North West
Kildare. It's near the towns of Allamwood and Rathangan. As you can hear, it's silent. So it's a real oasis of calm. Beautiful, beautiful place to ramble. It's just peaceful. You could be anywhere in the world here. And it's good that you asked me where it is because you could be anywhere. I've brought students here and they wondered where the streetlights and the chipper was. And it was hilarious. It's great to have the chance to show people a place I like myself. So I'm looking forward to today.
Tell us a bit about yourself and your background and where it was. You got the butterfly in a mop bug and... What brings you to be here today as the butterfly guru?
I would have to credit my dad with that, my father, Charles Harding. I was born in Bristol and we lived there until I was seven. One day he brought me to Clark's in Bristol to get my shoes fitted and I was a really awkward child in relation to anyone touching my feet or measuring my feet. I was just a demon for that. And he promised me that if I behaved myself, I'd get the shoebox as a present. So I gritted my teeth and behaved and, you know, got the shoebox and we went to the park and it was a beautiful spring day. It was lovely and sunny. It was one of those spring days that after a long winter, it just lights the world up. And I saw this beautiful holly blue, which I didn't know what it was at the time, but this azure, deep gleaming jewel of blue.
The Holly Blue's name is Celestrina, which means heavenly, and it is a heavenly looking creature. Anyway, I saw it, and my dad saw me looking at it, and I was about four at the time, he said, would you like me to try and catch that? My dad wore a suit, he was a working man, but he wore a suit wherever he went, as people did back then. And I was amazed at this animation from him, because he was very, quite stiff and strict.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What makes Bog of Allen a prime spot for butterfly watching?
0:04–8:50
2
How did Jesmond Harding’s childhood spark his passion for butterflies?
8:50–17:35
3
Which butterfly species are most commonly seen at Bog of Allen and how can you identify them?
17:35–32:28
4
Why are Irish butterfly populations declining and what does the 2008 baseline reveal?
32:28–39:05
5
How do specific plants and soil conditions support butterfly diversity in the reserve?
39:05–49:28
6
What are the four‑stage life cycles of butterflies and how do they differ from moths?
49:28–57:10