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Summer is here, and as I write this, I’m sitting in my garden, bathed in sunshine, surrounded by flowers and the steady hum of bumblebees. Every now and then a butterfly flits between the blossoms, pausing briefly to sip on nectar before fluttering off to explore another garden. 

All around me nature is blissfully at work.

However this might not always be the case. A recent worrying reportby the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), states that we are losing entire species at an alarming rate, so much so that we are in danger of losing 30-50% of all species by mid-century. Unlike previous mass extinctions, this is entirely due to man’s devastating effect on the planet.

Of course, we all read things like this and wonder just how we can help, but each of us can, in our own little way, and we can start in our own back garden with the bees and the butterflies.Their numbers are in rapid decline, and if they disappear, the effects will cascade throughout ecosystems, affecting all aspects of life on earth. 

One of the things that we artists can also do is to use our art to raise awareness, to be visual storytellers. People might not read an article but they will look at a painting.

As a mother, I’ve always encouraged my daughters to look at the world around them. In fact, it was their enthusiasm for collecting bugs and nature’s treasures that led me on the path to becoming a botanical artist. I remember how they came home from school one day in Egypt, thrilled to have discovered a bush covered with caterpillars. Whilst the other children had wrinkled their noses, my daughters carefully carried home a leaf with what looked like walking eyelashes. To our delight we discovered that these were the caterpillars of the African monarch butterfly, Danaus chryssipus, and the bush was a giant milkweed, Calotropis procera. 

It was incredible to watch the tiny caterpillars change into pupae and then transform into stunningly beautiful butterflies My daughter came into me at dawn and whispered that they had hatched, a moment of pure enchantment. The butterfly image is at the top of this post.

Last week I found myself caterpillar watching once more. These caterpillars are small, black, spiky, and incredibly hungry, but hopefully they will transform into beautiful Peacock butterflies, Aglais io. They live on nettles, so every day I have been going out to collect fresh nettles.

It’s been such a delight to observe these little creatures closely. My daughters, now both in their teens, declared me “weird” and the caterpillars “Emo”, but I’ve noticed that they have brought all of their friends in to see the caterpillars and that everyone has been fascinated.

Although they are a common butterfly, I really haven’t seen a lot of them around. On my walks I have noticed that vast swathes of hedges in my area are being sprayed with herbicides, and I wonder how many creatures are being killed as a result.
Do we really need neat lawns? I’d rather have bees and butterflies.

 The caterpillars make great subjects to paint because they freeze whenever they sense danger, so if I tap the container, they will remain motionless for a few minutes. The plan is to fill a page with sketches from little caterpillar to pupa to butterfly. The magical part will be releasing them back into the wild.

This little bumblebee is a Bombus hortorum, the garden bumblebee. I found a female struggling to free herself from a spider’s web in my garden, so I rescued her and managed to sketch and photograph her before feeding her some honey and sending her on her way. 

At this time of year, it is quite common to find grounded bees, particularly if they have been stuck inside your house. Often they simply have run out of energy to fly. It’s estimated that a full honeystomach will give a bumblebee 40 minutes of flying, so next time you find an exhausted bee, give it a drop of honey mixed with water instead (7:3). Gratifyingly a long tongue will be extended and soon the little bee will be buzzing off happily to forage for nectar and pollinate more flowers. 

You see, it’s the little things in life that count.

Almost a third of all honeybees have disappeared in the last decade. Isn’t that something to be worried about?

http://bumblebeeconservation.org/

http://www.bumblebee.org/helpbees.htm
https://speakout.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns/ban-bee-killing-pesticides-for-good-937d4563-7694-41a8-a642-65e6b0e51453