Dozing-off at bedtime, yawning, reaching for the TV remote control – and suddenly I’m wide awake. There’s a butterfly on the screen. A real butterfly, a peacock, wings pressed against the glass, hiding the newsreader’s face. It must have found its way in during those mild, late autumn evenings, perhaps roosting behind an armchair, now roused from its winter sleep. It circled the ceiling light, then headed for the door, into the kitchen.
We don’t see many overwintering insects in the house these days. When we moved in, more than 30 years ago, it was cold, damp, with ill-fitting doors and windows and gaps between the floorboards. Then, it was no surprise to find silverfish and devil’s coach horse beetles in the kitchen, queen wasps and lacewing flies hibernating behind picture frames and herald moths sleeping through the coldest months under the stairs. Since then, energy-efficiency improvements have kept the heat in and the wildlife out – apart from daddy-longlegs spiders, useful fly-catching residents that can’t survive outside.
