Living The Wildlife

Butterflies (3x2)

Air date: May 11, 2010

In the second programme in this series of Living the Wildlife, cameraman and presenter Colin Stafford-Johnson visits an organic farm in Roscommon where he meets Tommy Earley who is determined to discover every living thing that shares his family farm. Tommy has a passion for one butterfly in particular – one of our rare butterflies – the Marsh Fritillary and is determined to give them the best home possible. He also chats to Norma Shortall, a local teacher and a neighbour who is taking part in a National Butterfly Survey on Tommy’s farm – this is something anyone can do and they are looking for volunteers. Colin and Tommy also film some extraordinary footage of spiders catching dragonflies in their massive webs. Colin then leaves Roscommon and visits a really special garden in Maynooth where he catches up with Jesmond Harding, author of Discovering Irish Butterflies & their Habitats that Colin has been using for the past year. Jesmond explains what plants are needed to encourage butterflies to live in gardens – something we can all do according to Colin.