As if she hadn’t got enough on her plate already, the high-powered Danish journalist and mother of three Lea Korsgaard decides to track down all Danish butterfly species in a single summer. She knows nothing about butterflies, claims to be unsure about what has sparked her unusual ambition and sets about learning a new language – of nature, lepidoptera and obsession – with a disarming lack of expertise.
The nature-quest narrative is an eccentric but surprisingly well-populated subgenre of nature writing. Midway through my own journey to find all British butterfly species in one year, I was devastated to discover that there was an earlier book on the same undertaking by Robin Page. It didn’t matter because publishing – or British publishing at least – adores an obscure hunt for a certain taxonomic category. Since my book, there’s been The Orchid Hunter (every British orchid); Cold Blood (every British reptile and amphibian); Much Ado About Mothing (rare British moths); Chasing the Ghost (every British plant); and The Glitter in the Green (hummingbirds). Apart from Dragonflight (every British dragonfly), these books share one characteristic: they are written by men. Is the desire to capture species and secure them in a narrative a peculiarly male predilection?
