Pathetic Fallacy

There is a wonderfully uplifting moment in Jane Austen’s novel Emma when the title character receives an unexpected offer of marriage from the noble but restrained Mr Knightley (note the rather obvious name symbolism). The backdrop to the offer is grim. Seen through the neurosis of Emma’s perspective, Knightley appears destined to offer his love to another, and she has damaged her relationship with him and others beyond repair. As the critic Ronald Blythe points out in his introduction to the Penguin edition, the story is not about ‘the marriage of true minds’ but it explores, with the ingenuity of detective fiction, the marriage ordeal.

This ordeal and the bleak circumstances for Emma are reflected in the narrative description of the weather:

A cold stormy rain set in, and nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the wind was despoiling, and in the length of the day, which only made such cruel sights the longer visible. (Austen, 1815, p. 409-10)

However, the following afternoon the meteorological melancholy lifted:

In the afternoon it cleared; the wind changed into a softer quarter; the clouds were carried off; the sun appeared; it was summer again…Never had the exquisite sight, smell, sensation of nature, tranquil, warm, and brilliant after a storm, been more attractive to her. (Austen, 1815, p. 412)

This description of the changing weather forms a glorious parable behind the moment the heroine and Mr Knightley are united.

The literary device for linking the human mood with the mood of nature is frequently applied in novels, plays, poetry and film. It never gets tired because it works.

In fiction and reality, the mood is impacted by the weather. Some of this impact is severe; ‘climate anxiety’ is defined by Yale:

Climate anxiety is fundamentally distress about climate change and its impacts on the landscape and human existence. That can manifest as intrusive thoughts or feelings of distress about future disasters or the long-term future of human existence and the world, including one’s own descendants (Lowe, 2025).

Orange-tip has enjoyed more abundance so far in 2025 (up to 27 April) than in the corresponding period in the years 2021-2024. During 2008-2023, a strong decline of -65% was recorded. 

Anyone who thinks this is new should look at Emma’s father’s weather phobias, and indeed the outlook of several characters that populate the novel. Winter turns them into moles, and a dusting of snow induces panic. Heat has a disorientating impact, with the July Box Hill picnic a fractious and bad-tempered outing.

However, humans have always been profoundly affected by climate and weather. In recent history in this part of the world, when poor weather damaged harvests economic loss, social and political upheaval and even mass starvation occurred. Invertebrates are no different. The months of cool, inclement weather in 2023 and 2024 severely reduced butterfly and moth abundance.

The prolonged sunny weather during March and up to April 10th this year (2025) accelerated the development of butterfly larvae. The Marsh Fritillary caterpillars Euphydryas aurinia at Lullybeg reached the sixth (final) instar early in April and many pupated. This happened in April 2011 and the first Marsh Fritillary adults danced above the grasslands in Lullybeg on 8th May when spring dissolved into cold winds and rain. Summer never happened in 2011. The early glories of spring were pulverized by biblical rains. In July the river at Lullybeg overflowed and drowned whatever larvae were produced by the few stalwart adults that bred there. It took several years for the riverbank population to return. As though embedded in the colony’s collective memory, the habitat in that part of the reserve was shunned by future generations, until recently.

Marsh Fritillary sixth instar.

This year the weather turned wet and cool from early in the second week in April but has made a recovery effort in recent days. The default setting for Ireland’s climate is unpredictable. This year, we could see the misery of 2011’s ‘summer’ or the sublime summer of 2018. Or an absurd mixture of both. Neurosis can be provoked by our erratic climate. We never know what we face or how to act.

However, I have learned to look askance at extended lavish sunshine in spring. The meteorological auditor usually institutes a punitive balancing of the books. 2007, 2009 and 2011 provide evidence of this  ‘equilibrium’. In these years, spring and summer swapped positions. On the other hand, the bleak spring of 2013, when weeks of leaden skies chilled our countryside, offered no sign of the summer. Winter over-stayed. There was no spring in 2013. Winter’s reign was directly followed by summer. And it was glorious. I recall seeing 13 pristine Wood Whites Leptidea sinapis between Murroogh and Murrooghtoohy in Northwest Clare, near Black Head, on 5th July, a perfect, happy day. This is a late date for the first generation of the Wood White which usually hatches from early May and finishes flying around mid-June. Of the three Dingy Skippers Erynnis tages I saw that day one was freshly hatched. Late to fly but making up for lost time.

Weather has a powerful influence on abundance (survival rates), emergence times, brood structure, hibernation and migration. Extreme heat during spring and summer is beneficial to most species. Extreme heat from November to February is negative for populations. Emergence times and hibernation are strongly influenced by seasonal factors such as day length but prolonged spring heat will promote earlier emergence from the pupa and will prompt earlier emergence of butterflies that over-winter as adults. We saw the first Dingy Skipper butterfly (a species that emerges from the pupa in spring) on 12th April this year. In 2024 we didn’t record this teddy bear-like butterfly flutter until 15th May, a month later. Geraldine Nee reported the first Brimstone Gonepteryx rhamni (which passes the winter in the adult state) at Derrinrush Woods, County Mayo on 23rd February, an early date for this lovely creature. In some years (2020) it takes us an additional month to see our first Brimstone.

Brimstone female, Lullybeg, Kildare.

The number of generations that multi-brooded butterflies produce is influenced by the weather over the flight season. A warm spring and summer can see the Small Copper Lycaena phlaeas produce three generations, but in Ireland, the third brood will be a partial generation with most of the second brood’s larvae overwintering. Under unfavourable conditions, a multi-brooded species might issue a cancellation order and produce just one generation. This flexibility is an excellent survival strategy. In Ireland, this has been observed, or strongly suspected, in the Small Tortoiseshell in dry summers in Howth, County Dublin. In such years, nettles are unsuitable for a second brood. Instead of breeding, the first generation hibernates until the following spring.

Clouded Yellow male, Daħlet Qorrot, Gozo.
Striped Hawkmoth, Nadur, Gozo.

This April, a strong sirocco blew from Tunisia to Malta and Italy for several days. This brought many insects from North Africa, including the billowing, gaudy Plain Tiger butterfly Danaus chrysippus (nothing plain about this masterpiece). Large numbers of other migrants, notably Clouded Yellow Colias croceus, Painted Lady Vanessa cardui, Vestal Rhodometra sacraria and Striped Hawkmoth  Hyles livornica also appeared, some in impressive totals. Depending on their breeding success in southern Europe and following southerly winds this summer, we might see some of their offspring later this year.

Wouldn’t that lift our mood?  

Plain Tiger, female, Ramla Il-Hamra, Gozo.

Reference

Lowe, S. (2025) Yale Experts Explain Climate Anxiety. Available at: https://sustainability.yale.edu/explainers/yale-experts-explain-climate-anxiety#:~:text=LOWE%3A%20Climate%20anxiety%20is%20fundamentally,world%2C%20including%20one’s%20own%20descendants.(Accessed 27 April 2025).

 

Ode to Spring

March and April 2025 have brought high sunshine levels, dry weather and above-average temperatures.  Not since the lockdown spring of 2020 have similar conditions occurred, and our butterflies certainly need the advantage that extreme warmth brings in spring.

The abundance analysis from 2024 has just been completed by National Biodiversity Centre’s Michelle Judge, and the data from the scheme confirms what we all felt, 2024 was a very poor year for butterflies because of the cool and overcast summer.

The key finding from the analysis is that 2024 was a bad year for butterflies, and the trend from 2008 – 20024 now shows a Strong Decline (-56.98%). Bear in mind that this figure applies to our 15 commonest butterflies only. The 10-year trend to 2024 is showing a moderate decline (-21.84% ).

While our butterflies are suffering from more than poor weather, sunny, warm weather has been demonstrated to benefit butterflies outside the November 1 to February 28 period.

Numbers of many species will be low in 2025, especially single-brooded butterflies that have suffered from the bad weather since July 2023. However, prolonged warmth will help multi-brooded species to build populations during the coming months.

Spring has long been celebrated as a time of happiness and renewal. In Home Thought from Abroad Robert Browning wrote

O, TO be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

Browning mentions England rather than Ireland our experience of spring is similarly uplifting. Birdsong and unfurling leaves add the soundtrack and visual accompaniment to the season of rebirth and renewal. Flowers open their bright colours to tempt pollinators to visit. Pollinators are roused by the warmth to seek food and mates. In spring, the first butterflies to emerge are typically those that overwintered as adults, followed by butterflies tucked up in pupae. The glowing colours of butterflies did not find room in Browning’s verse, but they certainly belong there. The elation of seeing that first Orange-tip, the male’s deep, hot orange forewing tips alongside starched white elsewhere announces spring nationwide like no other butterfly.

Our experience of nature is enhanced by direct, in-the-field contact.  The gallery that follows reflects that experience. Go out and enjoy spring!

Orange-tip male on Dandelion.
Male Orange-tip underside.
A female Comma basks on a branch. She laid a small number of eggs singly on the leaf edges of a vigorous patch of sun-warmed nettles close by.
Mass flowering of Bluebells is a feature of woods in Ireland and Britain. These are blooming in Summerhill Demesne, County Meath.
The glorious Emperor flies on bogs and heaths in April. She will sit in vegetation, emitting pheremones to searching males.
Woodland floors and damp hedgebanks shine with golden celandines in March and April.
This female Brimstone has waited seven months to fly in the spring sunshine.
The Herald moth spends the winter in attics and other dry places before emerging to breed in spring.
Water Avens likes damp woodland.
Don’t mow: Dandelions add their sunny disposition and life-saving nectar to bees, butterflies and moths in spring.
Common Dog-violet is an obscure yet striking little flower, likened by Wordsworth to his mysterious Lucy:
A violet by a mossy stone
Half-hidden from the Eye!
—Fair, as a star when only one
Is shining in the sky. The Common Dog-violet is the foodplant of the Silver-washed Fritillary caterpillar, which is busy feeding on the more delicate leaves of this plant in light-filled woods throughout Ireland.
The Large White, once common, is in headlong decline. This one hatched on 11 April.
We are on a promise: hundreds of Marsh Fritillary caterpillars are being reported from sites in various parts of Ireland. This one is in its sixth stage, the last before pupation. Hopes are high for a large emergence in late spring and early summer.
All photographs were taken in the spring of 2025.
Images copyright J. Harding