The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy

Joy and wonder are not words we encounter often in today’s frenetic and troubled world. Here, Mike McCarthy employs them to present a simple, yet fundamental, truth: that we are moved by nature and that we love nature, because it has been deep within us for 50,000 generations. Indeed, it is our very essence.

We are drawn into Mike’s view through his own experiences of nature, as a young boy and a professional man: he describes the feelings as joyful, wondrous and, more than that, enabling him to come to terms with human fragility, illustrated by the account of his own childhood turmoil. Butterflies are the beginning and final markers of a journey, from the Nymphalid quartet bejewelling the Buddleia in Bebington, Merseyside in 1954, to The Great British Butterfly Hunt in 2009, Mike’s quest, supported by The Independent where he was environment correspondent, to see all 58 British breeding species in a single year.

The journey is entitled Joy in the Calendar and takes us from the winter solstice through snowdrops, bluebells and blossom. Mad March hares, birdsong and migrating Cuckoos accompany the flower calendar, while moths (as in the Snowstorm) are the key to his celebration of abundance. And here is one of the main messages of the book – he points to and laments our recent loss of the abundance of the natural world. This record of loss is entitled The Great Thinning and he employs evidence first from Butterfly Conservation, and then from BTO, of how the numbers have declined. Within 40 years the High Brown Fritillary has declined by 79%, the Wood White by 65%. In the same period we have lost 95% of our Turtle Doves and 89% of our Spotted Flycatchers. Mike manages to find a few House sparrows in London, and again uses his newspaper to try and discover the science behind the disappearance of House Sparrows from our lives.

Mike’s deep knowledge, reliance on evidence captured from the science and conservation coal-face, and his use of many classical and literary references capture why nature is central to our lives. He travels far to understand the loss of abundance, seeing for himself the destruction of Saemangeum in South Korea, an estuary of great importance to shorebirds migrating down the East Asia flyway. And he compares this once-wilderness with his own early estuarine wilderness on the Wirral.

As the conservation movement comes together around a common purpose to restore and recover nature, this is a timely call to arms, to ensure we look after not just species, but recover nature’s abundance that fills us with wonder and joy. A word missing from the book is courage, but in telling his own very personal story of surviving a troubled childhood, coming to his own peace through the natural world, Mike’s courage is inspiring. It gives me hope that all of us can love nature enough to save ourselves.

Book reviewed by Andy Clements