Episode 3

Lea Korsgaard searches for all of Denmark’s butterfly species in one year. She discovers secret places and learns about the rich natural and symbolic history of butterflies.

Butterflies are an intrinsic part of the ecosystem, pollinating plants and acting as food for larger creatures. Their existence is entwined with the plant life and landscapes they make home, but habitats are reducing and with this, butterfly populations are under threat.

Learning about the potential loss of habitat and butterflies, journalist Lea Korsgaard goes on a quest to see all of Denmark’s 64 butterfly species in a single year.

She is a butterfly novice, but over the course of the year, she learns about the extraordinary facts of butterfly metamorphosis, meets passionate experts who show her the secret places where butterflies still proliferate and finds out about the history of collectors for whom butterflies had become an obsession. She finally learns that she has become as hooked as the experts she has met.

In episode 3, Lea goes in search of the rarest butterfly in Denmark and gets advice from an expert about where she will find it. She learns about how early 20th century collectors would kill their discoveries and preserve them, a practise not used today. Getting into the swing of collecting herself, she learns to document her discoveries with a camera instead.

Her discovery of the rarest butterfly is bittersweet as she discovers from the experts accompanying her that they have been rapidly on the decline in numbers due to habitat loss and could become extinct. Armed with this new information, her quest acquires more urgency as she hopes she’ll find her 64 species, while they still survive.

Read by Nicola Walker
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Lisa Lipman
Sound design by Jon Calver
Executive produce:, Jo Rowntree
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4