It is the first week of May in a secluded pocket of southern England. A patch of verdant woodland pulses with insect noise, and the leaves of a sole elm Ulmus are comforted by the late Spring sun.
A formerly established member of British fauna, the Large Tortoiseshell became extinct in the 1960s. Penny Newton tells the uplifting story of the decline and resurgence of the charismatic butterfly in Britain.