Dudu Diaries

Some of nature’s most wonderful children are shy, elusive creatures. There are over eight hundred different kinds of butterfly in Kenya. Some of these like the gaudy swallowtails and emperors are heart-stoppingly gorgeous, with colours that simply take your breath away and have to be seen in the living creature, dancing in the sunlight, to be fully appreciated.

Many butterflies are less colourful, but nonetheless fascinating. One of the most diverse groups of butterflies are the lycaenids – the blues and coppers. While most of the species are fairly small – with wingspans of less than an inch, they are like miniature works of inlaid jewelery, full of iridescent colour and minute detail.

Not only are these tiny butterflies exquisitely beautiful, they are even more amazing in terms of their life-cycles, as many of them live as caterpillars in close association with various kinds of ants. Some of them even develop inside the ants’ nests, and departing from their image of gentle, harmless creatures have turned carnivorous and feed on the ants’ brood – their larvae!

One group of these butterflies that is very diverse in Africa are the Giant Cupids – the genus Lepidochrysops. They are very localised butterflies and little is known about their life history – something that I am hoping to investigate.

Finally, after many weeks of searching – climbing hills and mountains all over Western Kenya, long, hot walks along the edge of the Great Rift Valley, and carefully probing through dozens of fields of wildflowers I found some of these enigmatic butterflies in the Kerio Valley.

I was walking down a dappled path in the late afternoon. The hottest part of the day was done and now the sun, warm and soft, sifted through the leaves and splashed onto the flowers growing everywhere. An oriole flitted through the branches overhead and alighting in a thorny Balanites proceeded to sing out his delicious melody that flowed through the bright air. As I listened, day-dreaming, out of the corner of my eye a fast, shining silvery-blue being whirred by. He danced down the path. My heart almost stopped beating – no, could it finally be? Yes, he turns and dances back down towards me passing me again. Twice he passes by, then suddenly, tired by his showing off, settles on a flowering Barleria where I can admire him up close!

I have a feeling that this special meeting will lead to much discovery and joy

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