STOP PRESS: Volume 4 of Patrice Leraut's 5-volume MOTHS OF EUROPE is now out. Click
HERE for details.
I created this page way back in 1996 as an online photo album for my
butterfly pictures. Since then it has grown enormously and now covers
most central European butterflies. It is still essentially a personal
page, though. All the pictures are my own and the emphasis is on
sharing pleasure in these beautiful creatures rather than creating an
authoritative source of information about them. The butterflies are all
photographed in the wild and I make a point of interfering with their
lives and behaviour as little as possible. This means not chasing an
individual butterfly indefinitely just to get that perfect picture, not
trampling surrounding vegetation and not disturbing butterflies engaged
in behaviour such as courting or mating. With the ready availability of
cheap but high quality digital cameras, more and more people now spend
time in the countryside photographing butterflies and other plants and
animals. This is excellent, but we must all take great care not to let
our hobby become intrusive and add to the myriads of other pressures
that threaten our wild creatures from all sides.