by Dr. Roger Kemp, FRES

Interested in butterflies and their presence in the British Isles? Then this unique butterfly guide DVD package is essential for you! If you are at all interested in beautiful butterflies and perhaps conserving this rapidly changing feature of the British countryside and gardens, then you should get to know more with `Jewels in the Air'. The wealth of information available in a compact package includes:

• NEW interviews with the author highlighting the changes to the environment over the last 30 years and how the butterfly population reflects this.
• Detailed descriptions of all British butterflies with colourful illustrations in video and still formats to aid identification in a quick and easy reference guide.
• Descriptions of the major habitats of butterflies: Woodland - Grassland - Chalk & Limestone Grassland - Fens - Moorland - Heathland - Gardens - Hedgerows.
• Listing and illustrations of the food sources of butterflies and where they can be found. Often, depending on the preferences of each butterfly species, these food sources and their location are the keys to butterfly conservation and encouragement.
• Maps showing the general and sometimes very limited distribution of each species as at the end of the 20th century.
• Review of the place of butterflies in history.

Narrated by Roger Kemp himself, this comprehensive DVD tour of British butterflies in their natural habitats, endorsed by Butterfly Conservation, is a timeless and treasured record of the British countryside.

A Review by Peter Eeles, 19th March 2010

As an owner of the original VHS video, I was delighted to meet Roger at Finemere Wood last year where he offered to send me the revised DVD for review. Unfortunately, it's taken me a while to put pen to paper (or, rather, keystrokes to bytes) - but the end of our winter has allowed me time to sit in front of the telly and revisit a year filled with butterflies.

The 55-minute DVD begins like a good documentary, providing fascinating facts concerning the origins of our interest in butterflies starting in Egypt and in old manuscripts, and citing classics such as "The Aurelian" by Moses Harris in 1766.

The footage is then divided into several categories, each representing a particular butterfly habitat. Most of the footage on the DVD dates from the 1970s when it was captured on 8mm cine film. While a lot of the footage is a delight to see, it obviously doesn't have the clarity of more recent technology. Having said that, I think Roger more than makes up for this with some wonderful commentary that contains, for each species, a discussion of life history, larval foodplants, behaviour, nectar sources and distribution. In conjunction with this description are still images of larval foodplants, nectar sources and habitat shots. The DVD contains no footage of immature stages though (although there is a still of a Large Blue larva being milked by an ant).

To provide a complete review, I should mention some less-positive items. The Northern Brown Argus is described as an endemic species, although it is also found on the continent. There is also no mention of Real's Wood White, the most recent addition to the British list. It is also said that the only site for Large Copper "at present" is in Cambridgeshire, although it disappeared several years ago. All of these items somewhat date the DVD.

A couple of positive surprises on the DVD include footage of a Ringlet aberration with extremely reduced "rings" together with a very unusual shot of a mating pair of a Small Tortoiseshell and Meadow Brown!

As well as the documentary-style format, organised by habitat, the DVD also provides a species library that provides information on a species-by-species basis that includes, for example, a distribution map. The DVD also comes with a handy booklet that also provides species-specific information. All in all, this DVD is a welcome diversion during the winter months.

The DVD content is organised as follows:

Ordering

To order the DVD visit www.jewelsintheair.com