I spotted a really cool butterfly yesterday. It looked for all the world like a dollop of bird poo. Remarkable mimicry. That's evolution for you.

This afternoon, I spoke with Stense on the phone and told her about the butterfly. I explained how I had tried to look it up in my Collins Complete British Insects book, but it hadn't been in there. I said that I was pretty confident I had discovered a species of butterfly which was entirely new to science. That being the case, I would name it after her: Lepidoptera stensonis, or something like that.

Stense said she didn't want something which looks like a dollop of bird poo naming after her. I said that some people are never bloody satisfied.

Stense needn't have worried: I later worked out that my butterfly was a female orange-tip [Anthocharis cardamines].

The female orange-tip doesn't have an orange tip. That's what threw me.