Young minds like moths to a flame

I taught my son how to trap rats a few years ago. We’d set Fenn and DOC 150 traps in tunnels, boxes and on rails around Flea Barn, accounting for many of the pestiferous creatures in hedgerows and near feeding sites. It became part and parcel of his routine to accompany me on my rounds and he delighted in flipping up the lid or peering through foliage to see if we’d had any success.

The rat traps are now my sole responsibility — Charlie has changed quarry. Along with his school friends, the sisters Eleanor, Charlotte and Georgina, he has become a lepidopterist — they are now all trappers of moths.

My new friend Mark Nowers, a turtle dove conservation adviser,