Last month, I was invited to take part and sing on an evolutionary walk through the Quantock Hills in Somerset – undoubtedly one of the strangest gig requests I’d ever her had. The walk was inspired by Dawkins book , The Ancestor’s Tail, so the ramblers were divided into groups representing living species (I was a chimp), who all started the trek in different places. As the walk progressed the species converged and by the time we’d walked back through time to meet our shared ancestors with Fungi, we were 150 strong.
Also on the trail were some butterfly conservationists who were very happy as they have successfully reintroduced the Large Blue, an iconic butterfly that disappeared from Britain but is now back thanks to the conservationists and some Swedish Large Blues who were happy to emigrate. Naturally, I was asked to commemorate this in song and chose to write a blues about the life cycle of this intriguing creature. If you look carefully at the picture you can see me performing it on a windy hill.
And who else should be on the trail but Claire Balding and her team from the radio 4 Ramblings show. So follow the link and you can listen to me explaining the life cycle of the butterfly in a voice that suggests that I know more about butterflies than I actually do and then at the end of the programme you’ll hear me singing it too.