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Butterflies are the most enchanting of creatures and are really better shot outside, sitting on stalks in their natural habitat. But there maybe a reason to catch them, and for this purpose a butterfly trap is what you'd want to use.

Butterfly Traps

The classic tropical butterfly trap, usually baited with rotting fruit but there are a bunch of other lures you can try too. Easy to make, inexpensive and lasts for years.

Butterfly Traps are a relatively simple object which can quite easily be made at home as well. At their core they're a length of netting tube made into a vertical tube with a couple of coathangers, and a tray suspended underneath which has a bowl with a lure to attract the butterflies. They're easily made but there are a few points worth considering if you make your own:

• Add a long zip down the length of the net for easy opening, otherwise you'll need three hands.
• It's better to have a slightly heavier bottom tray so it doesn't sway too much in the wind.
• A bottom tray that's 10cm wider than the tube make it nice and easy for them to have a platform to land and walk in.
• Add a rainguard to keep them dry in the rain, cover the top 1/3.
• Create a neck by tying a piece of string round the middle - this will help to stop them creeping out again.

Not Just Butterflies

I have one of these hanging in the woods baited with rotting fish, and I get all sorts of flies and beetles come in there, sometimes 100s of them during warm sunny days when the fish is especially pungent.

Watkins & Doncaster

Watkins & Doncaster, based in the UK, do a good butterfly trap with a zip down the side and cover, £40 at the time of writing. I have one, it's excellent.

Placing The Trap

Either place it at a place near a convenient butterfly feeding plant or if you're after canopy species, hang your butterfly trap high up in a tree by using a fishing weight to catapult a very long piece of string over a high branch, with the trap on the other end and hauling it to the top. Many butterflies also like warmth, sun and space, so at the edge of a forest, just outside, where the rays of the sun reach as long as possible is usually a good place as well.

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