Country Diary: The Burren, Ireland

It was 6am, an hour and a half after sunrise. I could not believe my eyes and stood amazed at what I saw - a quite large pink butterfly hovering over a potted geranium behind our house. I crept closer, thinking all the time, "Wait until our Guardian readers hear of this." Then I noticed a silver-like thread seemingly attached to the butterfly and, on examination, definitely attached to a slim wooden rod embedded in the foliage. I turned round on hearing a laugh. Our French friends had been out very early and had set up a "papillon solaire", a solar butterfly, to mystify us. They succeeded.

Our weeks of sunny, rainless June weather here in the Burren has been delightful. Sometimes it has rained 15kms away while we rejoiced in the sun. Our old meadow grasses turned gold, shimmering and swaying gently with the spotted orchids while above five-spot burnets hovered, their ruby spots sunlit. The small blue butterflies favored kidney vetch, and the few migrant painted ladies added an exotic note. The hedges on one side of the road were flush with wild roses, honeysuckle and volunteer hazel, while the other side was laden with hart's tongue fern, bracken, climbing vetch and herb robert. We walked by a field of spotted orchids, swallows and martins dipping, climbing.

Despite my disappointment in the pink butterfly, I did have an extraordinary experience by a French canal. I saw an otter on the bank. It was creamy white all over. It slithered into the water. Gordon D'Arcy, our wildlife expert and writer, tells me it must have been an albino.