PHIL STERLING

The ecologist who hatched a simple but effective plan to bring more moths and butterflies into our lives, on creating the right conditions for wildflowers to thrive

- AMBRA EDWARDS

Phil Sterling is a man on a mission – to convert every motorway embankment, every roadside verge, every unloved patch of grass in our under-resourced urban parks, even every golf course, into a flower-rich haven for wildlife – specifically our threatened populations of moths and butterflies.

Phil fell under the spell of Lepidoptera when he was just five years old. He would go moth-hunting with his father, also an enthusiast. By his teens, he was more expert than his dad, and went on to study zoology at Oxford, progressing to a DPhil on the ecology of the brown-tail moth, and a research fellowship at Balliol College.

It is always moths that have been his first love, perhaps because they are so widely misunderstood. He regrets the common perception of moths as annoying little grey things that eat our clothes. In fact, there are only four species out of 2,500 that could possibly be culprits, and only two of these are jumper-munchers for certain. And far from being drab, moths – especially the day-flying moths, of which there are many – are often exceptionally beautiful. “It’s a bit like Christmas every time you open a moth trap and see how many species there are, all the different colours and patterns: you’re amazed at what you find.”