Graham & Ellen Rotheray

It is curious how an interest in a topic such as natural history can run in families, although it is probably not so much a product of nature as of nurture. It was Graham Rotheray’s mother who encouraged her two boys with her nature walks. He is now a distinguished entomologist with a particular interest in hoverflies) with his own daughter, Ellen, now carving out a similar career after a minor diversion into mammals –

Early in his youth, Graham Rotheray’s family moved from Yorkshire to an Essex farm, which provided him with a rich and varied landscape to explore. ‘I suppose I started looking for birds, and their nests, then took an interest in mammals, and things then got smaller and smaller. I remember being impressed by hedgerows in the spring, just how wonderfully full of insects they were, of all types, sizes, shapes and colours. It was a fascination for that diversity that got me going really. And then I discovered I could actually do things with insects, to study them in a way that I could not with other forms of wildlife. Insects werejust made for watching their behaviour and seeing what they did. Of course you can do that with birds but then they take off and disappear. You may be able to follow them, but with insects you can spend hours watching them.’