Finally, bugs

[vaneramos]

This will be my final post about the cottage, at least until next visit, just to spotlight three photogenic arthropods we encountered over the weekend. And what fun I'm having with the macro function on the Canon PowerShot A620.

Is it just my imagination, or are butterflies particularly numerous this year? Last year I heard tales about the disappearance of monarchs since frost killed them in their Mexican wintering grounds, but this season they appear in abundance practically everywhere I see wildflowers. And never before have I seen Limenitis arthemis, the white admiral in the second photo, in such great numbers. By the dozens they sun on the cottage road, flutter over back country meadows near Meaford, or sip nectar in a forest clearing at Little Tract. Besides the question marks I've already photographyed, many other species, more demure, keep eluding my lens: fabulous fritillaries, dark wood nymphs, lovely hairstreaks and tiny blues. They all seem to abound as never before.

Meanwhile frogs, more homely but just as beloved, are unquestionably declining, not only in journal reports but in my own awareness. For the first summer in memory, no bullfrog calls at night from the shore of our cottage bay.

What does it all mean? Whatever humanity's impact upon this tender planet, nature is never predictable. Some things wax, others wane. Everything changes. It's hubris to suppose we can manage it. One thing is certain, there will always be beauty, even if we don't survive to appreciate it.

I leave early tomorrow to take Brenna home, then djjo and I are escaping from things for the weekend. I'll be back home and in touch on Monday.

Comments

[wonderboynj.livejournal.com]

It's funny you mention butterflies being numerous this year. I've commented several times over the last years that you just do not see Monarch butterflies anymore.

Apparently several years back a big freeze in Mexico wiped out a huge number of them.

Last Sunday I was in Jersey City visiting my soon to be home and looking out my bedroom window I saw three Monarchs in the backyard, I smiled silently to myself and took it as a sign.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

A backyard, nice! Sounds like the current situation is pretty unliveable, so I hope things work out for the better.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I've seen lots of monarchs this year -- more than I usually do, I'd say, although they are moderately common around here. There do seem to a lot of butterflies around (not counting the Cabbage Whites, which are about as much butterflies as house sparrows and pigeons are birds.)

I think a saw a Question Mark a week or two ago, although it might have been a Comma. (I have a lot of trouble identifying butterflies I'm not already familiar with -- I look at one as long as I can, and then I look in the field guide and discover that I didn't look in exactly the place where the identifying characteristic is. Or I scan through the pictures in the guide and can't find anything that looks like my specimen.)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

The camera comes in handy when it comes to identification, too. I don't have to worry about remembering the specific markings. The comma and question mark are similar, so I was glad I had a photo.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Yeah. If I actually owned a camera (I occasionally borrow jwg's), and carried it with me all the time, I might be able to use this technique. (The odds of my going to get the camera, and finding the butterfly still there when I get back, are very small -- although it did work on the tiger swallowtail I posted about two years ago.)

[hankdmoose.livejournal.com]

Whatever humanity's impact upon this tender planet, nature is never predictable. Some things wax, others wane. Everything changes. It's hubris to suppose we can manage it. One thing is certain, there will always be beauty, even if we don't survive to appreciate it.

This is among the most beautiful, thought-provoking, and outright true things I've read in quite some time.

Hubris or not, I try my hardest to minimize my physical footprint on the planet. Ideally, when I leave this planet, I would like the only remaining traces of my existence to be abstract. I know it's futile to expect to leave no tangible trace, but it's fun to try :)

I've been seeing a lot of monarch butterflies as well this year. I love to see examples of Mama N. bouncing back after adversity. She never seems to give up.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Oh, we should definitely try to minimize our impact. I'm only suggesting that our attempts to fix things (the way we think they ought to be) will not likely turn up the results we want. I saw the perfect example at Pinery Provincial Park recently, where thousands of pine seedlings were planted in the 1960s. Conservationists thought they were restoring native woodland; in fact they were establishing a sterile monoculture, and virtually obliterating the native oak savannah. Now we know about oak savannah and are restoring it with some success, but in the process of learning we have already extirpated prairie and woodland species from Ontario, and it's doubtful many of them will return. Still, it's human nature to interfere, and I doubt that will ever change.

[hankdmoose.livejournal.com]

So true that we can't hope to repair nature. Only nature can do that. We are lucky if we have even a basic understanding of the way nature works, and we tend to be unable to see the countless interactions we would need to take into account in order to do things correctly. We should certainly not try to replicate it on our own.

There is another good example of this, and far too many of the details escape me right now. It had something to do with humans quashing every forest fire in a forest in order to preserve the trees, only to find the trees started dying out at an alarming rate, and they weren't being replaced with new growth. As it turns out, the very trees they were trying to save from the fires actually needed the heat from the fires to open their cones and disperse their trees. With no fires to release them for decades on end, the would-be saplings were left entombed in their cones until the conservationists realized that their meddling was causing far more problems than it was correcting.

[deanarae.livejournal.com]

I've noticed a lot of butterflies this summer, but it may only be because I've just moved into the country from the city. Meanwhile, I just made a post in my own journal about how I was overrun by frogs last night. :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Cool story about the frogs!

[(Anonymous)]

love the shot of the white admiral Limentis arthemis....... and you cottage excursions :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[bezigebij.livejournal.com]

Some things wax, others wane. Everything changes. It's hubris to suppose we can manage it. One thing is certain, there will always be beauty, even if we don't survive to appreciate it.

So true and poignant and beautifully put. Yes, it was definitely a good decision to add your journal. :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I've added you back.