Critters: Pics Or It Didn’t Happen

Monarch 1 surprised me by popping out a few days sooner than expected. Here he is, just minutes after breaking free. Notice the “butterfly crap of doom” at the bottom of the jar. Nature is gross. The distortion is from an oddly shaped open topped bottle.

I was worried he wouldn’t get out of the jar so I coaxed him onto a stick. Then I jammed the stick in the hitch point of a brush mower. Classy!

It takes monarchs a while to decide to fly. I waited a good long time in the baking heat for this one.

For monarch 2, I applied the same “dangle a stick and encourage him to climb out” method. It’s a bit of a pain. This one is hanging on a stir stick coated with sugar water that he totally ignored. What’s interesting is that this critter went into chrysalis after monarch #3 but emerged a day before his peer. This seems to indicate there’s variation in the number of days a monarch takes as a chrysalis to do their thing. I’d assumed it was fixed. Either this guy was an over achiever or the slower one didn’t want to leave the jar.
For monarch 3, things were a lot more chill. I had a bigger jar with a wide lid. I stuffed some grass in there so he could climb out himself, set the jar on my tailgate, and kicked back to wait.

Death wish coffee (not sponsored), my blog on an iThing, and a butterfly about to spring free… can there be a better morning?

It got hot so I moved to shade and put the jar down on the ground. Our sole remaining cat (who I call “evil” but is mellowing with time) came over to investigate and see if she could cause mayhem. I shooed her away and waited.

The third butterfly burst forth like a boss. From nothing to “whoosh”! Thus, no photo. I don’t mind, it was very impressive and I’m glad I saw it.

My other two butterflies seemed weaker at first, like a newborn fawn. Maybe just ignoring this one gave him more time to “get ready”? Maybe it was afraid of the cat? Who knows.

An alternative and more interesting theory; this butterfly spent an extra two (!) days as a chrysalis but when it emerged from the jar it took flight like it was a jet fighter. Perhaps there’s a connection.

More observations, they tend to break out in mid morning. Never afternoon, not at dawn. Also, the air quality is shit lately but there are a lot of monarchs about the house this year. Clearly they don’t mind. They don’t seem to mind the hot dry weather either. (I’m enjoying the dry part of the weather! My lawn has mostly died and that means much less mowing!)

One more chrysalis remains, and then the season’s over. They’re gone until 2022. Presumably, I’ll never seen these individuals again. Even if I did, how would I know? It’s not like the little bastards send me a card on father’s day. That, and not the colorful wings, is the beautiful part.

There’s something ephemeral yet solid about a butterfly. They look like they can barely manage, but if you watch, they fly reasonably well. In all ways, they are ideally adapted to their world. A half ounce of flat wings and instinct, punching above its weight class. Peer to hawks and tornadoes, they fly into a sky that they too own. They do so silently. They lack the ability, and presumably the desire, to make a sound. They look buffoonish and obvious but pass silently just beyond your view when you glance away. No mammal possesses such stealth.

And when they’re gone, they’re gone; like dreams in the aether. It is done with a grace we, as a species, lack. We fools, overclocked apes chained into our own hellish, frenetic, society, cannot be so reasonable. We reach into the sky but only to pull down fears. We use them to cow ourselves, lest we become more than we are. We fret and remonstrate and piss and moan and the least of us go into politics or become the court jesters of “newstainment”. Thus harnessing the greatest technologies to ever exist in the known universe, to the purpose of what? To perform the modern incarnation of flinging feces at each other! Such is our slavish service to the seething bullshit of the mind. We are intelligent but not wise and therefore lose our connection to the earth. Butterflies do none of that. They do not cower in fear. They don’t bunch up and fight, or flee from things which don’t exist. They live and they die; never once acting like a complete jackass. Each time I send a happy little bug into the unknown, I smile at the thought. Perhaps someday I’ll be as wise as a half ounce bug. What loftier goal is there? As for our society of apes with cell phones? Fuck ’em. They’re not even mature enough to imagine the possibility.