Born Again Bird Watcher

Hoary Comma, Polygonia gracilis

Location: Scappoose, Oregon

Camera: Canon PowerShot G10

F-stop: f/4.5

Exposure time: 1/25 sec. (too slow as it turned out)

ISO Speed: ISO-100

After a year on the road crossing and recrossing North America on his quest ot encounter as many butterflies as possible and thus establish the Butterfly Big Year, Robert Michael Pyle has finally returned. His final post, dated January 12, 2009, that capped the blog he wrote detailing his adventures over the course of this past year, is now online at the Xerces Society’s website. Even if you were not following this blog as it was developing, this final post is a must read for anyone interested in butterflies, ecology, conservation, as well as all enthusiasts of superb natural history writing. Should you find that what you read in this post strikes an appreciative chord in your brain, all of Bob’s previous posts are also online along with it.

Peace.

This little Woodland Skipper, Ochlodes sylvanoides, was found clinging to the bumper of a parked vehicle the other day. Still alive, I carefully picked it up and put it onto the back of my hand to assess if it was injured. Seemingly unharmed, it began to extend it proboscis and suck the salt from its temporary place of rest. It remained for such a length of time that I was able to extract my camera from my pocket, shift it into macro, and snap these two images before it finally took flight.

I remember the first time I heard Robert Michael Pyle speak. It was, as many of his talks usually are, at a bookshop. Intermingled with his stories, poems, reflections on life, and scientific observations was a brief comment he made regarding the magic that occurs the first time someone has a butterfly placed upon his or her nose. At the time I found this to be a wonderful and poetic image, but it was an image to which I was unable to attach an experience.

I have since added that very experience of my store of life’s memories and yes, it is indeed truly magical. Fortunately, the magic seems to remain every bit as strong with each successive moment in which a member of the Lepidoptera deigns either to light or be placed upon my shoulder, hand, or arm (I have little reason to place one on my own nose as they are very difficult to observe form that close distance). That such a delicate creature should even for two moments agree to remain perched on a creature physically capable of rendering it a near instantaneous mortal injury is easily (albeit poetically) understood as the nothing less than the very sign of acceptance by Nature, an signal of absolution that the sin of Adam itself has been erased.

Peace and good bird watching.

Not being a philatelist myself, I still take the time now and again to admire a particular philatelic offering from world’s many postal authorities when that offering contains as its subject something pertaining to nature – most especially birds. Those of you who are prone to philatelizing (philatelating?) probably already know this, but the U.S. Postal Service has a particularly admirable set of stamps available at the moment titled “Pollination.” These came to my attention when I purchased a set today and are well worthy of the admiration of any nature buff.

The creation of artist Steve Buchanan, the acclaimed designer of many previous nature oriented stampseries for the U.S.P.S., “Pollination” depicts the predominant pollinators of North America doing what they do best. As the official description explains, “two Morrison’s bumble bees are paired with purple or chaparral nightshade (one of the bees is actively engaged in buzz pollination). A calliope hummingbird sips from a hummingbird trumpet blossom. A lesser long-nosed bat prepares to ‘dive’ into a saguaro flower. And a Southern dogface butterfly visits prairie or common ironweed.”

In an extraordinarily subtle as well as beautiful effect, the arrangement of the different pollinators with their respective flowers is reflective of the symbiotic as well as larger ecologic role they all play in the natural world. In one quartet of stamps all are depicted as central within the ring of flowers while in the next quartet the same species are arranged around a central cluster of flowers. Were the patterns to be endlessly repeated, the kaleidoscopic effect would be a superb statement of the interrelationship of all these forms of life with one another and by extension the world at large.

It almost seems a shame to use only one of them for the mundane purpose of mailing the payment to the local utility company. Perhaps I’ll save them for use only on special personal correspondence.

Peace and good bird watching.