Category: Butterflies

Wildflowers and Tamed Wilderness

9/24/2022

When I walk by the Partridge Pea on my acreage, I usually just keep moving. One or two plants and a few blooms. Weeds more than wildflowers.

But when I was exploring a Nature Conservancy area near Pawhuska, OK, one year i saw the Partridge Pea blooming with a vibrancy I'd never seen before.

Even though I've been walking many of the same trails for some time now, the changes from year to year amaze me. Just because I see one wildflower blooming abundantly one season, I know I'm not promised to see the same blooms next year.

There's an old saying, "The only thing constant is change." I didn't realize how true that was in nature.

This autumn, the pollinators have again found the blooms growing best for their needs.

Butterflying Again

7/2/2022

Butterflies are like magic, or proof that there is something at work deeper than we can understand. Could Leonardo da Vinci have designed something in so many colorful varieties, so many variations and something the world could probably do without, and have done such a fantastic job?

When their wings are closed, they can mimic a leaf. When their wings are open, the color can be vibrant.

They could all have been green or brown and still managed to get their job done.

Creatures change over time. In the past, I understand how the smoke from London’s coal caused the lighter colored moths to get eaten first by predators while they were on structures, and the darker ones survived better, and they reproduced more. In only a few generations (people-wise) the moths had evolved into a darker shade.

But how could generations of butterflies evolve into…butterflies of so many shapes and variations? Particularly those shaded like leaves when their wings are closed, and showing a different appearance when their wings are open.
Leonardo could have conceived their outer variations if he only that the one project, but perhaps then I’d have to consider how da Vinci was designed. I’d like to have asked him to shed some light on that.

If only the butterflies could talk. But maybe they do. Through their colors, shapes, and when they’re stopping in front of us.

Perhaps we accept the unbelievable matter-of-factly because it’s always been there.

Photos: From my yard.

Wildflowers and Tamed Wilderness

Butterflying Again

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