Butterfly Season

"Butterflies are self-propelled flowers." (R.H. Heinlein)

I'm taking a break from birthday stories tonight to think about butterfly season. As autumn begins to cool the air and paint the trees, the butterflies start appearing more and more in the hayfield where I often walk with my dog, Oscar. Sometimes I can get them to sit still long enough to take a picture there, but the butterflies tend to flit away just as I get focused in on them. I have better luck sneaking up on them in the garden where the zinnias are blooming profusely.

"Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life. And everyone deserves a little sunshine." (Jeffrey Glassberg)

I wrote a book about butterflies. Well, at least butterflies played a part in the plot. The book for young adult readers was titled Only in Sunshine since butterflies need sunshine or warmth to be able to fly. Butterflies can't move their wings at all if they get too cold. So if you feel energized by a beautiful day of  sunshine, then you can claim kinship to a butterfly. 

How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar. (Trina Paulus)

 Here are some things you might not know about butterflies. First a group of butterflies is called a Kaleidoscope or a Flutter. I like both of those names although the butterflies in my field are often loners. The little white and yellow ones do sometimes gather in a Flutter. That name fits them best. The Kaleidoscope might fit the Monarchs all in a bunch in their winter quarters. I've seen a few Monarchs this year, but none that will pose for me. They stay on the move. 
 
Some butterflies are very tiny, only 1/8 inch. Others can have a wing span of 12 inches. They see red, green and yellow so those flowers attract them. However they do like those orange milkweeds. Many butterflies can taste with their feet to find out if the leaf they are on will be good caterpillar food and thus a good place to lay their eggs.

There are 24,000 species of butterflies. I've only seen a small percentage of them. Moths are even more numerous with around 140,000 species discovered all over the world. If I leave the porch light on at night, it looks like at least half of them gather at my door to sneak inside, but actually it's probably not over a hundred or so. :) Talk about a flutter. Some moths are beautiful. Some are plain grays. Moths can race along at twenty-five miles an hour while butterflies top speed is twelve miles per hour.


Two more interesting insect facts to end with here. First, there are more types of insects in one tropical rain forest tree than there are in the entire state of Vermont. Then, in 1958, 
entomologist W.G. Bruce published a list of Arthropod references in the Bible. The most frequently named bugs from the Bible are: Locust: 24, Moth: 11, Grasshopper: 10, Scorpion: 10, Caterpillar: 9, and Bee: 4.  I would have thought there would be more than that. What do you think? (Some of the butterfly facts listed and more can be found here.)

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it turned into a butterfly. (Proverb)

You do still have until the end of September to get your name in my birthday celebration giveaway. Check out the prizes on my website event page. You can enter by leaving a comment here with a way to contact you or by sending me an e-mail at annhgabhart(at)yahoo(dot)com.

Butterflies range in size from a tiny 1/8 inch to a huge almost 12 inches.

Butterflies can see red, green, and yellow.

Some people say that when the black bands on the Woolybear caterpillar are wide, a cold winter is coming.

The top butterfly flight speed is 12 miles per hour. Some moths can fly 25 miles per hour!

Monarch butterflies journey from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 2,000 miles, and return to the north again in the spring.

Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees.

Representations of butterflies are seen in Egyptian frescoes at Thebes, which are 3,500 years old.

Antarctica is the only continent on which no Lepidoptera have been found.

There are about 24,000 species of butterflies. The moths are even more numerous: about 140,000 species of them were counted all over the world.

The Brimstone butterfly (Gonepterix rhamni) has the longest lifetime of the adult butterflies: 9-10 months.

- See more at: http://www.thebutterflysite.com/facts.shtml#sthash.vgVN8dSj.dpuf

Butterflies range in size from a tiny 1/8 inch to a huge almost 12 inches.

Butterflies can see red, green, and yellow.

Some people say that when the black bands on the Woolybear caterpillar are wide, a cold winter is coming.

The top butterfly flight speed is 12 miles per hour. Some moths can fly 25 miles per hour!

Monarch butterflies journey from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 2,000 miles, and return to the north again in the spring.

Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees.

Representations of butterflies are seen in Egyptian frescoes at Thebes, which are 3,500 years old.

Antarctica is the only continent on which no Lepidoptera have been found.

There are about 24,000 species of butterflies. The moths are even more numerous: about 140,000 species of them were counted all over the world.

The Brimstone butterfly (Gonepterix rhamni) has the longest lifetime of the adult butterflies: 9-10 months.

- See more at: http://www.thebutterflysite.com/facts.shtml#sthash.vgVN8dSj.dpuf

Butterfly Season

 

The butterfly's attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign. ~Primo Levi

It's butterfly season in our hayfield and garden. I know the summer is over and fall is upon us, but the butterflies have been out in force these last few weeks as if they know time is short. There's much to be done in order to insure butterflies for a coming spring. My spirits always lift when I see that first butterfly in the spring. It will float down on a sunny day and promise that any cold snaps will be just that - snaps, gone quickly as spring gifts us with flowers and summer edges nearer. All summer the butterflies float around, doing what butterflies do. Scaring off the birds with the eyes painted on their wings or bright colors warning that they're not good to eat. 

And then comes the last days of summer and the fall flowers begin blooming with intoxicating butterfly odors. The butterflies begin to keep me company on my walks in the hayfields, fluttering up from the flowers I pass by to race ahead to a new bloom. Dozens of the little white and yellow butterflies. Could be those yellow ones are why they're called "butter"flies. Could be I wouldn't be so entranced with them if I had seen what they looked like a few weeks before they began to light up my walks with beauty. 

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. ~ Richard Buckminster Fuller

Maybe that's a lesson for us. Maybe we all start out as caterpillars or at least have our caterpillar days. And then we surprise ourselves with a butterfly day.  "How does one become a butterfly?" she asked. "You must want to fly so much you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."

That doesn't sound so hard - to give up being a caterpillar - but how many of us cling to what we have and fear to try our wings?  

I hope the butterflies floating through your world in these last warm days of the season will lift your spirits and bring you smiles.

Remember, if you haven't already entered, you still have time to throw your name in my hat for my birthday giveaway. See details on my website by scrolling down to the bottom of the Home page or going to the News & Events page. Some nice prizes including a beautiful NIV Study Bible and of course some of my books, too.