Thank you again for waxing poetic about butterflies. Brings back memories for me.
They do fit where they live. It is impossible for me to pick a favorite butterfly. My husband and I did four 'Big Butterfly Years' seeking a hundred or more butterfly species in Massachusetts. On those journeys we experienced the varied habitats of our State along with the butterflies' companion life forms. If I were a more gifted writer, I would be tempted to write a book. :-)
Thanks, Sue. I'd like to read that book of yours! It's amazing how bogs and their butterflies seems to make everything in the world go right for me. Then again, I'm finding the same rightful sense of place even among the prosaic. (I'll keep writing about it!)
Annie Proulx, no stranger to Vermont, has written a sweet little book titled “Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis.” One little quote: “Time shows us the earth as a fluid patchwork constantly in flux so slow it is invisible. Centuries and millennia are the hours and days of a bog.” I sense, Bryan, when you are in a bog you are attuned to kairos time, not chronos time, to the hum of cosmic rhythms and not the tick, tick, tick of the human clock.
I, too, love elfins, and frosted elfins are my favorite. Just think about their name, "frosted elfin"; it sounds as though they just emerged from Middle Earth! And here in the northeast, they're associated solely with the beautiful wild blue lupine, Lupinus perennis (Baptisia elsewhere), part of another appealing community.
This is a lovely post. Thank you. A sense of place is all about relationships -- between the past, to the bedrock, the water, the weather, the spruce, the butterfly and you. We are all in this life together.
In the high and dry mountains of Colorado I've seen small green butterflies on the miner's candle (plants with fuzzy sage colored leaves and small white flowers on the spires). They are a very specific match and I've wondered how they find each other. Now I wonder even more! Lovely little creatures! Thank you for the post.
"A butterfly the size of a penny, on the wing for but a few days, unwittingly tells me where I am in the world. When we sit together on the bog, the butterfly and me, I am home — with a sense of place and belonging more absolute than anywhere else on Earth."
If only we could clone your deep appreciation for the natural world and disperse it throughout our species. Then the future prospects of bogs and butterflies would be brighter.
No better endorsement than from Earth itself! Thanks. Seriously, though, that bond is indeed powerful in my life. I just added a narration to the post -- and I nearly broke up reading. Thanks again.
Bryan, this is a phenomenal piece. Thank you. You've got me thinking - as you always do - about our mental maps of the living world. Species and habitats/communities seem more like a deep set of concentric circles than an assemblage of parts, with each set of circles overlapping with so many other sets. Bog, moose, spruce, etc., have essential relationships which link ever outward. You do such a beautiful job of connecting us to the connections, simply by narrating what you're seeing and what you've learned. It's a gift, and a necessary one.
And on a more prosaic note, my first thought looking at that beautiful spruce bog image was how rich and wonderful it is. And then I thought about the absurdly difficult and patient work you do to find and observe your winged pennies in that blackfly-infested morass... Valhalla should be filled with naturalists and field biologists.
Thanks, Jason. That means a lot to me. As you know, some of these bogs are so vast, and, yeah, that butterfly is so furtive. Then again, I guess that's part of my bond with those places. When I bushwhack there, dragging along my personal cloud of black flies, sometimes stumbling along the way, never sure whether I'll find the elfins, when I finally arrive at the bog everything suddenly goes right in the world for me -- butterflies or no butterflies. I suspect we have have places like that — where we can stop, exhale, sit, think, be, and truly feel as if we belong (where even the black flies don't matter ... well, sorta). Thanks again!
Nicely said, Bryan. I do think we have those places, assuming we've been outside enough to find them. Certainly Antarctica, in that deep silence away from the base/camp, was that way for me, but maybe that's kind of cheating? First, no bloodsucking insects, and second, the whole place was sort of a Zen idyll, like a vast mountaintop.
You could go on an Antarctic cruise and be the one person looking for midges instead of penguins... One of my favorite places on the ice is a 3-person helicopter refueling station I worked at near the Dry Valleys. Just a huge coastal moraine in the shadow of a piedmont glacier, but here and there as I walked around I'd find a clump of moss tucked under a stone, and knew (or assumed) that there were midges and springtails (the largest Antarctic terrestrial life) hidden in it. For me, though, it was the bright green color that thrilled.
This is a lovely and informative post, thanks. My partner and I took part in a survey for Green Hairstreaks in the Pentland Hills just outside Edinburgh and were lucky enough to find some. They're lovely little butterflies.
As always-- very inspiring and such a better way of learning about butterflies than reading a field guide. I have seen eastern pine and henry's elfins here (Hancock, ME) but didn't think they were as cooperative as your bog elfin, in fact, the only photo I could get of the henrys was almost head on. I don't like netting so don't end up getting the best pictures in a lot of cases but it is a fun challenge. After not seeing black swallowtails in my yard before, I have seen several this year including caterpillars on queen annes lace. Overall though seems like way fewer butterfly individuals coming thru our yard than in the past. I'm worried.
Thanks, Leda Beth! Yep, we're concerned, of course, about butterflies (many insects) in general. Drought is a big factor, along with the usual forces of the Anthropocene. You might not have been seeing them as usual in part owing to all the crappy weather and rain we've been having in New England. Henry's in particular are wonderful. I'll bet you'll meet up with and sit with one some May soon! Keep me posted!
Thank you again for waxing poetic about butterflies. Brings back memories for me.
They do fit where they live. It is impossible for me to pick a favorite butterfly. My husband and I did four 'Big Butterfly Years' seeking a hundred or more butterfly species in Massachusetts. On those journeys we experienced the varied habitats of our State along with the butterflies' companion life forms. If I were a more gifted writer, I would be tempted to write a book. :-)
Thanks, Sue. I'd like to read that book of yours! It's amazing how bogs and their butterflies seems to make everything in the world go right for me. Then again, I'm finding the same rightful sense of place even among the prosaic. (I'll keep writing about it!)
Annie Proulx, no stranger to Vermont, has written a sweet little book titled “Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis.” One little quote: “Time shows us the earth as a fluid patchwork constantly in flux so slow it is invisible. Centuries and millennia are the hours and days of a bog.” I sense, Bryan, when you are in a bog you are attuned to kairos time, not chronos time, to the hum of cosmic rhythms and not the tick, tick, tick of the human clock.
Thanks, Bruce. I very much enjoyed "Fen, Bog & Swamp," especially Proulx's chapter featuring her discursive thoughts on those wetlands.
I, too, love elfins, and frosted elfins are my favorite. Just think about their name, "frosted elfin"; it sounds as though they just emerged from Middle Earth! And here in the northeast, they're associated solely with the beautiful wild blue lupine, Lupinus perennis (Baptisia elsewhere), part of another appealing community.
Thanks, Ernest. I've seen 'em in the lupine communities in NY! (And I should've consulted with YOU on the pronunciation of Callophrys. 😀)
This is a lovely post. Thank you. A sense of place is all about relationships -- between the past, to the bedrock, the water, the weather, the spruce, the butterfly and you. We are all in this life together.
One big community. Thanks, Lisa!
A butterfly IS a bog. Much like a fiddler crab IS a marsh. Love how you connect sense of place. It’s so important!
... and those little butterflies do indeed present sideways!
Thanks for sharing this - so lovely to 'meet' this little butterflies and their places... not familiar to me on the west coast of Canada.
Well, if you happen to be not too far north of Vancouver, three of them are fairly common: Juniper Hairstreak, Brown Elfin, and Western Pine Elfin!
Yes, those ones are in my area.
Such beautiful wisdom ✨
Aw, shucks -- Thanks, M.!
That's a great photo of the spruce bog. Such incredible biodiversity in those places!
My happy and sacred places!
In the high and dry mountains of Colorado I've seen small green butterflies on the miner's candle (plants with fuzzy sage colored leaves and small white flowers on the spires). They are a very specific match and I've wondered how they find each other. Now I wonder even more! Lovely little creatures! Thank you for the post.
I'm not entirely certain of their distribution at elevation, but you could be looking at Juniper Hairstreak or Western Green Hairstreak. Here's the full suite of CO species: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=34&quality_grade=research&subview=map&taxon_id=58554&verifiable=any&view=species
I'll guess they are Juniper Hairsteaks as I live in Juniper Pinyon habitat. I see them in the springtime. Thank you for the link!
Oh, yeah -- and Juniper Hairstreak is the most widespread in North America. Yep, they fly in spring. Something to look forward to!
I'll wish them well for the winter ahead. I saw a Weidemeyer's Admiral (I had to look it up) fly by. Poof, it was here and gone!
"A butterfly the size of a penny, on the wing for but a few days, unwittingly tells me where I am in the world. When we sit together on the bog, the butterfly and me, I am home — with a sense of place and belonging more absolute than anywhere else on Earth."
If only we could clone your deep appreciation for the natural world and disperse it throughout our species. Then the future prospects of bogs and butterflies would be brighter.
Very kind of you, B2. Thanks so much. I'll keep writing and dispersing!
All my life I never knew I could so enjoy reading about bogs and butterflies. Oh, and their glacial history. Thank you.
No better endorsement than from Earth itself! Thanks. Seriously, though, that bond is indeed powerful in my life. I just added a narration to the post -- and I nearly broke up reading. Thanks again.
Your emotion always comes across in the writing. That's the draw. 👍🏻
Bryan, this is a phenomenal piece. Thank you. You've got me thinking - as you always do - about our mental maps of the living world. Species and habitats/communities seem more like a deep set of concentric circles than an assemblage of parts, with each set of circles overlapping with so many other sets. Bog, moose, spruce, etc., have essential relationships which link ever outward. You do such a beautiful job of connecting us to the connections, simply by narrating what you're seeing and what you've learned. It's a gift, and a necessary one.
And on a more prosaic note, my first thought looking at that beautiful spruce bog image was how rich and wonderful it is. And then I thought about the absurdly difficult and patient work you do to find and observe your winged pennies in that blackfly-infested morass... Valhalla should be filled with naturalists and field biologists.
Thanks, Jason. That means a lot to me. As you know, some of these bogs are so vast, and, yeah, that butterfly is so furtive. Then again, I guess that's part of my bond with those places. When I bushwhack there, dragging along my personal cloud of black flies, sometimes stumbling along the way, never sure whether I'll find the elfins, when I finally arrive at the bog everything suddenly goes right in the world for me -- butterflies or no butterflies. I suspect we have have places like that — where we can stop, exhale, sit, think, be, and truly feel as if we belong (where even the black flies don't matter ... well, sorta). Thanks again!
Nicely said, Bryan. I do think we have those places, assuming we've been outside enough to find them. Certainly Antarctica, in that deep silence away from the base/camp, was that way for me, but maybe that's kind of cheating? First, no bloodsucking insects, and second, the whole place was sort of a Zen idyll, like a vast mountaintop.
I kinda want to see Antarctic midge (Belgica antarctica) before I leave this Earth.
You could go on an Antarctic cruise and be the one person looking for midges instead of penguins... One of my favorite places on the ice is a 3-person helicopter refueling station I worked at near the Dry Valleys. Just a huge coastal moraine in the shadow of a piedmont glacier, but here and there as I walked around I'd find a clump of moss tucked under a stone, and knew (or assumed) that there were midges and springtails (the largest Antarctic terrestrial life) hidden in it. For me, though, it was the bright green color that thrilled.
This is a lovely and informative post, thanks. My partner and I took part in a survey for Green Hairstreaks in the Pentland Hills just outside Edinburgh and were lucky enough to find some. They're lovely little butterflies.
Great! Yes, Green Hairstreak (Callophrys rubi) is indeed the widespread species in the U.K. — so lovely!
Marvelous as always - thank you so much, Bryan
You are so welcome, Lisa. I'm grateful that you're here reading -- and out there in the world chasing flying things!
As always-- very inspiring and such a better way of learning about butterflies than reading a field guide. I have seen eastern pine and henry's elfins here (Hancock, ME) but didn't think they were as cooperative as your bog elfin, in fact, the only photo I could get of the henrys was almost head on. I don't like netting so don't end up getting the best pictures in a lot of cases but it is a fun challenge. After not seeing black swallowtails in my yard before, I have seen several this year including caterpillars on queen annes lace. Overall though seems like way fewer butterfly individuals coming thru our yard than in the past. I'm worried.
Thanks, Leda Beth! Yep, we're concerned, of course, about butterflies (many insects) in general. Drought is a big factor, along with the usual forces of the Anthropocene. You might not have been seeing them as usual in part owing to all the crappy weather and rain we've been having in New England. Henry's in particular are wonderful. I'll bet you'll meet up with and sit with one some May soon! Keep me posted!
You always bring such bigness to a tiny thing. I love it 😌
Well, if you're around campus next May and June, here's another item for 30 by 30 🦋:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=52.742165534497474&nelng=-2.5346834129819396&place_id=any&subview=map&swlat=51.3435362730196&swlng=-5.4076082176694396&taxon_id=60896