Hmmm, can we hasten the return to normal by turning our minds to simpler pleasures?
A ways back when we were finding our way through an earlier wave of the pandemic, I decided to forgo any commentaries in this space in favour of a Beauty Can be a Contagion series of posts to give our brains a reprieve. I had hoped by the turn of the year into 2022 the pandemic would be just an unpleasant memory. Alas, that is not the case.
So I am returning to that earlier series to welcome in the New Year and once again turn our minds to simpler pleasures while Omicron facts and endless figures dominate the news.
This is not the most flattering view of an Eastern Comma butterfly. If it had opened its wings, it would have revealed a striking pattern of earthy orange and brown with yellow, wingtip eyespots.
But this particular specimen is newly emerged and the picture of perfection posed so elegantly on the large, serrated leaf that cradles it. The white comma-shaped mark, that gives this species its name, is as clear and distinct as I have ever witnessed.
Skipper butterflies are notoriously difficult to identify and photograph since they are about the size of a dime with very subtle markings. This Long Dash Skipper seemed to want to be photographed as it posed perfectly on a neutral background of sandy soil.
It too is newly emerged and showing off to fine affect its faint yellow spotband and often indistinguishable yellow basal spot. I rarely come across a specimen this distinct allowing a definitive identification
Silver-spotted Skippers are quite common but no less striking than other butterflies. This specimen posed for perfect contrast on the puffball of a wildflower to show off its flashy markings.
It is also newly emerged and perched in just the right way to display both the gaudy, silver-white patch on the hindwing and the yellow-orange band on the inner wing for photographic purposes.
Beauty can be a contagion too. No social distancing here. Get up close and personal. It is allowed.
Let us hope that these newly emerged, portraits of perfection help us ring in a New Year in which we finally put the pandemic in our rear view mirror and get back to what life is really all about.
Happy New Year to one and all.
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~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
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Tags: Eastern Comma · Long Dash Skipper · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Omicron · pandemic · Silver-spotted Skipper2 Comments
2 responses so far ↓
Happy New Year,
You are doing great job. I do not know how many followers you have, but I know that you are doing this to share your intelligence wealth.
However, about your first publish in 2022 question: “can we hasten the return to normal by turning our minds to simpler pleasures?”.
I guess history of world is irreversible, and similar to the fact that we cannot return back to childhood or youth years, world cannot return back to years before. But it is in a good way, as well as bad way.
Human in one side introduced pollution, ugliness, unfriendliness and aloneness and produced VIRUS (as nature has accelerated that) in one side. In other side, it has created so much discoveries, arts and social dialogue.
However, this process is never reversible.
Thanks for your comment. It is a big question with many unknowns.