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Grains of life the size of pinheads Grains of life the size of pinheads
(3 days later)
Recently my search for the eggs laid by orange tip butterflies on my fen has become a brief obsession. Finding something smaller than a fly’s eye is nowhere near as impressive – or immodest – as it may sound. Once you have the search image pre-loaded in your head it’s just a case of lifting the flowerheads one at a time until you locate the telltale grooved flask glued to the stalk.Recently my search for the eggs laid by orange tip butterflies on my fen has become a brief obsession. Finding something smaller than a fly’s eye is nowhere near as impressive – or immodest – as it may sound. Once you have the search image pre-loaded in your head it’s just a case of lifting the flowerheads one at a time until you locate the telltale grooved flask glued to the stalk.
Since orange tips use just two plant species, I search either the garlic mustard or, in this wet site, the pale pink blooms of lady’s smock. What makes the task easiest of all is that the eggs, while only 1mm-2mm long, are fluorescent orange. Presumably they are so bright, not to facilitate my game but to alert predators that here is something unpleasant to eat.Since orange tips use just two plant species, I search either the garlic mustard or, in this wet site, the pale pink blooms of lady’s smock. What makes the task easiest of all is that the eggs, while only 1mm-2mm long, are fluorescent orange. Presumably they are so bright, not to facilitate my game but to alert predators that here is something unpleasant to eat.
The adult male insect has wings of the same intense colour, and I learned recently in Peter Marren’s Rainbow Dust (Square Peg, published 3,0 July), which is the distilled essence from a lifetime’s reading, looking and taking pleasure in butterflies, that those orange orbs warn of acrid mustard oils accumulated in the creature’s body. The adult male insect has wings of the same intense colour, and I learned recently in Peter Marren’s Rainbow Dust (Square Peg, published 30 July), which is the distilled essence from a lifetime’s reading, looking and taking pleasure in butterflies, that those orange orbs warn of acrid mustard oils accumulated in the creature’s body.
What gives me real satisfaction in finding butterfly eggs is partly pride that such a beautiful creature should choose my ground to propagate its kind. Deeper still is the fulfilment that comes from appreciating how little of life is accessible to our own gross perception. An egg the size of a pinhead is a humbling indicator of an entire dimension we normally miss.What gives me real satisfaction in finding butterfly eggs is partly pride that such a beautiful creature should choose my ground to propagate its kind. Deeper still is the fulfilment that comes from appreciating how little of life is accessible to our own gross perception. An egg the size of a pinhead is a humbling indicator of an entire dimension we normally miss.
There is an ancillary delight in knowing how that orange capsule, if it hatches successfully, will morph into a caterpillar resembling the lady’s smock’s seed pod. For eight further months it will then rest as a brown chrysalis disguised as a thorn. Then next May it will emerge as one of the most heart-gladdening creatures in a heart-gladdening month.There is an ancillary delight in knowing how that orange capsule, if it hatches successfully, will morph into a caterpillar resembling the lady’s smock’s seed pod. For eight further months it will then rest as a brown chrysalis disguised as a thorn. Then next May it will emerge as one of the most heart-gladdening creatures in a heart-gladdening month.
But what makes that grain of life most affecting is that it belongs to my neighbour at Blackwater, which navigates and orders its experience through chemical vapours called pheromones that I will never see or know. Yet I can intuit that complex other world in something as simple and true as an orange egg. But what makes that grain of life most affecting is that it belongs to my neighbour at Blackwater, which navigates and orders its experience through chemical vapours called pheromones that I will never see or know. Yet I can intuit that complex other world in something as simple and true as an orange egg.