I am a primatologist who spends twelve hours most days in the company of a thirteen year old chimpanzee named Bow. I am also an editor with Inverted-A Press.
We are still settling in to our ordinary routine after those two interruptions that occurred due to the trip to Florida and then the visit to Indiana. This week I lost track of when my milk supply would be replenished, and I ended up with leftover milk. So I made yogurt last night, and this morning Bow was very pleased to have some with his breakfast.
You can see by the way he eats it that Bow really enjoys his yogurt.
In other news, the milkweed on my property is not doing that well for some reason. They say we are suffering though a drought, even though it rains very frequently, and perhaps that is to blame. But the Virginia Mountain Mint by the fence line is doing quite well, and that is where the most beautiful butterflies can be found.
The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is a sight to behold.
You can see how very large (wingspan 3.1 to 5.5 in) it is in comparison to the blossoms of the Virginia Mountain Mint.
A Great Spangled Fritillary, also a rather large butterfly (wingspan 2.4 to 3.5 in), is not nearly as big.
Last season, we had many of the Great Spangled Fritillary on the Purple Milkweed. But this season I only see a single Fritillary every once in a while for a fleeting moment.
Every season brings its own preoccupations and its own delights. Last season I was worried about the exact classification of wild roses. This year I wonder at the single black flower in the center of the sea of white florets in the Queen Anne's Lace.
I never noticed that black flower before, but they all have them. Only sometimes that one central flower looks more red than black. What is it doing there? What purpose does it serve?
All living things are self-organizing units with subparts and form and function. We don't always need to know how they work, but it is helpful to remember that they do work somehow, without help from anyone else. It's when we try to help without understanding that we can damage the delicate structure that no one designed and very few completely understand.
And speaking of laissez fair, here are some links to my libertarian writings.
I admit it. I like to watch the wildlife. Sometimes they don't know they are being watched. Sometimes they suspect it. Sometimes when they notice me, they fly away or run away or hide. At other times, they fly right at me and make me step back. But did you know that sometimes I feel watched, too?
Yesterday, I was looking at a dragonfly that was perched on the very edge of a bare Weigela limb. When it noticed me, it flew off like some kind of miniature helicopter. No, really, that's what I was thinking, when I saw it fly off. And then moments later the air was torn by the noise of a giant engine very close to the ground, and Bow, who was in the outer pen screeched and the leaves on all the trees trembled, and then I saw it: a black helicopter flying pretty low over my property.
Keep in mind the the camera makes it seem further away. But it felt really close, and it was a little scary, for me and Bow and the dogs. And then it went away, and I went back to my voyeurism.
In the calm and quiet of the ordinary every day life of the pasture, I spotted a great spangled fritillary on a thistle plant.
When it saw that I had spotted it, instead of flying away, it seemed a little angry at me for my invasion of its privacy, and it flew right at me.
Then it landed not too far away, daring me to come in for a closer picture. I wonder what would have happened if I had flown right at that black helicopter as a response to its presence!
Later in the day, while I was admiring the changing leaves of the maple tree, I saw a squirrel in the adjoining oak tree. I tried to come in closer to get a better view of the squirrel, but it hid on the other side of the branch from me. Giving up, I notice that Nile the cat was climbing up the oak, using only his claws to hang on to the tree.
In the evening, the younger deer was grazing alone in my front yard.
It suspected that I was watching, but until I stepped out it was not sure.
Its mother was waiting just around the corner of the house, so that's why it did not escape into the pasture, which would have been faster. I felt bad when I saw the panic in its eyes.
But the mother and child were reunited and later went back into the woods together. If the black helicopters ever come for me and Bow, I wish we could escape into the woods and disappear, too.
Yesterday, the Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies returned to my purple milkweed. And there was much rejoicing!
Great Spangled Fritallary Butterflies on my Purple Milkweed
They were here last year at about this time, and now they were back.
I would have liked to get closer to get a better picture, but two factors were at play to keep me from doing so: the purple milkweed is surrounded by poison ivy plants, and butterflies -- even the Great Spangled Fritillary -- are flighty. They will seldom sit around posing for pictures if you insist on getting close. Not like bumblebees, who will let you come in for a tight shot and let you film them for hours.
In this rather long video starring a bumblebee, even a dragonfly makes a brief guest appearance. But no, that was not the guest I was longing to see.
Happy as I am to be reunited with the Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies, and to see the bumblebees and the honey bees and all the many other insects enjoying the milkweed, there was one guest that I especially longed to have take refreshment on the milkweed. But every time I went to check what was going on there, I saw many other insects, and not that special one.
I was able to stick my head in between the fence boards to get really close to the bumblebee.
But still there was no Monarch butterfly, the guest for whom all this milkweed is supposed to serve as a special incubator. I went for a walk after seeing the Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies, and I actually managed to locate the lost Common Milkweed that I thought had been eradicated. It was pushed up right against the fence, and its buds were looking underdeveloped.
My Common Milkweed Yesterday
Because it was surrounded by poison ivy and honeysuckle, the plant had somehow sprung up right against the wooden fence to the pasture.
The Common Milkweed is pushed up against the fence and late to bloom
But this could not account for the failure of the Monarch butterfly to show up. All these conservationists have been telling us for years: "Monarch butterflies only lay their eggs on milkweed, and the caterpillars only eat milkweed." (Source: http://www.monarch-butterfly.com/monarch-conservation.html) So whether the plant ever flowers or not should not be the issue for Monarch propagation, as long as the leaves and stems are there. Where had all the Monarch butterflies gone? Didn't they like my milkweed? I was disappointed.
And then, across the pasture, I spotted what looked remarkably like a Monarch butterfly. It flew in my direction, and I started filming it, but even though it was very close, it kept flying around, dancing circles around me at high speed, and when I looked at the video, all I could see was that I had been moving the camera erratically -- but no butterfly visible! It was as if the butterfly had been taunting me, offering evidence of its existence that only I could see! Watch the video above at normal speed, and you will probably come to the conclusion that I was imagining the whole thing!
If you stop the video at this spot, you can catch a glimpse of the Monarch butterfly
Just like the rabbits on my land, the Monarch butterfly was showing itself to me, while using highly evolved evasive maneuvers to ensure I could never catch it. To see how very fast it was going, we need to take account that in the above still from the video I had my camera pointed at an easterly angle. But a few seconds later, the Monarch appears in a shot aimed due south.
The Monarch by the ripened service berries
Even though I was facing south now and it had just come in from the east, already the Monarch had reversed its direction and was heading back the way it came.
A few seconds later, I caught a glimpse of it with my camera facing north, but the butterfly was already headed east. This is what flying around in circles at high speed looks like! In between these relatively clear shots, the butterfly was moving faster than my camera could follow. If I had not thought to pause the video on my computer and take screenshots, I would probably have ended up discarding this video, like many previous attempts to film fast moving butterflies.
So yes, there was a Monarch butterfly on my property all along, but it would not stop and pose for me on the purple milkweed, like my more cooperative guests, the Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies and the bumblebee. Sometimes the speed of a subject will prevent us from seeing what is going on right before our very eyes. We had the same problem with Bow before he started using our hands as a pointing device. Our intern Carrie Stengel discusses the problem in the video below.
I have been characterized by some people who read this blog as "an innocent" with a rich "inner life", implying that I imagine everything that goes on with Bow, and in particular his ability to spell words. But did you know that the first time Bow spelled out what he wanted, instead of pointing at lexigrams, it was not with me?
It was with our new Project Bow intern, Eden Michaelov.
It was Eden who decided to put the letters up on the glass that day. And it was with Eden that Bow first spelled.
When I realized that Bow would not point on his own, and that this was going to be characterized as a Clever Hans effect by anyone who saw it, I could have given up. It would have been the smart thing to do, because there is no profit in what I am doing now. I could just pretend I did not see the pretty butterfly, and all would be well with the social world. I could maybe have gotten a job doing something else. That's what Herbert Terrace did the moment his funding ran out. But the kind of madness that I suffer from is that when I see a butterfly that no one else can see, I keep trying to think of ways to make them see it. The facts do not change, just because people cannot see.(And in fact, others have seen what I saw: everyone who worked with Bow since 2007 has seen him spell.)
It is not a crime against society to fail to fall into line with the current consensus. The greater crime is to recant under pressure, like Joan of Arc or Galileo. Rather than being an innocent who sees visions that are not there, I am a scientist who has an open mind to the existence of uncooperative butterflies.
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