Bow and Conservation

Bow is an avid reader of the Missouri Conservationist. 

He enjoys leafing through the entire magazine, but this time, he indicated clearly that his favorite part was a photo of a little girl who looked a little like Ping in Ping & the Snirkelly People and of a Monarch butterfly right in front of her face.

In the little yellow rectangle, an entire conservation strategy is outlined to help preserve the Monarch butterfly.

Why such an "aggressive goal"? And what do Monarchs have to do with pollination?

A Monarch caterpillar on my transplanted common milkweed

My own experience with the Monarch caterpillars this season have been a little disappointing. I did see several different caterpillars in different stages of their growth. But what I never got to see is any of those caterpillars turning into a chrysalis. And having missed that stage, I never saw a Monarch butterfly emerge.

As the caterpillars proceeded with their work and the purple milkweed flowers died and the leaves were left full of holes, I began to wonder about the great effort to reestablish milkweed so as to help the Monarch butterfly, and the total disregard for the wellbeing of the milkweed plant itself.

Purple milkweed does not seem to produce very many seed pods.  Last year mine produced no seed pods at all because somebody -- I don't know who -- ate all the flowers long before anything interesting could happen. This year, a single flower survived long enough to start growing one tiny seed pod.

But the seed pod did not arrive at maturity, because ants attacked it.

Both my milkweed and my Monarchs seem to be productive in the early stages of the procreative process -- flowers, caterpillars -- but not so productive in the later stages -- seed pod, chrysalis. Is this what is happening worldwide? Maybe not.

I have been following the blog of Anurag Agrawal, and he recently a posted an article of his about the decline of the Monarch population that came out in Science. You can look at the article here:

http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/agrawal/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/agrawal-and-inamine-2018-science.pdf

"Mechanisms behind the Monarch's Decline" refers to two independent sources of information about the Monarch population in North America.

One is a census of Monarchs that overwinter in Mexico.

http://www.wwf.org.mx/?uNewsID=324152


And the other is the statistics kept by the North American Butterfly Association.

What Agrawal has found is that there is a mismatch between these two ways of counting total butterflies. Sometimes there is a resurgence of Monarchs in Canada and the United States, but by the time they get down to their over-wintering site in Mexico, the population is greatly reduced.

Loss of habitat for a migratory butterfly can happen anywhere along its migration. But Agrawal has stated that it is the migration, not the butterfly, that is currently endangered. Planting more milkweed in the United States and Canada is not going to help, if the forests in Mexico are being cut down. On the other hand, there are Monarchs in  warm places like parts of California that have a  more local migration, and they are fine. And there are Monarchs in Mexico that seem to be active all year round, without overwintering anywhere. Does the Monarch butterfly need our intervention on its behalf? And if so, why?

Tussock Moth Milkweed Caterpillar

It's not because they are pollinators. They're not. It is not for the sake of fruit orchards. It is not because of any unique contribution that the Monarch makes to our ecology that some other butterfly does not. It's because, for some reason, the Monarch has great PR, and there are people lobbying on its behalf.

Would anybody care about milkweed if not for Monarchs? There are other caterpillars that depend on milkweed, like the tussock moth
 caterpillar, but nobody seems to care much about them. So why the Monarch and why are state and Federal governments intervening on its behalf at taxpayer expense?


Ever since I first read Agrawal's book, Monarchs andMilkweed, I have been noticing some of the less popular milkweed eating insects.

Red Milkweed Beetle (Tetraopes Tetropthalmus)

The red milkweed beetle feeding on a defunct purple milkweed seed pod is so cute. Why doesn't it have a lobbyist in Washington?

Or how about the seed eating milkweed bugs? Why aren't there entire conservation movements built around them?

Milkweed Bug on Butterfly Milkweed

If we look at all this from the point of view of the milkweed plants, their survival strategy seems to be something like this:

• Make yourself inedible by emitting a poison and a nasty latex.
• Some bright insects will breach your defenses and make you their sole source of food in order to thwart predators.
• When farmers start to eradicate you, because you are not good for cattle to feed on, get one of the insects that has managed to breach your defenses and can eat only you to be the poster child for pollinators, even though it's actually not a pollinator.
• Get civic organizations to plant you profusely and governments to assure you acres and acres of protected growth.
• If the poster child butterfly  is still being decimated by its cross country migration, just use this to get even more protection for the propagation of  yourself.
• If, as  a result of being artificially boosted, you lose the ability to propagate naturally through the spread of seeds from seed pods, keep yourself procreating artificially as a domesticated plant.

Two identical butterflies on butterfly milkweed

The truth is that in this age of huge human populations, only those beings protected by us get to thrive. Domestication has a bad name, but if you insist that one plant -- rather than another-- has the right to exist, and that one species, rather than another, will be protected in a given environment, then you are in fact domesticating those species that you protect. Once natural selection ceases to be the main factor in their future adaptations, you will have to act as a cultivator to keep them alive. And when you do that,  you are not advocating natural balance. You will tend to create, instead, a sharp drop in diversity. Monocultures are what humans are famous for.

I love the many species of milkweed that I find growing wild on my land, and the many and varied butterflies that feed on their nectar delight me. But I would hate to think that these are not wildflowers at all, but part of a widespread plot to keep some species alive at taxpayer expense, while others die out.

Why does this matter to me? Because current efforts are afoot to end all breeding of chimpanzees in the United States. This is being done in the name of conservation. It's being done, because conservationists want to maintain only wild chimpanzees, and to eradicate all chimpanzees which have been domesticated.

But wild chimpanzees in Africa will not remain wild if they are protected. Once their natural predators are eliminated and their existence assured, they will change their ways of being.  And domesticated chimpanzees here in the US, which are privately owned, will never have a chance to live free, outside of zoos and sanctuaries.  Generations of Americans will grow up without the opportunity to meet a chimpanzee in a safe and mutually respectful environment.

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When Sword Met Bow

Cream Cheese, Butterflies and Bylaws

Over the weekend, my daughter came home and made some no-bake cheesecake. She even let Bow lick the bowl.

There was just one stipulation, that the bowl not touch the ground. So the little folding table was brought in to Bow's side

There was nothing about not putting his head inside the bowl, though.

It is a funny thing about rules: there are always ways around them, and there are always loopholes.

I was preoccupied with rules that weekend. There was a Bylaws Committee meeting in Kansas City, and I had sent in a proposal for a change in the rules. Of course, I could not go to attend the meeting, but it was going to be streamed on Facebook.  On Thursday the fourteenth, I was uploading a twelve minute explanation of the proposed change, but the internet was very slow that day. In Licking, the local paper's news room had no internet service all day.

It had started out as a foggy morning, but turned into very nice weather later on. Nature is just outside the door, and while things were uploading, I went out into the field, where I came across a very accessible Monarch butterfly.

Because it was still morning, the sun was in the east, casting my shadow on the butterfly as I drew closer.

The entire encounter did  not take long.

I should have been thinking about the Bylaws, but the butterflies in the field distracted me. There was a pipevine swallowtail, too, and it had a damaged wing.

At first I filmed the pipevine swallowtail from a distance, afraid to frighten it away.

But the swallowtail did not show fear when I came closer.

When I had had my fill of butterflies and was on my way back to the house, I noticed there were strange green seeds embedded in my pants.

I went back inside, but the twelve minute talk about the LP Bylaws was still uploading. All afternoon, it was still uploading. After a while I went back outside, and I saw a turtle.

As I came closer, it went back into its shell.

.My friend Pam estimates this turtle, who appears to have suffered a serious injury to its shell, might be over sixty years old. As I was returning to the house from the field, I saw a deer in the front yard.

I thought surely ,my twelve minute video would have uploaded by lunch, but it didn't.  It didn't upload until two pm. Bow had a some pickle ice as a snack about then.

The internet continued slow all that day. Bow's friend Charla came with the bananas, and Bow had a nice time socializing with her. In the evening,  I was able to just catch the sunset after putting Bow to bed

The next day was very exciting. Sword came home for the weekend, and a man came to repair the lights in the pens. Bow was so excited, he is barely visible in this action shot of him flying through the air on his rope while the repairman was on the ladder.

And then there was the preparation by Sword of some thirty-odd no-bake cheesecakes, and Bow licking the bowl, while I remotely listened in on the Bylaws Committee meetings. That was quite a weekend!

 When Sword went back to college, we had leftover cream cheese, so I made blintzes.

The Monarch and the Pipevine Swallowtail on a Thistle

There was a time when I suspected I had seen a Monarch butterfly on my property. and it flew circles around me very fast, so it was impossible to take its picture. In those days, all varieties of milkweed were flourishing on my property, and Great Spangled Fritillaries were quite common and accessible. But the Monarch was rare and elusive.

Yesterday, standing out in the field, in an area I like to call the meadow, where a variety of wildflowers bloom, I had no trouble at all spotting and filming and even taking still photos of a Monarch butterfly.

There were no Great Spangled Fritillaries in sight, and also no milkweed. In fact, the milkweed flowers this year were all eaten by deer, so that even when an expert on milkweed asked me to help him by gathering seed, I could not. The flowers were never given a chance to become seedpods. If milkweed is to continue to grow here, it will have to propagate from the root and not from seeds. This is the reality when the deer are this plentiful. But the side benefit is that there is relatively little poison ivy growing in the meadow, because the deer appear to have eaten it down, and they also left generous trails around the flowers, which allow me to walk unmolested among the flowers.

Yesterday, standing in the field and texting to a far away friend in California, I was able to see not only a Monarch, but also a Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly feeding side by side on a thistle plant.

The Pipevine Swallowtail was more flighty than the Monarch.

But when Swallowtail flew off, the friendly Monarch came and joined him, and the two continued feeding close together.

I have held Pipevine Swallowtails in my hand before. This is soon after they emerge as butterflies, when their wings are not yet dry, or after an injury. But when they are in their prime, they flutter so much that it is hard to get a good picture, because they are constantly flapping their wings.

.
They flap their wings so much even when hovering over a flower, that the closeups are a little blurry.

In any event, if there had been any doubt whatever that there are both Monarchs and Pipevine Swallowtails coexisting in my meadow, then this should set those doubts to rest. But sometimes it's not that no one believes you. Sometimes it's that they just don't care.

When I showed Bow my butterfly pictures yesterday, he quickly scrolled away from them, looking for pictures of himself, instead. In the same way, I don't actually believe any longer that if I could only "prove" that Bow can spell, it would make a big difference. Mankind is so transfixed by its own marvelous image, that most people, and especially those in the scientific community, would not look at proof that takes away from our stunning image.

But just when I thought that nobody was paying any  attention to my butterfly images, I got a comment from Scotland, about the thistle flower. "Wow! I didn't know that Scottish thistle grew in the USA!"

There was in fact another person locally who told me the thistle was an "invasive".  If so, good for it! Here is a song about the thistle that I like to listen to in my spare time.

Knowing What You Like

The importance of knowing what you like cannot be overestimated. Bow, for one, knows exactly what he likes and by extension, what he does not like. He likes his yogurt thick and his corn sweet.

The yogurt I made came out so thick this week it was almost like a soft cheese. But Bow did not complain. He ate it all up.

On  the other hand, he refused the corn at lunch today without tasting it, because he could already tell it was not sweet, just by the smell.

How did Bow know? Is it right to judge what you like without even trying it? I think it's more natural to do so than we are led to believe. How do Monarch butterflies know what they like? Do they have to try it first?

This has been a bad year for milkweed, but a good year for Monarch butterflies. The milkweed didn't blossom in my pasture, and I did not get to see the Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies on the purple milkweed blossoms day after day, the way I did last year and the year before. But on the other hand, I've seen quite a few Monarchs in my pasture, and this one even let me get very close.

How did the Monarch know that it liked goldenrod flowers? Did it have to take a taste first?

I wonder about things like that as I watch the animals on my land. For instance, you know that book What Young Chimpanzee's Know about Seeing? Well, yesterday, I began to wonder what squirrels knew about seeing. This one squirrel was holding stock still on the back of a tree trunk, as if it hoped to remain invisible, but I could see it clearly, because we were on the same side of the tree.

"Is it hiding from me?" I wondered. But then as soon as it climbed down from the tree and came into the visual range of a nearby squirrel, that other squirrel started chasing it. Were they playing hide and seek? Had it been hiding from a conspecific, and not a human?

Two common buckeyes were locked in an embrace as I followed them around in the field.

How did they choose each other? There are so many common buckeyes, after all. That's why they are called "common". How did they make the selection? Was it love at first sight? Tough question.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with knowing what you like -- and what you don't like. For Bow, thick yogurt is something he knows he likes. Whether it's an acquired taste or a innate preference would be hard to say, even for Bow. But it's certainly not a result of trial and error. If he didn't like it, he wouldn't eat it. He would not even try.

Going to Seed

Everything is going to seed in my pasture.

Tall dandelion plants are letting the small parachutes fly, carrying their seeds in the air, and you can actually see the process in motion.

As the seeds float through the air, it is almost possible to ascribe volition to them, because they are in motion. If it moves, it must be alive. That's how our brains have been programmed to think.

The thistle flowers are going to seed as well.

When you see a pile of seed parachutes on the ground somewhere, it is sometimes hard to tell which plant they came from.

"Going to seed" is a funny expression in English. It can simply describe the process of a plant getting ready to reproduce by letting its seeds loose on the world. But because people are so into man-made gardens, it can also mean "to produce seeds because it has not had proper care." And by extension, going to seed as an idiom means "to decline in looks, status or utility due to lack of care."

Let that sink in. We seem to think that getting to the point when you can actually reproduce makes you look as if you have not had proper care.  We apply this to humans, too. No wonder so many women try to look like little girls.

Not all of the thistle flowers have gone to seed, though. Some are still flowering, and those are the ones that the Monarch butterflies are turning to now.

Can you see the Monarch hidden among the flowers?

I spotted the butterfly from far away, but this Monarch did not make it easy to take a picture.

Here are few stolen glimpses at the Monarch's glory:

Spreading it wings, it flew not away, but seemingly right at me.

Yet always  it turned in time to avoid a collision.

In order to make these tight turns, the butterfly had to resort to stunning aerobatic maneuvers, flying straight down or straight up at times, then righting itself at the last moment.

As we watch our children going from cute, helpless babies to teenagers ready to reproduce, we need to remind ourselves they are not going to seed in the sense of losing their utility. They are going on to the next very useful phase of life.

Brief Encounter with a Monarch

Yesterday when I went for my walk, three different Monarch butterflies, on three separate occasions,  flew right toward me and then away. I was too surprised the first time to be able to film it. I had barely gotten out the door. This was the second time.

 The third time happened right after this one, when I was trying to watch footage of this clip on my phone. I have sweetened the vision for you by adding a snippet of music by Debussy and slowing down the butterfly's motion. But in real life the experience was even grander.

Foraging for Bow: Cherries and Service Berries

Admittedly, our cherry crop was very small this year. We used to get bowls and bowls full of cherries. This year, only two. Not bowls --  cherries, one of which I gave to Bow.

Bow ate the cherry very slowly.

When he was done with it, he gave me the pit back, even though I did not have another cherry to give him. This is what the cherry looked like when it was still on the tree.

It had rained that morning, so the cherry was wet, a drop of rain was still hanging off of it.

The yucca plant was also dripping with rainwater when I went to look at it by day.

I noticed that there were many insects gathered on the flowering yucca plant, even the black garden ants that used to work on the peony before it bloomed.

It is good to have alternate sources of food and not just depend on a single plant to feed you. That's why I am still pondering what is going on with the Monarch butterfly. Whatever possessed it to become dependent on a single kind of plant -- milkweed -- and if it needs the milkweed to survive, why does it not help with its propagation?

Every day I check to see what insects are pollinating the milkweed. I see Great Spangled Fritillary Butterflies and I see Skipper butterflies.

A Skipper and a friend on the Purple Milkweed

I see honey bees and Great Spangled Fritiallary Butterlies trading places on the purple milkweed blossoms.

But I see no Monarch  butterflies helping out. And yet this plant is so important to their very existence! What is up with that? It's like the Irish during the potato blight. Who depends on a single type of crop for his very existence?

Not Bow and me. We know that if the cherry crop is bad, the service berries that planted themselves on our land might actually be more plentiful and equally nutritious.

I picked some this morning and gave Bow to sample. (We don't have a Hebrew word for service berry yet. I suppose I will have to invent one.)

Bow liked the service berries just fine, but they are small.

However, down by the orchard, against the fence line, there is a service berry tree whose berries are still green and measure as large as cherries. I know not to count my chickens before they hatch, but that may turn out to be a very good deal, considering that I never planted them, watered them or did anything to help them grow! Bow and I are as sinfully idle as the Monarch, but a little more opportunistic in our eating habits.