Butterfly Explosion

thefootloosescribbler

I’m living in my own little nature movie.

Right outside our bay window is a large butterfly bush. We’ll get a few butterflies visiting every year, but this spring there has been an explosion. I can’t take my eyes off the dozens (it seems like hundreds) of California Tortoiseshell and Monarch Butterflies flitting around leafy branches and purple blooms.

Orange butterflies are blowing in the wind like falling-up Autumn leaves. Valiantly they push through, drawn by the nectar residing deep inside each purple-trumpet floret. Flying from flower to flower, each butterfly lands, tasting with their feet, before unfurling their proboscis to sip life-giving nectar.

They spend a short time on each blossom before fluttering to the next. Now and then the breeze diverts two for a quick waltz in the sky. To their concentrated lives, the day must stretch for hours; but from my vantage point it’s merely minutes. Yet, as I watch and time slips by, I see how much happens within the span of their day. I begin to get an inkling of the butterfly’s full life.

This time of year, butterflies only have a few weeks to feed, breed, and lay eggs before dying. To them, each moment must feel so intense: a puff of wind, the zing of nectar, warming in the sun, or worse: evading hunters, dodging storms, freezing in cold weather.

I would like to think that having lived so completely, maybe butterflies are ready when the predator catches them or the temperature drops. Ready to fly off into a world of sunshine and gentle breezes, where life isn’t rushed and they have all the time in the world.