Birds that are useless for the table and not harmful to the farm should always be preserved. — Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. President (1858-1919)

Once the butterfly lets its guard down you can become friends quite naturally. — Haruki Murakami, Japanese novelist (1949-)

The day was predicted not to be as hot as it had been. Sam set the alarm for 3 a.m. to be up and on the road for a fishing trip to one of Mississippi’s “great lakes.” I would of course arise much later. The coffee started while I threw a load of laundry in the washing machine.

With coffee in hand and Wilhelmina under foot we wandered outside to embrace the day. Everyday I am amazed all over again at the nature around us. Wilhelmina spied a tiny lizard, called a skink. He has a beautiful shiny blue tail. Like lightning Wilhelmina pounces but finds herself a nanosecond too late. The skink wiggled itself under an opening on the porch. Even if she had the quickness of capturing the skink, she would have found herself with a wiggling skink tail. That is one of the skink’s protection devices. The tail snaps off and the skink scurries away before she realizes he’s gone. The tail will grow back but often misshapen. Nature is so grand. What a privilege it is to sit and observe it quietly.

We haven’t seen any geese on the lake for awhile, but today a long line of follow-the-leader geese appeared. As quickly as they appeared they left. Perhaps the little family of geese we had before brought all their relatives to see their birthplace. They were so organized and so quiet; then they were gone.

As I greeted the morning, I thought of all the critters we get to see day by day — birds I’ve mentioned before as well as cattle egrets, snowy egrets, big blues, little blues, hummingbirds, turkey buzzards (really, they’re vultures) eagles, turkeys, hawks, owls, and Sam’s favorite the Mississippi Kite. Mississippi Kites are narrow built raptors. They are graceful fliers gliding, swooping, diving mostly for insects and some small mammals. They don’t circle their prey but instead dive bomb like a free fall. The bird’s coloring is a soft grey, some white, and a touch of black on the wings. As Sam bushhogs the fields the kites follow him waiting for a meal to pop up.

Then there’s the butterflies. A yellow swallowtail butterfly found her way into the greenhouse as did a black swallowtail. Both were beautiful. Invariably they cling to the roof where they can never escape. I open the door and windows. While left alone they will find their way out. Some butterflies only live a week or two, others maybe six months in the wild. In that time period they create another generation.

They spend most of their time enjoying warm and sunny days with a little wind. Butterflies need the heat of the sun to aid in digestion. On rainy days they hide under flowers and leaves.

Other creatures abound such as cicadas, bullfrogs, treefrogs, toads, bumblebees, carpenter bees, wasps, dirt daubers, fire ants, carpenter ants, camel crickets, ordinary crickets, grasshoppers, a variety of flies, mosquitoes, ladybugs, earthworms.

If I had a bucket list, the one thing I would put on that list would be to visit a Butterfly House also called a Lepidopterarium.

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