Hedge-Light

This firefly is all a lie –
He has no flame in him !
The light that’s seen
Is cold and green –
And most of all, so dim !
Flashing out his Morse,
Of course,
To bring the ladies in.
At least he does emit a bit,
And pimps his abdomin –
Unlike the many lads in other species,
Where the dads
Leave all the glow-up to the dames.
And some have given up entirely,
Never even slightly fiery,
In defiance of their names.
I guess he’s earned the term,
When he’s been sparking since a glowworm,
Putting-on a show.
But boy, he’s still a slacker,
More a squib than fire-cracker –
Just a pin-prick in the black,
Who’s turned his wattage way down low.
Or maybe it was all because his loneliness
Was all a sign –
A cry of fading prominence,
A dwindling from the present tense,
His species in decline ?
They used to fly so thick, so dense –
And even now, beside the fence,
They sometimes congregate and look so fine !
Alone, he hardly glorifies –
But when the fireflies fill the skies,
That’s when they really shine !

Blighty-Bugs

A butterfly house is a curious series of rooms –
A bit like a tropical farm,
Where exotic moths can dine on exotic blooms,
With wingspans as wide as my palm.
Or so I had hoped – but this was no Forest of Arden –
Or jungle of scent-heavy petals –
But flitting about were familiar sights from the garden,
And all that was growing were nettles.
It turned out they mastered in only British varieties,
Tortoiseshells, coppers, and whites.
Pretty, but small – the kind that give gard’ners anxieties,
Or taken-for-granted delights.
Oh sure, the elephant-hawks are impressive as caterpills,
Stripping the fuchsia to shreds,
But overall, any good hedgerow holds similar thrills,
Without the need of these sheds.
Although, as a lifelong dweller of chalky downs,
And the home-strip lads that brings.
It was good to see some strangers from limestone towns
With a Northern brogue to their wings.
So yeah, I guess I enjoyed them in concentration,
A blaze about the flowers –
And proof that beauty can still exist in our nation –
Because all of these ones are ours !

Of course, I have mused on butterflies numerous times before, but after writing this I decided to put my prose where my poetry was:

I asked a few AIs for a plan to build such a self-sustaining glasshouse, with a list of the fewest number of native plants ?  Here is the consensus:

Firstly, a fair spread of readily-available lepids:

The months listed above are for topical outdoor activity, so may be extended indoors with earlier Springtime starts and possibly a second or third brood. If the glasshouse is insulated but not heated (except to keep it above 5°C through the Winter), this will mean that not all of these species can be self-sustaining, as some of them migrate (Clouded Yellow, Hummingbird Hawk-Moth), and fresh stocks will need to be brought in each Spring (this is something all butterfly houses need to do).  I can see making use of an ornate pupilarium with windows to watch them ‘hatch’.  We will also have some structural little brick towers around to provide dry pupation sites.

A few other species to consider include the Small Blue, the Wall, the Ringlet, the Green Hairstreak, and above all the Brimstone.  However, the Small Blue will require its own special food source, the kidney vetch, while the Brimstone needs a common buckthorn.  This latter plant is especially a problem in a glasshouse, as it is a large shrub, though it can ber coppiced.  (By the way, I call it a glasshouse instead of a grweenhouse to emphesise that it will be considerably larger than the things found at the bottom of the garden for growing tomatoes in.)

Another reason for being cagey about including the Brimstone (despite it possibly being the very lepid that gave us the word butter-fly) is that they aren’t so common anymore, and we certainly don’t want to be messing-around with anything endangered…

But since aphids and mildew are inevitable, I decided to also include the following ladybirds:

2-Spot
7-Spot
22-Spot (though this one might be trickier to source, but should be able to make a good mildew-munching colony in the honeysuckle)

So, the plants need to be robust, and able to regrow quickly after heavy defoliation by caterpillars, while also provide nectar for the butterflies/moths for the entire time they are flying.  Indeed, I wanted to make sure that there were two different nectar sources incase of any issues, though I held off doing the same foe feed plants, as a lack of food will be an important population control.  Here’s the answer I got: