Grays River Grange #124

Of Butterflies, Bigfoot, and Toads

Gray's River Almanac, Number 2

By Robert Michael Pyle - Lecturer

In his poem "Blue Butterfly Day," describing Spring Azure butterflies, Robert Frost wrote:  

It is blue butterfly day here in spring 

And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry 

There is more unmixed color on the wing 

Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.  

                  Some years our "blue butterfly day" has come in February, and with our pale-pink pioneer camellias in full flush almost a month early, the first blues could  be out any day.  So far, in the fitful sunshine, two kinds of  little inchworm moths flutter around first-bloomers such as spiraea and heather in the garden and native coltsfoot in the hills.  One sort is warm cocoa brown, the other black and white with blue and chestnut highlights if you look closely.  I call them "honorary butterflies" because they fly by day and look like tiny butterflies, though they emerge a few weeks earlier.   You'll know it when the first real butterflies come out: the brilliant sky-blue of our  Echo Azures is unmistakable. 

Gray's River Almanac

 Robert Michael Pyle - Gray's River Lecturer

Welcome to Gray's River Almanac.  In this series for the Gray's River Grange website, I intend to contribute brief observations on some of the natural goings-on in our charmed and challenged valley and its embracing hills.  Many of these will have to do with the passage of the seasons, and the annual events that follow the orbit of the globe.  What better time to begin than soon after the winter solstice?  Spring starts early here, and soon the daily changes will come hot and heavy, so I'd better begin.