Garden Portraits Newsletter, July 2006
The Birds and the Bees...and The Butterflies
I've been thinking a lot lately about the basics of nature. My daughter turns three this week and every birthday she has reminds me of her actual birth. My sister is due with her first baby any day now and a good friend of mine is due as well. Additionally, it seems every time I've hit the gardens over the past week I've come across bugs in the act of making babies.
I like bugs. I don't like them as much as flowers, but I have always found them interesting. As a kid, I loved the little roly-poly beetle bugs that curled up when you gently touched them. I loved digging up worms in the garden and worms are still one of the creatures that I find most fascinating. Then there are lightning bugs, lady bugs, and ants…all fascinating to a youngster. What kid hasn't played "Giant", moving bugs around and controlling their world like a god? Our size alone in comparison to theirs is enough to give one pause. However, it never occurred to me to really study bug behavior until I looked through my macro lens.
I suppose it is natural for a garden photographer to turn her attention to bugs at some point. After all, there are more bugs and more species of them than any other animal on the planet. I was bound to run into them and their base behavior at some time. It started late last month with two little tiny bees in my backyard that flew into my path while I was photographing yellow heliopsis. Then, today, I went out to the milkweed covered fields at Joppa Hill Farm down the road to try to photograph a butterfly alighting on the flowers. Instead, I found two butterflies alighting in tandem. I was hoping to watch them fly away together, but after twenty minutes of waiting -- following the hour and a half it took to find them -- in ninety degree heat wearing jeans and hiking boots, I gave up before I passed out. I figured "who knows how long these two can last?!" (As any good former librarian would, I looked up copulation times when I got home and learned that butterflies can last well over thirty minutes. It was probably a good thing that I didn't wait around.)
Now I'm hooked and fascinated. What else goes on in this tiny world on top of my beautiful flowers? I'm going to keep my eyes open and my favorite lens close by to view the events. I am learning so much about nature through my photography. I am also learning a lot about myself through the meditative ritual of picture taking, but I'll save that for another newsletter. Photography encourages curiosity and thinking. Maybe I'll buy my soon to be three-year-old a magnifying glass so she can explore this little world with me... Or, maybe I'll wait until she's a little older. I can already hear the "Mommy, why are they doing that?"
I encourage you to take time this summer to stop and smell the roses. Then, examine their petals and leaves to see what little creatures are gathering. Wandering around in the outdoors gives you an opportunity to examine a world separate from that to which you've grown accustomed. I hope you take some time while you are enjoying the nice weather to think about the little miracles in our natural world.
