Ironic indeed

[Rick Mikula]

Mark Walker wrote:

> There are more ironies:  You could be a butterfly breeder and hated by
> NABA for adding butterflies to the environment because they interfere
> with its 4th of July population counts.

 Ironically every time the naba puts out more propaganda thier memberships
calls to order more butterflies. As far as the notorious 4th of July counts,
has it ever served any scientific purpose? Or is it just a reason for some 
butterfly enthusiast to take a walk in a small area on a paricular day.
Could we assume that if the walk is done on a overcast day, when no 
butterflies are on the wing, that all species are extinct because none 
were found. I have trouble putting faith into these counts since many 
species are not in the adult stage and flying at that time. For too many 
of the counters all whites are Cabbages and anything yellow are Clouded.
I say this from knowing many naba members for many years. I have in the 
past been asked to address meetings of potential counters to assist them in 
identifying species prior to going in the field. Many of the questions I get 
are "The swallowtails, Aren't they the ones with that little taily thing on 
the ends of their wings that are always eating my parsley right?" or
Fritillary? I thought they were Monarchs, whats the difference? After
some exposure to this scenario my faith in them is somewhat reserved.

Sorry for the waste of bandwidth, but I had to get that out of my system.
Flame on!!!!!!

Quite Respectfully
Rick Mikula