vanessa cardui

Anne Kilmer viceroy at gate.net
Wed Feb 20 10:24:04 EST 2002


Colin Foley wrote:

> Dear butterfly-people. I am Colin Foley, and I am doing a 4th grade 
> science project on the migration of Vanessa cardui. Could you please 
> post all sightings of PLs (painted ladies) on your Leps list? I plan to 
> use GIS (my mother is teaching me how) to track their migration times 
> this year and last (using archives), and will report back to you what I 
> find. The best data would be if you say what day you first see the 
> butterfly this year and where. I need either GPS coordinates or latitude 
> and longitude or just nearest town and how far and what direction away 
> from it.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Oh and by the way, Patrick is supposed to be in bed, not reading the 
> internet.
> 


Dear Colin,
This is a good idea. Let's see if Neil Jones can take care of us and let 
all the school children worldwide join in and record their releases and 
observations on the net. (Because the releases will mess up your figures 
unless they are properly recorded.) It's a project just made for TILS.
I'm sure you plan to plot all the data on a map, but it can get huge 
very fast, so that's why God made computers. ;-) And just in time, too.
Neil, you ready? Just add it to your Miami Blue stuff, make it 
interactive, and let's go with it immediately.
We already have the Journey North thing; I haven't explored it to see 
how it works, but wouldn't it be fun to be able to look at a map and see 
the spring flow northward across the continents, with the blush of 
butterflies before it?
The folks who sell Painted Ladies will, of course, be glad to make sure 
all releases are recorded, for their respect for science is legendary. 
Mythical. One of those. I forget ...
For those of you who see autumn closing in, with a long winter to 
follow, you're plotting your last sights, aren't you, so that the 
colored lights flicker off gradually as the north lights up.

And, Colin, if you're so smart, shouldn't you be reading your dad his 
email? For he definitely shouldn't be using that eye until the doctor 
thinks so and, patch or no patch, he's using it if he's reading with the 
good eye, I happen to know.
But this is an exciting story he cannot put down and I don't blame him.
Bob Parcelles Jr. reports that his father is safe home, there was a 
lovely memorial service, and Bob's going home Thursday.
Neil, Colin's project would be a fitting memorial for Bob Parcelles Sr., 
don't you think? Maybe call it Homeward Bound.
Somehow, the race of man likes to think of the butterflies as going 
somewhere, not wayfarers drifting through life joyously, haphazardly. We 
want the bowl of soup and  the comfort of the fire at the close of day, 
and cannot imagine riding the wind without thought, without care.

("There's land at the bottom, says Bryan O'Lynn.")
Wayfarers All?
I suspect that if you are a butterfly you are not going home; you *are* 
home.
Cheers
Anne Kilmer
Task Force Director
Miami Blue Butterfly Recovery Team
South Florida





 
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

   For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:

   http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl 
 


More information about the Leps-l mailing list