the grim, grim circle of life

well, i really wanted to title this post "i sh!t you not," but i'm not supposed to curse around here. but i do, you know. i curse. between the lines of these posts, there is much cursing. but you can always pretend not to know that about me if that sort of thing offends. anyway, cursing is sometimes necessary in my world of parenthood, preferably when the kidlets are out of earshot or wearing earmuffs, and especially when grim things like this happen...

so we've been doing a little "science school" here at home. clyde is a big-time animal lover, and so between visiting zoos and farms, watching a lot of animal planet and scouring netflix for interesting animal flix, buying every schleich animal on amazon or at target, and checking out every animal library book we can find, we try to do things like grow painted lady butterflies from caterpillars. you may have seen some of the photos on clyde's flickr set, but yes, the caterpillars came in the mail as cute little fuzz nubbins in a jar pre-filled with a lot of food.

every morning, clyde and i would run out to see how much the caterpillars ate and grew (and to my dismay, how much they pooped; can we get a mini poop-sucking dustbuster up in there already?). it was really amazing as they grew to like twenty times their size in just 7 to 10 days. soon enough, just as the paperwork stated, they all did their little march to the top of the cup, released down 999,998 of their feet, closed their 10,000 eyes, and drifted off into little hanging caterpillar comas. then, without any of us ever seeing how it happened, they formed those iridescent chrysalids. we moved the cocoons to the net habitat. and we waited. another 7 to 10 days. 

this whole process was really fascinating to me. how it all just goes according to plan. nature never ceases to amaze me. never. and one day, we came home from a walk to find one butterfly flying about. and just then, another one cracked its shell open and emerged right before our eyes. we fed them for the first few days and then i thought best to release the first set of butterflies (god knows i don't need another mouth, or in this case another foot, to feed around here).

so clyde and i headed out back to release the first 4 new butterflies. out they went. joyously flapping about. one flew off into the sunshiny day. the next one headed down to perch in the green dewy grass. the third one went over the fence. as #4 climbed to the top of the habitat, i felt a little sad. it's been a great couple of weeks with you, ladies (they are all gals, right?). fly. be free. go forth and enjoy your amazing 2-week lifespan.

and then, as lady #4 burst off into her beautiful life, i sh!t you not, a scrub jay dove down out of the sky, ripped her out of midair, and ferociously chomped her bright orange little delicate body into bits and swallowed. right in front of us. i let out a screech. i'm not sure if i cursed, but i immediately slapped my hand over my mouth in complete disbelief. i thought, perhaps,  clyde missed what happened, but alas, he is well schooled in the matters regarding the circle of life (and i don't mean the elton john lion king kind; think wild kingdom, folks). but clyde slowly revealed his mouth, where he, too, had slapped his hand in horror and said, "the bird ated it."

in the car later that evening, after what seemed a fairly quick recovery, clyde seemed to have worked through the pain of the event (me? i'll NEVER get over it). but then i heard him whispering from the backseat, saying ever so quietly, "i used to have some butterflies, but now they're dead."

well, we did our best. unfortunately, we ended up giving clyde a bird's eye view (ha!) of the complete and true circle of life.

that's the last time i romanticize the sweet nature of a scrub jay. the murderous wretch! next time he fights with one of those big black crows out back, i might just root for the crow.

the release of the other 6 butterflies was overshadowed by my severe paranoia. i looked upward a lot, wondering if that darkening in the sky was in fact the shadow of another ravenous bird about to wreak havoc on our happy-ending nature story.

Comments

[jeanie]

oooh - nature can be cruel, can't she.

[Jennifer]

I know I wasn't supposed to laugh at your post but I did - I've actually got tears in my eyes from laughing. I think I've had too much coffee today and not enough sleep. It was the "i used to have some butterflies, but now they're dead" comment that did it to me. Poor butterfly.

[Melissa]

Well! Remind me not to order caterpillars any time soon, okay? Thanks.

[Suzanne]

Ok aside from the killer bird that is the coolest thing I've ever heard of! Elizabeth would absolutely LOVE to have one of those kits - too bad they don't ship to Canada.

[Karen]

DYING, NOW! I had already heard the story and am still laughing hysterically.

[shema]

This happened to a friend of my Mom's! The exact same scenario! Except her daughters cried for an hour afterward. They should post a warning on the package...

[writnkitten]

that certainly explains the "mother" in mother nature!

[elisa]

ok i had to read it for myself. i can't believe that really happened. its so sad and so funny at the same time!

[Ed Darrell]

Oh, just wait. One of these days you'll see some little bird buzzing about the crow, and soon you'll become aware that the crow has the egg of the little songbird in its beak . . .

Evolution makes a lot more sense than a benificent creator carefully making each critter, at that point. We don't even have to get at the tomato horworms and their nasty little parasitic wasps.