Saturday 25 July 2009

He (or she) should never have left the North


Oh dear, more death. Avert your eyes, Lorry, my kind-heartened colleague who was saddened by my late sparrowhawk, RIP. Still death is a pretty major part of the genuine natural world; even Beatrix P recognised that with her precis of the fate of Peter Rabbit's Dad. Mr McGregor, we name the guilty man. Imagine what Thos Hobbes would have said about life if he had been born a moth.
Anyway, to the point. I'm collecting Penny and her Mum from Gatwick later and I was driving through Regent's Park when this little fellow, or fellowette, flew out from its hiding place in the car and landed on the steering wheel. Hooray, I exclaimed, I am increasing the moth population of London by one. I may also be aiding the spread of species in Britain, something of which I much approve. Some ecologists are rather down on this, as 'artificial', but mankind's activities affect the rest of Nature in so many other ways, that a little moth transporting seems a minor form of interference.

If you click on the picture you can see its tongue and interestingly fluffy tail, as well as the seat-cover detail from our Toyota Prius (smug smirk from writer; no congestion charge, Yo!) But alas. When I reached my son's flat, I forgot about the moth and it wasn't until the next morning that I went to the car (to avoid about £1000 in parking fines) and found its small corpse on the floor. I have emailed Jax to ask what it is, or Benny may know. I put it reverently in a flowerbed in the local park, which appropriately is the converted graveyard of a Blitzed church and it will rise at the Last Trump, or be eaten by a mouse or bird. Unless it was only sleeping (although it might have been eaten then, too).

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