Here's something unexpected to brighten up the winter days. My younger son Olly, whose work you can enjoy here, has been out in Hong Kong and China for an architectural exhibition. Like all faithful members of my long-suffering family, he keeps an eye out for anything smallish and with four wings.
(I recall my older son Tom, father of our lovely new Emily Maheshwary, celebrated in my last post) spotting a Lime Hawk just down the road from here, on a wall in Walton Street opposite the Oxford University Press when he was a student).
Olly's find was this lovely butterfly, spotted twice. First, at the top, clinging to a wall on a street in busy Kowloon and secondly, as Olly says, "fluttering around the terraces of the amazing Chai Wan cemetery carved into the slopes of Hong Kong island."
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| 'Amazing' is the right word |
He reports further: "It's called the Red-base Jezebel (Delias pasithoe) and it brings people joy, hope and youthful vigour according to this site - http://butterflyclub.
Many thanks to Olly. Jezebel has a special place in our family thanks to the Sunday School songs which lightened our Biblical knowledge, notably:
Jehu had a chariot of ninety nine horsepower
He drove through Ramoth-Gilead at 100 miles per hour
He had to brake a little bit just outside Jezreel
'Cos little bits of Jezebel were clinging to the wheel.
For further exciting info, see the Second Book of Kings, Chapter Nine, Verses 1-37...
5 comments:
Hi Martin, I hadn't checked in with the moths in a while figuring that A) it was too cold for you to put out the trap and B) you were too busy being thrilled with your little Emily - but what fun today to find a site where all of Olly's columns are collected! I just read the fascinating China one and will dive into the others after Christmas when we are all going to have a few quiet days up at the farm. Meantime, Merry Christmas to all! xxs
Excellent! And a Merry Christmas to you all too! Including from Olly who is sitting next to me and Little Emily who seems to be enjoying her first Christmas
Xx
M P and Co
Lovely.
I have a nephew, Daniel, who was brilliant with moths at the tender age of 9 or so. His dad was a Botany lecturer at Bangor Uni.,(Nigel Brown), who is a walking textbook re anything Nature.
Dan got a slot on a fortnightly children's wildlife programme on Anglia TV (back in the '80s I think).
Also great to be reminded of Jezebel's demise ... we had a very slight variant of that rhyme - I was Googling to see if I could verify the actual speeds of the chariot, which must have been drawn by some remarkable steeds in biblical days ...
Jehu had a chariot of ninety eight horsepower.
He drove through Ramoth-Gilead at sixty miles an hour.
He had to slow to thirty, while going through Jezreel,
'cos little bits of Jezebel were sticking to the wheel.
.... ah well, those were the days.
Jerry Hollands, Dorset.
Hi Jerry
I just caught up with your very nice comment. I hope that Dan is thriving and still doing his bit for the well-being of moths and wildlife in general. Education on the subject has been wonderfully transformed, hasn't it, along with the means of recording animals and plants without damaging them.
I've got all the Sunday School rhymes on a couple of sheets somewhere - they show such a sense of fun. I remember reading that the founder of the Band of Hope, Rev Jabez Tunniclif, was a genuine funster in spite of his name and the austere image conjured up by the concept oftotal abstinence. Life is always full of surprises.
All warmest wishes
Martin
Hi Martin,
Just to say that Dan has done very well. He's acquired his father's passion for ornithology and after uni set up an environmental service advising wind-farm developers, home and abroad, on birds' migratory routes.
His latest venture is guiding Antarctic and other wild-life touring groups, based from Kuala Lumpur.
All in all, I'm well-chuffed for him ��
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