Fly Away

NN1903 Earl Plato

Mushrooms anyone? George Sherk and I ventured into Wainfleet Marsh last week. We walked the full length of the trail and as we
went we saw various fungi. Puffballs ready to pick and take home but wait! Can you harvest mushrooms and puffballs in this Niagara Peninsula Conservation setting? We left them alone.
Remember eating the wrong mushrooms can be deadly. Know your fungi, eh!
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Alas my Spicebush swallowtail butterflies did not survive. I don’t know why. I have had butterflies emerge from their chrysalises before. Here’s a good memory. We had just brought back some baskets of elderberries.
As usual Elaine cleaned the little berries while I envisaged one of my favourite pies. Elaine called out, “Earl, come look at this!” There hanging down from a naked elderberry branch was a chrysalis, an unusual one, at least to me. It was brown in colour with silver spots along the sides. It had a curved irregular shape and resembled a little stick of twisted wood. The silver spots stood out.
I placed the chrysalis still attached to the elderberry branch in a jar without a top. I observed it each day and squeezed some drops of water on it at times. In just a few days we discovered one morning a beautiful Comma butterfly. I carefully picked it up and released it outside.
My specimen was close to two inches wide. Its wing margins appeared
ragged and it had a short tail. It was rust-brown above with black blotches like many of the Angelwings. My Comma specimen had a broad margin to its wings. It stayed near our Butterfly bushes that day, Next morning it was gone.
I was told, “The Anglewings dart rapidly about, ”He was right. Want to see a relative of the Comma? Look for the Question Mark! Want a butterfly fix? Visit our famous Niagara Butterfly Conservatory.