catching butterflies in the late 70s

Sun Jul 22, 2018

when i was a young boy in the late 70s, i lived in an area that was mostly undeveloped. large tracts of land were full of weeds, weeds that had lots of flowers.

there was a "dirty hill" that was an area of construction, and it also had lots of weeds.

near my home there were large tracts of land that looked like this



even as a kid i had some difficulty entering many areas due to dense weed growth, with prickly thistles

lots of the homes were brand new, including the one i lived in. and many new homes were being built in the undeveloped land. even new roads.

so there were lots of butterflies for me to chase after when i was a kid.

i asked my parents for a butterfly net

i was in kindergarten at the time, it was late 70s/early 80s



one of the butterfly lessons i learned was that my area had both monarchs and viceroys and when i was a kid i was able to capture both and i could tell them apart

monarch  butterfly



and viceroy butterfly



i could tell them apart and explain it to adults who pretended to care.

i actually had 2 monarchs in my glass jar of empty jelly, and they were alive.

one thing i learned as a kid was that moths have feather antennas and butterflies have a wire antenna

so when i caught this



all the other kids in the neighborhood insisted it was a moth since moths are white

but i told the other kids to look at the antenna, it's not a feather so it must be a butterfly

the debate was along the lines of

is so, nuh uh, is so, nu uh

insect guides and other sources confirm it was a butterfly, not a moth

basically the same debate happened when as kids we saw this



i said that had to be a moth since look at the antenna, but the other kids said it had to be a butterfly since it wasn't small and white.

i showed a teacher what i caught 2 monarch butterflies and she told me quite clearly those are wild animals, and they should be set free. she told me that what i was doing in keeping them in a jar was not the right thing to do. i should open the lid and let them free. she even took my jar with the 2 captive monarchs and open the lid and let them go.

i was like

catching butterflies is actually not easy since they flutter high in the sky, its only when they land on flowers i could do it.

i guess that was my first exposure animal rights.

over years new houses were built on the vacant houses and other areas were paved with asphalt, and eventually most of the butterflies disappeared. i have since moved from that area.

today i very rarely see butterflies. i almost never see them

and yeah it'd be difficult to capture them with a net and i'm not sure if its even legal given how extremely rare they are.

there aren't any more weedy areas, with flowers. it's all lawns and sidewalks and streets.

today's kids growing up in typical suburban areas probably wouldn't know the natural as i did as a kid of the 70s, lots of butterflies everywhere that can be captured, though again it wasn't easy since they often flew high in the air.

typically butterflies land on tree branches high up in the air or simply fly high in the sky like a kite

i wanted to flap my arms like a bird and butterfly