While I was watering the houseplants today, I found another butterfly sitting in a window. There’s no telling how long he’d been inside…we haven’t had doors or windows open in weeks, but he was sitting very still, hidden behind a succulent in the living room window. All summer long I’ve been catching and releasing butterflies who have flown inside and then batter themselves around the windows unable to figure out why they can’t get back outside.
After Googling, it turns out some species of butterflies live, on average, up to a month, though there are a few who have an average lifespan of around nine months. But, this one was indoors, with nothing to eat, so I’m amazed that it’s survived this long, and indeed, at all.
Almost all of the butterflies I’ve captured and released out the front door have been small tortoiseshell butterflies which are common all over Northern Europe, though they are in decline for reasons unknown. Wikipedia says, “This butterfly may then be sensitive to global warming.” Aren’t we all? Well, at least I did my bit by rescuing the ones that found their ways indoors, and by not weeding out nettles which are also common around here (they grow in the ditch around our house and the fringes). Their name in Swedish, “Nässelfjäril“, literally means “nettle butterfly”.
It feels a bit heroic to help something so pretty and so small, even if the help is also small and the result, in terms of environmental impact, miniscule.
Since I’ve started working from home full-time, I find that my outdoor time is lessened drastically. I can spend whole days, weekends, without going outside except to fetch the mail, or possibly to drive to the grocery store. The days when there is sunshine are far and few between, so I need to take advantage of them and force myself out. The sun is setting by 4 pm now, and there’s still over a month to go before the solstice. One of my colleagues has sent out a meeting request to the whole team for a 5-minute exercise break at 2:30 every day (you can plank or you can dance), but I think I also need to do a walk around the block at lunchtime, on every sunny day. I need to catch and release myself, out the front door.