Monday, October 27, 2008

Encountering butterflies

Sure squirrels are adorable, but what are they really? One way of looking at it is that it's just an oversized rat, that just happened to have a bushy tail which changed its appearance for the better. Of course, there are no squirrels in Cayman, but I haven't entirely forgotten about them since they were frequent visitors in my backyard in Toronto for the eight years that I lived there.

Here in Cayman, the same analogy can be applied to butterflies. There really are so many of them around, and perhaps that's due to the butterfly farm (which I have yet to visit) that encourages the growth and survival of these beautiful creatures. But what are butterflies really? Take off their beautiful wings and they're just oversized bugs, that ordinarily are not very appeasing to the eye whatsoever. And its former form is certainly not pretty. People tend to let caterpillars be all because they know that it will eventually turn into a beautiful butterfly. And here in Cayman one can find so many of these butterflies fluttering around their car while they're driving and even while being stationary. At times it can be a distraction because if you're like me, you just want to take note of which kind managed to make it past your windshield at that particular moment - check out their colours, that sort of thing. Heck they whiz past you while you're on the bypass, but of course you're going too fast to be able to notice what kind it is. But even so, just the thought of it is pretty nice and that's one of the reasons why I love driving in Cayman, if only to encounter butterflies on my drive around town.

2 comments:

bichonpawz said...

I can almost picture those butterflies right this very minute!!

MarkD60 said...

Well, a butterfly is just a rat with wings-no wait- that's a bat!
:-)