Still Waiting

Here in Bayou George, 17 miles north of Panama City, I wait for flowers, for butterflies and bees. I have seen two more honeybees since I wrote last month. Things look grim when you can remember so few. The buddleia (old-fashioned blue) attracted a couple of blue long-tailed skippers. I have been lurking with a camera for two days now, but haven't caught them. A beautiful tiger swallowtail was attracted to our corral and a spot of urine from either my mare or our donkeys. It stayed for hours and I was able to get it on film. A fat, whitish-green caterpillar was sewing a calla lily leaf closed a week ago. Whatever it is, it has a voracious appetite, and so far, I suspect they are the reason I have no leaves on my lilies (and no flowers to speak of).

The pokeweed has been devoured by small black and yellow-striped larvae about 1/2 inch long. The plants are skeletons but are fruiting bravely. I have seen two Gulf fritillaries when there should be so many more. No monarchs at all. Something magnificent in blue metallic came to visit by the back door a few days ago. I ran for the camera because I've never seen one before. Will send it to you when I get the film developed.

Even the Spanish Needles refuse to bloom. It has been a strange and eerily silent spring. No ospreys to speak of, few blue herons, no wood ducks, no purple gallinules cackling at night, less bald eagles, no bees, few butterflies. The frogs in the swamp seem happy, but even the mating calls of the male alligators seem to have diminished. I have a great foreboding of a problem with our ecosystem here. Perhaps the mercury contamination of Deer Point Lake has finally caught up with the wild ones. May Lenzer

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