Topical Salve

… and a girl and a boy and a girl and another girl and another boy and …

The late night snack pictured here is either genus Phyllophaga — in which case it really is a june bug, and I’ve been calling them by their proper common name — or it’s genus Cyclocephala — and it’s really a masked chafer.

Either way, I’m happy to see it in the spider’s web as opposed to in the house, dive bombing the nearest light fixture.

I’m also happy with the way the picture turned out. Flash with auto focus through a window.

I am torn. “Crane fly” just does not hold the mystique that “mosquito hawk” does. When you associate “crane fly” — or its oft used misnomer “daddy long legs” — with this insect, you think to yourself, “of course. Long legs. I get it,” and you leave it at that.

But when you associate “mosquito hawk” with this insect, you imagine it patrolling the skies, looking down for unsuspecting prey, then swooping down and devouring mosquitos in midair. These insects are helping control the population of pests. They’re helping control the spread malaria and West Nile virus! They’re the unsung heroes of the insect world! There’s mystique! There’s romance!

Then you see one fly.

Then you do your research.

Then you sigh, slump in your chair, and start referring to them, correctly, as crane flies and lament the loss of innocence that allowed you to think of them as mosquito hawks.

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

–William Blake
“The Tiger”

Once upon a time, a barn swallow had the not-so-great idea of building its nest in the entryway of a house in suburbia instead of one of the more traditional locations — such as a barn or freeway overpass.

“Think of it,” this swallow must have thought, “it’s quiet, safe from predators, and with the housing market as it is, there should be plenty of real estate to choose from! The only downside would seem to be the commute.”

So, with the help of its mate, the swallow tried it out and found that the positives did not outweigh the negatives. Because of the long commute, gathering building material was more difficult. Plus those pesky humans kept knocking down its nest. Not to mention the extra time it took to go grocery shopping. “What was I thinking?” the swallow surely muttered to itself as it moved back to the country, where dinner for a hungry brood could be found right outside its door.

Sadly, like a bad Internet meme, the idea took root, and every year, more and more barn swallows are trying to build homes in the ‘burbs.