Three Trips to the Moon and Back: Outlasting Winter

Hmmm, will the well-worn pages of my field guides bridge me over another winter or will impatience get the better of me?

Around this time of year, I begin to get a little bit antsy. It has been a couple of months since the last butterfly or dragonfly retired for the season. The migrating birds have long since vacated our fields and woodlands for warmer southern locales.

Even though winter has been kinder and gentler this year (so far), I am already looking ahead eagerly to the bloom of spring and the abundance of summer. But for now I will have to indulge myself in contemplating some of those marvels of nature that never cease to fascinate me.

… The Artic Tern, an elegant and graceful bird weighing all of four ounces, makes the longest migration of any animal – a 71,000 kilometre trek between Greenland and Antarctica. Researchers estimate that, in its 30 year lifespan, it may log 2.4 million kilometres during migration – equal to three trips to the moon and back.

… Peregrine Falcons claim the honour of the fastest living creature. They reach speeds of as much as 168 miles per hour while catching prey birds in midair.

… Dragonflies are masters of flight. Their four wings can be moved independently – beating up and down in the classical sense or rotating on their own axes like an airplane propeller. They can fly forwards, backwards, hover, fly rapidly straight up or straight down and turn on a dime.

… Dragonflies have the finest vision in the insect world. They possess compound eyes, comprised of as many as 30,000 "simple eyes", which allow them to detect even the tiniest of movement in the distance.

… Many butterflies can taste with their feet. Why would they want to? It enables them to determine, before they lay their eggs, whether the leaf they are sitting on is suitable to be their caterpillars' food.

… Butterflies can be speed demons – attaining a flight speed of up to 50 kilometres per hour. But they are cold-blooded and need to bask in the sun to absorb heat before they can fly.

I'll admit that winter has its own charms. But I'm inclined – aside from brief forays when cabin fever gets the best of me – to hibernate from its chilly grasp. I'll pass the days pouring over the pages of my field guides to let nature's metaphors of wonder curb my impatience.

Only 11 weeks until the first day of spring!

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of "Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel" – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael's website at www.mdyetmetaphor.comor the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog. Visit www.smashwords.com to download a free preview of the e-book version.

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