in a sort of response to her collage here: http://lynnbehrendt.blogspot.com.es/
About a week or so ago, N'jara ran into the living room with something kinda big, not a mammal, hanging from her mouth, dropped it onto the floor and as you can see, licked her lips (do cats have lips?) in hot anticipation of ... fun.
It took a minute 'til I got a good look at it, and a few days until I was able to identify it.
About a week or so ago, N'jara ran into the living room with something kinda big, not a mammal, hanging from her mouth, dropped it onto the floor and as you can see, licked her lips (do cats have lips?) in hot anticipation of ... fun.
She got bored with it pretty quickly after knocking it unconscious or scaring it close to death, so I moved it a bit out of her way (under my worktable) to let it die in relative peace, which took about two days.
To give a better idea of its size:
It's about 7.5 centimeters big, and after bagging it (to preserve it and yes, I will no doubt use it in a box) here it is laid onto a postcard with a single die below it (really, no pun intended).
After some speculation and consultation with my cousin's husband, Steve, I'm pretty sure this is a Golden Ringed Dragonfly – Cordulegaster boltonii, because of its size.
Indigenous to Spain, though it would normally be found close to water. And incidentally, the first photos of it were on the same film disc download as this:
a notebook I couldn't resist buying in Prague.
Wow that's a big bug. Poor thing!
ReplyDeleteI'm still not sure if yours are butterflies or dragonflies, but the coloration made me think "dragonfly" -- "golden ringed dragonfly." Yeah, it's the biggest one of 'em I've ever seen.
DeleteI've come here from Lynn's brilliant blog, and feel sad to see the fate of the dragon fly but intrigued by your blog and your wonderful use of found objects. Is this not the stuff of life?
ReplyDeleteThanks Elisabeth. The dragonfly will 'live on' in another form, once I figure out what that form is.
ReplyDeleteThe stripe of sun behind the Kafka notebook -- is the stripe that turned part of the cover golden -- the same? or an accident? or a mirage? The long death of the dragonfly -- did it struggle and flutter? How did you know it still lived? Or that this wasn't a 'natural' death as the adult fly is the final stage of a life cycle. Which might be very short. And your cat left it alone under the table? The whole Is a short story, a mini-movie, The die of the dragonfly, pulsing with questions. THANKS
ReplyDeleteI shot the Kafka notebook on an old wooden chair on my balcony -- that stripe of sun blazed through the Persian blind.
ReplyDeleteMartha there's so much crap under my worktable that I could successfully "hide" the dragonfly -- no, its death wasn't "natural" -- my cat intervened in its life, but my feeling is that if I take an insect, etc. away from her, she goes out for another, so ... in some hope of maintaining the insect/human balance, that's when it's time to engage N'jara in play with fake insects, etc. attached to string. It's the wiggle of the string that really makes her go wild.