This morning I saw on the road a great blue heron so thoroughly flattened that it looked like something out of Roadrunner cartoon--I kept expecting it to peel itself off the road, shake itself off, and fly away. Instead, butterflies were supping on its carcass, lovely little swallowtails with tiger or zebra stripes.
I've seen a lot of roadkill out here in the boonies but never a dead heron. Herons don't generally loiter in the middle of the road, so maybe it was swooping down toward the creek when the car came around that blind curve. I'd like to see the look on the driver's face. Then again, maybe not.
I would also prefer not to see butterflies chowing down on fresh roadkill. I know butterflies often sip fluids from dead beasts, but butterflies are so light and ethereally lovely that the sight of a swallowtail supping on a carcass is thoroughly incongruous. That's nature red in tooth and claw. Nothing at all cartoonish about it.
Hopeful paid no attention to the dead heron but instead dashed off into the bushes after a possum, which she quickly caught and killed. She took one look back at me and then ran off toward home with the possum clutched in her mouth. By the time I arrived home, she had already hidden the carcass somewhere. I would rather not know where--and if she's planning to share her bounty with butterflies, I'd rather not hear about it.
1 comment:
If a swallowtail supping on a carcass--and this is really little more than an excuse to repeat that mouth-pleasing phrase-- is thoroughly incongruous..., what to call one step over? Half-assed incongruous, incompletely incongruous, some-settling-may-have-occurred-in-transit incongruous?
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