New Colorado Butterfly – mountainbreakfast

Theme 113, with a flute and trombone.

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Zizula cyna [STATE RECORD]

My new butterfly record is of Zizula cyna, a tiny subtropical blue that should not be here. It was taken near the Section 16 Trail, as the label says. I will go back this summer to see if it might persist in that environment. It is not particularly unusual to find stray subtropical butterflies in Colorado, but one this tiny is hard to imagine. Perhaps it came on a car with travelers, but if so, it flew hundreds of yards to the locality in which I found it. So, maybe…

Why Mountain Breakfast?

Well, many years ago, before computers and the internet, I wrote a short story about a man who carried an enormous length of garden hose up a mountain with the goal of starting a siphon to run water from a lake to his cabin below. His only friend, a water attorney (?!?!), warned him that stealing water could get him in a lot of trouble. But, undeterred by this cautionary advice, he proceeded to climb to the lake and start the siphon. Meanwhile, his friend cooked breakfast in the cabin below. By the time the hose was hooked up, his friend had set fire to the kitchen and lost control of his wits. Just when it looked like the cabin would be burned to ashes, the hose began blasting water, and he was able to save the house. This was the first of several short-short stories in a series that I called Mountain Breakfast, in which each tale involved cooking or eating breakfast in the wild. It was all about humans, all about nature, and all about human nature. I’m still at it, still hiking and thinking and writing tales, although they’re longer now, and not about eating breakfast.

Tag: New Colorado Butterfly

Listen to this while you read about my new Colorado butterfly.