Alison Baker

This summer we’ve had no butterflies. Oh, we’ve seen an occasional fritillary, two black swallowtails, and a respectable – though not abundant – number of cabbage moths; but not one monarch has flittered across the deck while we eat lunch. And my common milkweed is gorgeous – six feet tall, in full bloom, and utterly untouched by caterpillars, its leaves unchewed and free of frass.

A few of their many-legged fellow travelers are missing in action, too – so far my zucchini and buttercup squash vines remain unbored by squash vine borers, and the eggplant leaves lack all but a few of the tiny pinholes left by flea beetles. (Asparagus beetles did denude my plants of foliage before I could say Jack Robinson, but once I’d said it the foliage came back full and ferny.)

As for the Dutchman’s pipe of which I was so proud last summer, well, that’ll teach me what pride goeth before. Several stems that had sprung up from the roots withered and broke over the winter, and although the vine’s growing and blooming, it’s puny. And nary a Pipevine swallowtail, at any stage of development, has been spotted dallying among its heart-shaped leaves.

Butterfly action may have been slowed by the cool rainy weather of recent months. Or it could be that the drought of the last few years resulted in lousy reproductive rates. Of course, chances are that the lack of butterflies is just the usual fluctuation in numbers; they and their less-welcome buddies may well be back in force next summer, feasting on the abundance of flora resulting from this year’s rainy conditions.

But I’m always afraid that changes like these are fulfilling dire prophecies -- the warming of the globe, the demise of species -- and that one of these days, too many of the critters that make my life worth living won’t be back.