I found that they were too hard to catch on camera (the shot below was an exception), instead I tried to catch them with words. I wrote this piece that was almost published somewhere else but one thing led to another and, well… here it is.
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| One of these lovely things stayed still for me to take his portrait in Elsternwick this summer. |
I was obsessed with all those white butterflies who came to visit us this past summer. If you're outside reading this on your phone, look up to the left. See, there's not one. That could be one in the distance. Now look to your right. Not one to be seen.
But - there’s always a but in this wild world where everything we see is a potential argument or a column like this, they were BAD, and you probably already know, they’re not even butterflies. They’re cabbage moths, introduced pests, and were a sign of the seasons going skewiff because of climate change. It goes without saying that they’re still mauling our crops, yet another calamity for farmers to deal with.
According to many news reports weeks ago, the cabbage moth plague was the end of a perfect chain of events. The warmer than usual winter gave us a bumper season for leafy greens like lettuces, kale and cauliflower, exactly what these very hungry caterpillars crave, so they thrived like never before.
So cabbage moths are bad, but was it okay to love them? They were so pretty to watch dancing from bush to shrub so you’d be a real party pooper to hate them.
Did you get the chance to see kids chase a cabbage moth? One of the most awkwardly beautiful things I saw was when my six year old fella and his best mate chased one across the primary school playground. This tiny cabbage moth genius teased those kids with its up and down, up, up, left and right flightpath so confidently, that the grade ones never had a chance.
The older kids learnt quickly that the chase was a waste of time. All you had to do was wait for the party-fly to sit down on a leaf for a breather, then calmly snap with your thumb and pointer finger as if you’re the Karate Kid catching a fly - bonus points for chopsticks.
We all argue in our heads about what’s right. There are ethical conundrums in what we do for work, everything we consume, and all that we love. What do we enjoy? What should we eat, and what should we wear to make the least impact on the earth? What do we read and watch on our phones? Is it okay to listen to music on the big streaming services? Is it okay to find that joke funny? What should we be boycotting to make our tiny statement to the world?
Cabbage moths were our summer’s guilty pleasure. Like bad TV, getting stuff delivered to your door by stressed delivery drivers or even savouring the quiet that came with the curfews during our long lockdown, these guilty pleasures are the things that give our tired, cynical brains a break.
This summer’s dainty cabbage moth plague was the ultimate guilty pleasure. They were just lovely. And I'm so happy that they decided to join us for this, yet another, climate-crisis affected summer.
Sadly, you can see that they’re leaving us. I'll look over the public pool where I'm writing this and I can see only one fluttering over the kids splashing in the multipurpose line. There’s only two of the things dancing above the preening sunbathing scene on the grass, where weeks ago they were all over the place, ten to the left, 12 to the right.
I’m also told that there are piles of scores of them dead, washed up on our beaches. Gazillions of unlucky little guys were taken by the sea breeze, far from land to fall to the water only to be washed up together at the end of their adventure. Kids are terrified by these creepy cabbage moth killing fields so make sure you scout ahead if you’re taking yours for a dip.
But now the white moths are almost gone, and the bushfires, a deadly and not at all pretty result of climate change, have arrived. Scary times ahead, no guilty pleasures there. Be safe, everyone.
And thank you, cabbage moths, not for being little jerks stuffing up so many farmers’ seasons, but for your lovely little acrobatic displays that were for so many of us, impossible not to love.
Here's one in our backyard.
