Bonding With Butterflies

I realized that I have several times really bonded with butterflies. But then I thought: Is it even really possible to bond with a butterfly? I mean, they're insects, they cannot possibly have any feelings toward a human being. Several times I've helped injured or sick butterflies get back to health and it almost seems like they trusted me somehow.

In April, I noticed a butterfly stuck in the window - It was trapped between the two glasses and was still alive. I opened up between the glasses to let the butterfly out and it climbed on my hands, face and hair for quite a while. It was clear it suffered a lack of air and therefore seemed quite weak and tired.

After a while it recovered and it could fly short, short distances at a time. I had somewhere to be, so I could not stay with it forever and therefore put it down in a flower pot, among the flowers, hoping it would recover. When I was back home, the butterfly was not there. Either it managed to fly away or one of my cats ate it. I hope it flew away.

Another time, when I was about to go home from my work practice at the pre-school, I found a butterfly walking around on the ground, in the quite windy weather. I realized that something was wrong with it, so I carefully picked it up to look at it, but I had to be quite careful, since the gusts of wind could blow the butterfly away - Which could not fly or even walk well of its own.

I saw that it had something sticky on it, must have walked in glue or tree sap or something, it surely wasn't spider-web, no, this was something much stronger. Basically, the antennae were glued together and some of the legs were glued to each other as well as to the wings. As you might understand, this is quite a pickle for a delicate butterfly.

What I had to do was perform "buttefly surgery" of a kind. I had to carefully "cut" between the stuck together body-parts, to free them from each other. The butterfly seemed to trust me and stayed in my hand. I had to use small sticks I found on the ground to gently press between the antennae to separate them.

It seemed quite uncomfortable for the butterfly, but it worked after a while. The antennae were unharmed. Still a bit covered in the sticky thing, which was obviously dried up and not anymore sticky, but the antennae were separate from each other and seemed good as new. I do not recall quite how I managed to pull through between the antennae, I think I just had the butterfly on my hand and "lifted" it up with the stick between the antennae and after a while, it worked.

Then there was still the problem of the legs and wings: The butterfly seemed a bit uncomfortable, but was very patient with me. I think what the butterfly did was climb my fingers while I pulled the small stick between its legs and wings to separate them. The butterfly stayed patiently and I think I only had to hold it still a few times.

Now how you hold a butterfly still - Is to very, very, very softly pinch the legs. I mean extremely softly. Butterflies are very fragile. Anyway, I managed to separate the legs from each other and then separate them from the wings - Which they were glued to, making it impossible to walk or fly.

In the end, the butterfly recovered quite well and the only thing it lost was a tiny part of its wing - The wings were already somewhat damaged, though. It could walk well, but seemed somewhat hesitant towards flying, although it could move its wings again. I left it in the bushes, so that it would have some protection from the wind and people walking on the ground. I hope it could fly again.

Another time at the pre-school, this time it was fall, maybe September or October, I can't really recall, a girl told me she found a butterfly. I found the butterfly hiding in a tire-swing. It is quite strange to see a living butterfly in Sweden that late in the year, so I guess it was a late butterfly.

As it was very cold, the butterfly would probably have frozen to death within some days and it probably did unless it found a place to hibernate. But its always nice to make sure the animal it well as long as possible. I let it be in my hand but it really did not move much. I figured that some warm air would probably help warm it up, as it seemed to be very still from the cold.

And very well - It did start to move around when I exhaled warm air at it. At first it just started moving around a little, but the next time I carefully breathed at it, it flew away and I mean it really flew away far up in the sky and it wasn't the wind, it was with its own wings. I hope it found a nice place to hibernate. If it didn't survive, I hope at least it didn't suffer.