We saw a good deal more than monarch butterflies the other day. In fact, we both saw we could “see” a face in a big sunflower. I believe that could be called pareidolia. It’s the tendency to perceive meaningful images in the world that aren’t really there (like the Virgin Mary in a jelly donut). A closely related term is apophenia, which is to think there are connections and patterns that aren’t really there.
Anyway, it’s normal to see things in nature change in color when fall begins to creep in to the world. The sumac is starting to turn red and that’s not my imagination.
There are a lot of butterflies about, among them the common buckeyes (their wings look like they have eyes in them) and swallowtails. I wish I could find a reference to identify all the little brown, white, lavender, and yellow ones.
We even saw a White Pelican out on Sand Lake. They commonly live in Iowa. They’re very social birds although I’ve often seen solitary pelicans out there.
And of course we saw wooly bear caterpillars. They looked like they were all black, not with brown and black bands. Can a wooly bear caterpillar predict whether we’ll have a tough winter (a narrow brown band) or a mild one (a wide brown band)? The simple answer is “no” but that didn’t stop the Farmer’s Almanac from posting a very long article about the issue.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 