Species of the day

Did you get it? Caterpillar of the cinnabar moth. They were everywhere. Well, all over the ragwort which they love. Funny - they were introduced to New Zealand to eat the ragwort that had been introduced inadvertently. Not sure if that has been as disastrous as many of the other introductions supposedly to deal with other past introductions. There is a vast history of folly in that.

Anyway, this one caterpillar seemed to be... well... having an attack of some sort.

Before I watched the caterpillars, I met a ten-year-old boy and his carer. They were looking for ghosts. This involved wearing head torches. For some reason. The boy told me that spirits can be very dangerous and that they come in three forms: ghosts, demons and creatures. Ghosts just move things. Demons take possession of you. Creatures hunt and eat you. I thought demons sounded the worst, but he said, no, it's being eaten that's the worst. I guess it depends how long the eating happens before you die. For blue whales eaten by orcas, it can take four days. For little things parasitised, it could be their whole little lives.

That boy. He was ten. He was also huge - tall and very very big. I wondered why he had a carer. He was smart - knew all about elephants and crows. Maybe a form of autism. Maybe something else. I wondered how his life would be. The carer, an athletic young man, thanked me for talking to the kid. He said the boy "loved a chat". The carer had driven him many miles that day to three different haunted sites, looking for ghosts. They hadn't found any. The carer said that when they got to the haunted wood, the boy was scared and wouldn't go in - that's when he told me how dangerous spirits can be.

They left. I looked at caterpillars. I thought about the boy. His size. His earnest fear of demons. And the way he approached me before he left. His politeness. His gentleness. His tender child's eyes looking out from that huge body. I wish him well. I wish him well.