On Sunday I was enjoying an afternoon stroll, and walked past a field that has the Langdale Pikes as a backdrop. Last week I would have taken a photograph of the field with the pikes in the background, as in real life they look really good. But, as has been pointed out me, photographs are not real life, they are 2 dimensional images, and you have to look a bit closer at the view to get the best out of it.
So instead of taking a picture of the Langdale Pikes, I took a picture of this tree stump being attacked by a giant stick insect. The Langdale Pikes just happen to be in the background, but that is not really relevant.
The thing is that we used to keep Stick Insects. Someone gave us 2 of them, and assured us that there was no way on this earth that they would mate. About six weeks later I noticed that not only were there two very large stick insects in the tank, but several very small ones. It seemed that the stick insects had already mated.
Of course, the golden rule here is never to take on a pet that you know nothing about. By the end of the week we had about a thousand stick insects, and it was not until a plumber called at our house the following week to service the boiler that I found out why.
The plumber was only a plumber during working hours. At other times he was a nailed on, grade A stick insect enthusiast. And was more than happy to leave our house carrying not only his tools, but a box containing about 500 baby stick insects. But more importantly he spent about an hour with us telling us how to get the most out of our new charges, as well as pointing out the reason for our insect population explosion.
That was several years ago. We no longer have stick insects because we have given them all away, but one of them seems to have really thrived, as the picture below, taken in the aforementioned field, clearly shows.
No comments:
Post a Comment