The former Motherland is experiencing the warmest spring since Samuel Pepys begins his diary. Just how warm it is over there right now, my source did not say; only that it is warm enough to bring out British butterflies, foreign and domestic, up to a month early.
That might seem pretty cool at first blush, having some 90 percent of your butterflies arrive way early. But think about it. They are early while their food resources and other essential host plants are not.
"Some of these species are coming out before their nectar sources are present, so will the food available be suitable and will there be anything for the caterpillars to eat?" ~ Matthew Oates, naturalist for the (British) National Trust
Martin Warren, chief executive of Britain's Butterfly Conservation, and others attribute the butterfly pattern shift to climate shift. Insects are responding to trending temperature increases, even if the plants they rely on are not; or, are responding, but at a slower pace.
NEWTON LEROY GINGRICH, who would be your President if he gets his way, also would do away with the Environmental Protection Agency on the grounds that curbing greenhouse gas emissions is bad for Business in general and the Energy Industry in particular. Gingrich, like most other newts, must be living under a rock!
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