WOODLAND SUPERHEROES STUDIOS
“He lived two whole winters underground.”
– Rowan
THE ARRIVAL
Have you ever helped something little find its way back outside?
Dad was cooking dinner when he opened the back door and a moth flew straight past us into the lounge.
I tried to help it get back to the door, but it kept flying the wrong way. Every time I thought I knew where it was going, it went somewhere else. Then it disappeared.
I waited for it to come out again. Nothing.
“It was ginger,” I told Dad. That was about all I’d managed to see.
I didn’t want him to be stuck in our house.
Later, Dad and I looked on my iPad to see if we could work out what I’d seen. We found pictures of a moth called an Orange Swift. It was the right colour. I’d never seen one before, but mine had been moving so fast that I couldn’t be sure.
I kept hoping I’d find him again.
The next day, in the early evening, I went into the kitchen for a drink. Something caught the corner of my eye.
There he was.
On our little plant pot by the window, right at my eye level. He was so still.
This time, I could actually look at him.
I went to get Dad. Up close, the moth was bright ginger, with a fluffy head and black and white markings across his wings. They looked just like the ones in the pictures.
Dad said he was an Orange Swift. He’d never seen one either.
He took some photographs while I watched.
Neither of us had met one before. Now he was right here in our kitchen.
THE RETURN
When we read about Orange Swifts, I found out their caterpillars live underground, feeding on roots. They can spend two winters there before becoming moths.
Two winters. I tried to imagine being down there that long.
And once they become moths, they can’t eat. All the energy they need has to come from what they ate as caterpillars.
I’d only seen him for a moment. He’d already had a whole life I knew nothing about.
Dad helped me move the plant pot very slowly towards the back door. Outside, we held it next to the bush and he moved onto a leaf.
Then he just hung there.
I thought he might be waiting for it to get dark.
I wonder where he’ll fly tonight.
There’s always something else to notice.
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