Walking the crossroads over the weekend and saw some mayflies. I'm always happy to see them. My experience with mayflies is that they're like birthdays, they happen every year, but only for one day. They are even more evanescent than the spring ephemerals which are around for a couple of weeks at least. Everything about mayflies is delicate, the way they look, the way they fly.
MDC Discover Nature
They live on the bottoms of lakes and streams in the form of nymphs. At the appointed time, they rise to the surface and float along for a short time until they can take flight. Someone once described mayflies as "strawberry shortcake" for trout. The frenzied activity of trout rising to a mayfly hatch is, in and of itself, one of the phenomena from the natural world that is amazing to experience. I vividly remember the first time I saw trout feeding during a hatch. It was when I was a young boy fishing with my father in Wyoming. We were fishing with worms so it was pretty frustrating. Wikipedia says that "the German engraver Albrecht Durer included a mayfly in his 1495 engraving The Holy Family and the Mayfly to suggest a link between heaven and earth. I can't top that.
No comments:
Post a Comment