This afternoon I received a visit from a small person. He (or maybe she) landed on the screen of my PC and proceeded to walk hither and thither on it. I took a live photo just to give you an idea of him (or her).
The visitor
The image is somewhat magnified as you can see. Fans of beetles can probably identify my visitor though I am unable to do so.
I frequently receive such visits and always from a single individual, never more than one, which temps me to think that it is always the same individual but that’s probably unlikely in view of the period of months during which these visits have occurred. This time, I took unaccustomed action and this should determine the issue one way or the other.
The “Liberator”
Some years ago I bought this small box with a magnifying glass built into the lid. It’s a 1.5 inch (3.81 cm) cube and I call it the Liberator because I use it to catch any small creatures that wander into our domain and transport them into the back garden where, so I believe, they will have a better chance to thrive. Today, it was my visitor’s turn to take a ride in the Liberator and – I hope – start a new life in the garden.
If the visits are always by the same beetle, then surely, now that I have transported the visitor to pastures new, he (or she) will never again be seen strolling up the screen of my PC. Alternatively, any future visits will be by new beetles, a fact which would suggest some, so far unknown, source of beetles.
When you come to look at things in detail, you realise how curious life is. Here am I, surfing the Web on my computer, gathering information (human-oriented information, of course) from all over the globe; and here is this small beetle, walking up the computer screen, with no concept of what it is (other than being a navigable surface) and totally unaware of what I am doing. Truly, we live in two different worlds though they coincide in some way in space and time. The beetle can never know what it it like to be me nor I what it is like to be a beetle.
I can but hope that his (or her) life in the garden will be successful and happy in beetle terms.
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