The Glass Wing Fairies

Somebody has sent me these images today and, when I saw them, I felt instantly transported from the dull winter that greys this end of November day to a magical world of fairytales. I imagined the vast grounds of an immense castle, all blanketed in thick snow. No colour anywhere but the over encompassing lack of colour of a perfect white. A frozen realm, inhabited by frozen souls. But wait, lost in the middle of this park, there is a point, a speck of brilliant green. As I approach it, fearfully and eagerly, gliding on my white fluffy wings of a bird-princess, I notice it’s a tiny glasshouse, itself shaped like a castle. Inside it, there resides an entire world of flowers, their petals the most luminous reds, and yellows, and blues; and each of these flowers has its minuscule fairy, a glass fairy, of infinite beauty and grace - I watch it for hours, while the ice of my heart melts away with the happiness given me by the delicate flutter of their glass wings.

The glass wing butterfly lives in South America. It seems that its presence is used by rain forest ecologists as an indication of high habitat quality while its demise alerts them of ecological change.