Paradise Lost

On summer nights in the 1960’s, at our family cabin in the mountains of Pennsylvania, a spectacular variety of insects would be drawn by the lights inside the cabin to the screened porch overlooking the stream below.  The diversity was amazing - all sorts of mayflies and caddisflies, countless moths of all sizes and colors, an occasional dobsonfly, bright green katydids, raucous crickets, prehistoric looking cicadas, numerous stone flies both large and small, and thousands of tiny midges. Over the years the quantity and variety has declined precipitously. The rare and unusual ones have all but disappeared.  Today that spectacular display is gone, a distant memory of the past.  Some might say “No big deal” but to me it is a very big deal. I miss the wonder of having all those amazing creatures appear, seemingly out of nowhere, to drop in for a nightly visit.  I miss the joy of observing their strange anatomy in my attempt to identify them all.  I miss the excitement of their existence. I can only hope that one day they will return to their natural state of being.