The old saying, “one swallow does not a summer make” is undoubtedly true. You’d think so, too, given that it can be traced back to Aristotle, pretty much the father of western thought. Or possibly another even earlier ancient sage. The point of the proverb is that a single instance of a phenomenon doesn’t necessarily indicate more to follow. You know: one dot on a graph is not a line. You need several occurrences before it’s a trend. That sort of thing.

Some argue that the saying is more exactly translated as pertaining to spring, rather than summer, but somehow ‘summer’ rolls off the tongue more satisfyingly.

This proverb draws on the well-known phenomenon of swallows (and other birds), having migrated for the winter, reappearing in spring. In the days before climate change, the return of birds ready to build nests and get to work procreating would pretty reliably indicate the arrival of the new season.

There’s a negative version too, incidentally — Richard Lovelace, one of the so-called English ‘cavalier poets’, pointed out quite accurately that “stone walls do not a prison make,” although he may have been persuaded that they do represent a pretty good start. Especially as he was in prison when he wrote it.

Anyway, this is a roundabout way of introducing one of those small incidents that tend to raise the spirits and give the heart a bit of a flutter, especially on a sunny day after a frosty night. To whit: today I spotted a brown butterfly, and I’m calling it. It’s the first butterfly of spring. Within Corner Cottage’s elegant boundaries anyway. Yes, there have been Cabbage Whites for a couple of weeks, but as previously mentioned, they don’t count because they’re ubiquitous, boring and I heard somewhere they’re really moths.

Here it is, rather undramatically posed on the side of the shed (studio I mean).

This is an Australian Painted Lady — Vanessa kershawi to the cognoscenti — fresh and vivid as the day it was born. Which of course may well have been today.

Bearing in mind the wisdom of Aristotle, Lovelace and probably countless others, I’m going to strike out in a bold direction here and predict that, yes, this single Vanessa doesn’t logically mean others will follow, but I’ll allow myself just a tad of optimism that they will.

Because there’s something that goes back a little further than 384 BC (which, as we all know, is the year of Aristotle’s birth), and the Cretaceous period — 65 million to 135 million years ago — when butterflies are likely to have evolved. That something is the seasons, which, although no longer as metronomically reliable due to excess warmth in the atmosphere, are still managing to roll around in their defined order. And with them, all those swallows, butterflies, bugs and beasts that depend on a warm and fruitful spring to get on with the purpose of living.

It makes me think that something so very powerful as the changing of the seasons, even while they’re undergoing a fundamental shift, will still be here when whatever happens in the next thirty years or so has happened and the human race has either saved or doomed itself. That ancient pulse driven by the earth’s rotation will go on: there will still be springs, heralded by birds or butterflies or some other life form that thrives in the new climates we cause.

Title photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash