I spent last week on a lovely pest free island in Fiordland as the first of several trips for my masters. This mainly involved catching buggies in pitfall traps (this random blog I found has a good explainer). There are many great things about the lack of cellphone connectivity but one is that it gave me some time to compose some poetry about this experience.
A wētā encounters a pitfall
A peanut aroma wafts through the air
To find it, I stalk out of my lair
I started sliding,
Wished I could go back into hiding
I’ve got to get myself out of here.
Shar investigates this same pitfall
Shar peered over the edge of her pitfall
She expected to find bugger all
Inside was a wētā
Screaming didn’t make it better
Measuring it took all her gall.
Ode to the Pitfall trap
Shall I compare thee to a swimming pool?
Thou art shallower and harder to exit
The beetle beside me has lost its cool
Floating prone until someone collects it.
I try in futility to escape up the side,
Finding it slippery, dreading my fate
I am surrounded by spiders who died
Joining their ranks is what I would hate.
I am paddling around here in circular laps
Never reaching a better place
It’s been several hours, I’m nearing collapse
Wishing curses on the researcher’s face.
Talking to an amphipod
All you want to do is flick around,
Don’t you realise that if you were still for a second,
Suddenly you’d be back on solid ground?
I humbly want to measure you.
It seems you want to join your friends in the ethanol jar
Turning orange as their exoskeleton reacts with alcohol.
I know what’s best for you,
Your swim in the name of science
Can be over soon you dumb bug
I would like you to be too small
So I could get rid of you
Okay I’m going to get you now
How did you get through my fork?
I’m just going to write ‘got away’
Daylight Differentials 