Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2011 19:35:48 GMT -8
I agree with most all the above comments. They state the type personality very well.
One facet to the hobby and personality of the insect collector has to include the personality that one can spend large amounts of time alone. Yes, we collectors like people......most of the time, but one thing that sets us apart is our willingness (and sometimes preference) to be alone. We are alone when wedrive to collecting spots, collect, mount up the material, curate the thousands of insects, research data on given species/groups, and even when we gather food for rearing larvae or put slop on trees for sugaring. When I sugar at the state parks, I am almost always the only human around.....that is............. besides the security people. It is indeed handy to have a permit and know the night crew at the parks
Being with nature is awesome, but is most often done when alone at the tree where that cool catocala was just taken or the midlake ridge where one just relased a 49 inch musky or where a stand of milkweeds just had twenty visiting S. diana butterflies.
My love of the outdoors also includes two other hobbies.....musky fishing usually at night with the lake to myself and ponding/koi keeping. These are terrific interests, but again.....are usually done without many other people around. With this comes the fact that we who do this hobby are able to please ourselves and not really spend time worrying about what we look like/appear like in social settings. We are easy to please, but we can do it without parties and other social events. Yep---we can get joy from what we did at a given moment and not another soul is aware that, for example, we just finished mounting up that super long-awaited rare butterfly or watched a P. samia moth emerge from that cocoon in the cage. I might smile or feel elated when I again see and catch an A. odorata that I haven't seen for forty years.
Wow----I must like being alone, for I also do wood-carving (alone) and even practice fiddle/violin (alone). One possible reason why I like being alone with my hobbies is that my profession is rather public. I'm a biology teacher around people most of the day.
I feel that very few true insect collectors last long in the hobby unless they are able to make themselves happy without having to strut their stuff socially.
I will add that the times I get together with my friend collectors Eric, Tom, Brad etc., it is very enjoyable. My point here is to merely state what I did.....in order to love this hobby, one has to be 'ok' with being alone...................a lot of the time.
Lastly, I recently got a moth I've wanted for years. It is a decent female C. semiramis. I (all alone) made up the label, recorded it into my database, and photographed it for my digital library. Very quitely I carefully placed it in the drawer next to the male and smiled.....I had put another gem into the collection I so love.....I so love.
One facet to the hobby and personality of the insect collector has to include the personality that one can spend large amounts of time alone. Yes, we collectors like people......most of the time, but one thing that sets us apart is our willingness (and sometimes preference) to be alone. We are alone when wedrive to collecting spots, collect, mount up the material, curate the thousands of insects, research data on given species/groups, and even when we gather food for rearing larvae or put slop on trees for sugaring. When I sugar at the state parks, I am almost always the only human around.....that is............. besides the security people. It is indeed handy to have a permit and know the night crew at the parks
Being with nature is awesome, but is most often done when alone at the tree where that cool catocala was just taken or the midlake ridge where one just relased a 49 inch musky or where a stand of milkweeds just had twenty visiting S. diana butterflies.
My love of the outdoors also includes two other hobbies.....musky fishing usually at night with the lake to myself and ponding/koi keeping. These are terrific interests, but again.....are usually done without many other people around. With this comes the fact that we who do this hobby are able to please ourselves and not really spend time worrying about what we look like/appear like in social settings. We are easy to please, but we can do it without parties and other social events. Yep---we can get joy from what we did at a given moment and not another soul is aware that, for example, we just finished mounting up that super long-awaited rare butterfly or watched a P. samia moth emerge from that cocoon in the cage. I might smile or feel elated when I again see and catch an A. odorata that I haven't seen for forty years.
Wow----I must like being alone, for I also do wood-carving (alone) and even practice fiddle/violin (alone). One possible reason why I like being alone with my hobbies is that my profession is rather public. I'm a biology teacher around people most of the day.
I feel that very few true insect collectors last long in the hobby unless they are able to make themselves happy without having to strut their stuff socially.
I will add that the times I get together with my friend collectors Eric, Tom, Brad etc., it is very enjoyable. My point here is to merely state what I did.....in order to love this hobby, one has to be 'ok' with being alone...................a lot of the time.
Lastly, I recently got a moth I've wanted for years. It is a decent female C. semiramis. I (all alone) made up the label, recorded it into my database, and photographed it for my digital library. Very quitely I carefully placed it in the drawer next to the male and smiled.....I had put another gem into the collection I so love.....I so love.