Writing prompt 4 - Comma

Available until 8 August 2025

Where you find space to breathe

I encountered this gorgeous butterfly sunbathing beside the Blind Yeo River.

It seems like an unimpressive patch of mud, and yet this butterfly, known endearingly as a Comma, found exactly what it needed here.

In punctuation, commas offer a pause and a moment to simply breathe, which makes this sighting particularly apt.

I love how its wings look storm-torn or artfully picot-edged, depending on your viewpoint.

I looked up the species on the Butterfly Conservation website, where it states "Polygonia c-album, the comma, is a food generalist butterfly species belonging to the family Nymphalidae."

The Comma butterfly population declined terribly during 20th century, but is now thriving throughout southern Britain and is being seen further north as well.

Its adaptability, both in what it feeds on and how and where it lives, must have contributed to its survival story. What can we learn from this? Can you harness this as a fluttering off point for a hopeful story or other creative work?

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to spotting my first semi-colon butterfly or ellipsis butterfly...