The life cycle of the may-fly

Terrestrial diversity wrote Rachel in historically forested catchments is decreased as can be seen by this spatial analysis

A loud burst of Bobby Womack, her phone.

Dinner at 7? M x x , She smiled, and flicked some hair back which had fallen over eyes, continued typing of the headwaters of the L. Estuary in which E. Invararia has three variants, subvaria, dorothea infrequens, canaria frequens. Deforestation of the northern quadrant has led to a . She stopped, picked her phone up. Typed quickly.

Maybe. Pretty busy, but should be done by 7.R x x….. continued at the keyboard sharp decline in numbers of E. I can. Frequens. The subspecies is notable for a shorter than usual subimago stage, lasting as little as three minutes

A loud burst, Creedence this time. He was ringing. She frowned. She’d just texted back, so he knew she was near her phone, so really, she had to answer. “Hi, hey”.

“Hey” he sounded like he was outdoors “so, can you? Only I’ve kind of booked a table.”

“Um” Rachel looked at her notebooks, stacked neatly next to the keyboard. Each full of columns of notes, notated sightings. Numbers, tracking data, all sat there, waiting to be made sense of. “You booked a table?”

“Rossini.”

“Uh-huh”

She’d only gone to the stupid party because Penny had insisted. Certainly not with the intention of meeting anyone. But Mike had been nice and seemed kind and they’d bonded over a love of Iain Banks books and how they’d both been re-reading them since he died and before she knew it there was this guy living in her house, there when she left, there when she got home, did a little lecturing from time to time to break his day up, mostly wrote his blog. He was still nice, and still kind as well, and he had some books she didn’t and she had some records that he didn’t and it was all pretty good, to be fair. Be Fair, Rach. “Um look, I can’t promise anything. Okay? I’ve got a lot to get through and, why did you book it for seven anyhow?.”

“It’s the last booking for the set menu.”

“Oh.” He was planning to pay, then. “Look, I’ll try, Mike, okay?”

“Don’t try too hard for me. I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay” the phone went dead. Don’t try too hard for me? He’d been laughing as he said it. Was he serious? Womack again.

See you later. M x That was another thing they’d bonded over, usage of complete words in texts. She decided against replying. She’d already told him it might be hard to be there. He’d understand. She typed

The catchment of E.I c I has seen a deforestation rate of 80% over a five year period. As table 1 shows the mayfly population remained stable until the deforestation reached 40% in 2011. Since then numbers have declined to a level of 5% of 2010 stocks. This is now unlikely to be a viable breeding population. The deforestation has ceased as of this summer, and it remains too early to say with any certaint that it is functionally extincty, but as the only known location of this subspecies it is our recommendation

She trailed off. What the hell did he mean see you later? Had he just decided that she was going to show up? That she wouldn’t leave him on his own in the restaurant, under the pitying gaze of the waitresses? She breathed out hard. Pushed the chair backwards from the desk, stood and walked to the window. Late afternoon winter sun was hard and flat, she shaded her eyes.

Every summer for five years she’d camped by the banks of the river, collected larvae and nymphs. Slept dreamlessly. Mike was talking about taking her to see his parents next summer, they had a house by a lake you’ll love it, Rach, you still get to spend the summer by water. She looked out, a girl was walking determinedly across the square of grass in front of the library, clasping some books to her. She was tall, with red hair, and looked fearless.

Rachel stepped back into the room, sat again at the computer. Picked up a notebook and stared at its pages. The tight columns of her neat script seemed suddenly incomprehensible. She was crying, but wasn’t sure why.