Silent Scream

Often, there's a specific event that tilts someone from "enthusiast" to "fanatic." My obsession with the living things in the Not-So-Big Woods sprang from one small event that occurred just over a year ago.

It was gorgeous spring day on April 11, 2009. The sun was shining, and the wind was stirring the leaves gently. Awesome Husband was toiling under the deck, attaching it to the house (a step the previous owner had overlooked, preferring instead to lean it against the house and pound a few nails randomly here and there). My job was to stay nearby and fetch tools, nails, large pieces of lumber, and bandages as necessary.

I waited for orders in a swinging chair in the backyard, watching the birds and enjoying the sound of their wings as they flew between the trees and a thick layer of sunflower seeds laid out on the deck railing. A loud flutter grabbed my attention: a bird was very close. In fact, it had landed on the canvas back of my swing. I went statue-still. Inside, of course, I was squealing "THERE'S A BIRD ON MY CHAIR!!"

Then my eyes widened beyond their previously known boundaries: the bird had dropped down to my shoulder. "It's on my shoulder!!!" I didn't scream. "DID YOU HEAR ME?" (of course you didn't, I didn't make a sound) "THE BIRD IS ON MY SHOULDER!!"

Then it made a leap to the top of my head. I could feel the little claws digging in. I gritted my teeth as the sharp beak pecked through my hair. Inside, I alternated between an internal "OW!" and "THERE'S A BIRD ON MY HEAD? WHERE ARE MY WITNESSES??" Then the bird went still up there. The pain went away, and I was still left to the absolute joy of having a wild bird perched on my head. The bliss ebbed a bit as it bent down and painfully wrenched a few hairs from my head ("OUCH!!") and flew away. I was finally able to see it as it departed: a tufted titmouse, happily taking home some padding for the nest.

Fast forward about one year. I've just had a major haircut. At my request, the stylist collected all of my leftover hair so I could take it home and stuff it into an old suet box. I desperately hope that this is last year's bird, getting a big beakful of nest liner to take back home.

Oops

Awesome Husband called me to the front porch, where an unknown caterpillar was crawling around on a blanket the dog had been relaxing on out near the woods.

"Oh dear, the poor thing!" I thought. "It will starve if I just leave it there. I'll photograph it and then put it on a tree in the backyard."  So, photographed and relocated. Then it just needed to be identified.

Using the excellent site Discover Life , I quickly found the mystery critter.

Hm... "forest tent caterpillar Malacosoma disstria "  Uh-oh. "...often defoliates large areas..." Oh dear.

Well, it's quite pretty, anyway.

Ten-Petal Anemone

One of the earliest flowers to pop out in the Not-So-Big Woods when Spring settles in is the Ten-Petal Anemone, Anemone berlandieri. Our first ones were light purple, then the mostly-white ones took over. Graceful pointed sepals cup themselves around a veritable schnozz of an ovary as they open in the late morning. Believers in a short workday, they close up again well before dusk.

The obtrusive ovary has earned them another common name: Tenpetal Thimbleweed.

As the days pass, the sepals begin to lose their grip and drop away, leaving only the cylindrical ovary behind at the tip of the stem. The look is rather like an old-fashioned microphone that Frank Sinatra might have crooned into.

They hang around in this condition for a few days, swaying in the spring breezes. Finally, a change occurs. A tiny spot at the tip seems to soften and turn white.

It's the first sign that something has been happening. Inside that cylinder, tiny seeds have been developing a coat of fluff, just waiting to ripen and develop wings. Mature now, they long to break free.

It soon becomes obvious why yet another common name for this Anemone is the Windflower. Like dandelions, they depend on the wind for seed dispersal.

Soon, all that's left is the stem, leaves, and the pointed tip that the seeds once clung to. Some may never get this far. The soft stems are a veritable buffet for bright green aphids. The fluids in this Anemone are supposed to be irritating and mildly toxic. So, don't nibble. Unless you're an aphid. Then, enjoy!

 

Crouching Photographer, Hidden Grasshopper

I belong to the "Assume something interesting is there, and crawl around with a camera until you find it" school of nature photography.

I spotted this guy when he jumped practically on top of me, then I lost him, then found him, then stupidly took my eyes off of him to glance up at some bird noise, then couldn't find him again, then he moved so I could see him. Then I took the picture before it was too late.

He sat almost perfectly still while I crept forward, until the camera's lens was only a couple of inches away. He was absolutely aware of me, perhaps wondering what kind of horrible lens-nosed monster-bird was after him. Knowing that concealment was the best form of protection, he willed himself to become part of the leaf litter as I approached. The only movement that I could detect was a painfully slow drawing up of his left rear leg, as he tensed for the jump he might have to make if his concealment failed him.

I slowly reached forward to pull a weed that was in the way of the picture. This was too much, and he fled a short hop away. I saw where he landed, and kept my eye pinned to that spot as I crawled over there.

I couldn't find him. I clearly saw where he landed, but I could NOT find him.

I thought about brushing my hand through the dead leaves and early spring plants to roust him out again, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. It wasn't fair, somehow. My survival didn't depend on finding him. I'd gotten the picture I'd hoped for. He won. His skills of hiding bested my skills of finding.

I'm tentatively calling this the Northern Green-Striped grasshopper (Chortophaga viridifasciata).

"Peripheral Vision" (or) "Hey! Over Here!"

I've learned to count on my peripheral vision in the Not-So-Big-Woods. Paying attention to some subtle movement only visible from the corner of my eye is how I've run into some of the most interesting things.

Yesterday, I was walking down the long driveway that connects our house to our private road (which in turn connects to a gravel rural road, which connects to a small suburban road, which connects to a larger suburban road, which connects to a minor state highway, which connects to a major state highway, all of which combines to make giving directions to The Little House a Big Pain). We've done some major tree-trimming in preparation for a project that I still can't believe I'm about to undertake. (more about that in coming weeks)

Anyway, I saw a tiny bit of movement out of the corner of my eye, a few steps into the woods on the west side of the driveway. The movement was so subtle that when I turned my head to look for it, I lost it. "Dark against light...dark against light....where was it...??....Aha!"

It was one of our honeybees, collecting the resin from a newly-sawn bois d'arc branch. Three bees intently circling the outer rim of the tree branch stub, picking out the apparently-tasty bits of softened sap that oozed out on the warm April day.

Sometimes when I take a photograph, the picture doesn't end up with quite the feel that I thought it would have. These did. I love how the bee's warm gold colors blend in with the yellowish wood and amber resin. A few times I was able to get the bee profiled against the blue sky for a nice contrast. That required kneeling down and leaning against the tree, which is how I almost put my knee down on another bee that was sap-chewing from a cut near the bottom of the tree. Oops. Lesson learned: look first, kneel second.

'Bye Goldfinches! See You Next Year!

Most of the goldfinches seem to be gone. There are still a couple of thistle-scarfing hangers-on, but the swarm appears to have moved north. The last time I saw the full flock was last Sunday during the snow. As other local bloggers mentioned, just about the time they got really showy-looking, they left.

It's as though, having spent the winter with us in their olive drab, they were a little embarrassed to be seen in sparkling lemon-gold plumage.

Welcome, Spring!

Very Early Spring
(by Katherine Mansfield)

The fields are snowbound no longer;
There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green.
The snow has been caught up into the sky--
So many white clouds--and the blue of the sky is cold.


Now the sun walks in the forest,
He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers;
They shiver, and wake from slumber.
Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls.
Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears....
A wind dances over the fields.
Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter,
Yet the little blue lakes tremble
And the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver.

This is our first full day of spring. The sun is definitely NOT walking in our forest, and the birds are cold and hungry. Normally, there is little interspecies fussing and fighting among the feeder-birds. The male cardinals squabble amongst themselves, sometimes with great shows of fluttering wings and the occasional aerial fight. Today, however, even the finches are feeling brave. Here's one of the goldfinches warning off a cardinal.

Surrender, Dorothy! There's flying monkeys out there!

There were lots of new sounds to process when we moved out here from the Big City. Squawks and trills from the trees. ("What bird is making that noise?" "A squirrel." "That's not a bird." "Clever of you to notice.") Strange rustlings from the weeds, and when the weeds are eleven feet tall and growing right up against the house, this can cause some concern. Squeaking tree branches. Frogs that said things distinctly different than "ribbit." The roar of the river just behind us, reaching record-setting flood levels just as we moved in.

And then one night, we were startled to hear the monkeys. "Startled" may be an understatement. Books were flung...eyes widened. Someone may have said "Aaauuuggghhh! What is THAT?!?"

It was an amazing cacaphony of shrieking hooting barking coming from several directions at once, and the sources were very close.

I hoped the doors were locked.

I hoped monkeys didn't eat schnauzers.

I hoped there weren't any bananas in the living room.

As I was trying to decide between calling 911 or Animal Control, the pandemonium suddenly stopped. Someone must have called an emergency monkey meeting at a distant location.

We eventually were able to identify the culprit, and as it turned out, the monkeys were not what they seemed. They were actually Barred Owls (Strix varia), beautiful brown-streaked birds with round faces and ominous eyes. How a noise like that could come from an animal without opposable thumbs, I'll never know.

Camp Joie de View

We have a campsite in our Not-So-Big-Woods. Nothing particularly fancy--just a clearing overlooking the creek and its deep bank, a circle of stones for a campfire, and a concrete bench used either for quiet contemplation or for holding cooking equipment and lanterns. Sometimes we pitch a tent and sleep out, sometimes it's just nice to spend an evening under the stars and among the trees, as we did earlier this week. The site has been named Camp Joie de View, combining my name with a celebration of the lovely view over the creek that wraps 2 sides of our property.

After a dinner of hamburgers cooked over the campfire (and a quick retreat to the house for a change of clothes after I dumped my drink in my lap), we just sat. As Dr. Ruth Young over at Talking Nature says, if you just sit quietly, things happen.

You might get the stinkeye from a black-and-white warbler, concerned that you're gobbling up all the good bugs. Jumping from twig to twig, then shimmying up a tree trunk in a darn good impression of a nuthatch, this twitchy little thing was constantly in motion. Always, though, with one eye on the suspicious couple in the red camp chairs.

You might get to hear the hoarse "Squonk!" of a Great Blue Heron, circling the big trees across the creek before settling in. The look so awkward in trees. I'm constantly surprised that they don't come crashing down through the branches, wings askew and legs tangled in vines. I watched through binoculars for a very long time before it dawned on me that one of them was sitting in a nest. And so was the other. Sometimes, I'm not as observant as I'd like to believe.

You might wonder about that ungodly high-pitched noise. It's hard to hear it at first, but once you notice it, you can't shake it. What is it? Oh. A tufted titmouse? Really? Yes, really. In fact, one that's just visited our feeder, then flew a hundred yards so it could eat one of our peanuts above our heads.

You might get to hear a Barred Owl hooting and barking. And if you happen to be looking in just the right direction at just the right second, you might see its silhouette as it flies in for a closer look at you, apparently decides you're ok, and glides out again. Don't even try to hear it--just take a moment to be thankful you aren't a mouse.

Late at night, while you doze on cushions on the ground waiting for the fire to burn out (and waiting...and waiting....) if you're very lucky, you might hear two packs of coyotes tumbling through the night, sounding like a playground full of kids laughing and screeching.

Nature IS out there.

The Second Entry in The Parade Of Predators

Just days ago, a coyote ghosted through the woods behind the house, leaving us breathless. This morning, a bobcat strode with great seriousness and purpose from the driveway, around the side yard, and across the back yard before melting into the same set of woods, probably heading for the creek just beyond. A gorgeous animal with camouflage just as effective as its canine partner from last weekend.

Henbit

Henbit was always part of the lawn when I was growing up. Its tiny purple flowers were a more reliable sign of spring's approach than robins or daffodils. I called it "clover" when I was a kid. Looking back, I think that's what I called most of the plants in the lawn that weren't obviously St. Augustine grass. I was not a botanically-aware child.

Henbit's fancy dress-up name is Lamium amplexicaule. It grows all over the United States, and Europe, and in large swathes of Africa, Asia, and probably Mars. A member of the family Lamiaceae, it is related to mint, oregano, thyme, lavender, basil, and sage, its more herbal cousins. The leaves are said to be edible, and especially good when lightly dressed in a salad. You can see henbit's resemblance to mint in the texture of the leaves, and the square cross-sectional shape of the stem.

Henbit is often confused with Purple Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum), but henbit's leaves attach directly to the main stem, with no petioles. Purple Deadnettle leaves dangle a bit, often overlapping, while Henbit's leaves wrap around the main stem, forming a shape like a cup or bowl.

Because henbit has just always been part of the standard outdoor greenery for me, I was taken aback when I started researching the plant: there's a considerable amount of vitriol aimed its way. "It's taking over my lawn! How do I kill it?" "I thought I killed it all, then it came back!" "Oh no! It's in my lawn AGAIN!!!"

All this over....henbit? I think of henbit as the cute purple flower that blooms even in winter, not as a skulking psycopathic lawn & garden destroyer. How bad can it be, if the bloom looks like Dino the Dinosaur?

Coyote

A coyote drifted through the woods just at the treeline of the back yard yesterday morning. He was a large one, shaggy winter coat just the color of the tree trunks and dead grasses he slipped through. It was a lucky glance in the right direction that caught him--he was silent and almost invisible. I could hardly get the words out: "There's a...in the trees, there's a...dog-thing..." A few seconds later, he was gone, melted into the woods. Gone like someone turned off a coyote-switch and he simply evaporated. No time to take a picture, so I'm left with just a memory of the grey-brown fur and the wary eyes.

mmmmmm.....weather data!

I don't know why this squirrel loved the rain gauge so much. It looked like the start of a great friendship, but alas...it was not to be. I became suspicious after a major rain event left the field marshy, and the creek swollen and turbulent, while the gauge attempted to convince me that the precipitation amount was somewhat less than 0.1 inch.

Upon closer examination, a crack was discovered. Unacceptable for a pair of weather geeks. (Yes, we've blown out a set of stereo speakers while listening to The Weather Channel. Hasn't everyone?) The yellow rain gauge has been discarded and replaced with a proper weather station.

We. Have. Data. We've got rainfall, barometric pressure, air speed and direction, outdoor AND indoor temperature, relative humidity, dew point..... I'm getting dizzy.

If it was easy, it wouldn't be fun.

When we first moved from The City to The Country, I knew a few birds. Really, who CAN'T call a cardinal or a blue jay at first glance? Imagine my surprise when I found that not all birds are as easy to put a name to!

Once tucked away in the Little House in the Not-So-Big-Woods, I found that I liked having proper names for things. It's much better to talk about the Southern Prickly Ash than about "that tree with the weird pointy bark." It's the same with birds. I'd rather say "Look, there's a chipping sparrow" than "Hey, there's that little sparrow-looking thing."

So, with field guide in one hand and binoculars in the other, I set out to look for distinguishing marks on everything within sight that grew, crawled, slithered, or flew. I discovered the agony of trying to analyze the subtle difference in shading between 2 almost identical birds in the guide, and then apply it to a real live one: a bird that doesn't want to sit perfectly still in the exact pose as the exquisite picture in my hand.

Case #1 (Photo courtesy of Ken Blackwell, from Flickr )
Even I knew it was a woodpecker. I didn't know there so many kinds. It did have a red head. Perhaps it was a red-headed woodpecker! (I'm logical like that) Except...it wasn't. It could be a red-bellied woodpecker. What does the book say...hm..."...distinguished by the wash of pale red on the belly..."

The belly??!!?? It's a woodpecker! Their bellies stay pressed against the tree trunk! I can't remember how many times I followed the infernal winged things from branch to branch, binoculars making circular indentations around my eyes, quietly moaning "pleeeeaaaaassssse turn around!" I'm sure it got to be a game with them. "Hey, watch me hop up on this branch, but I'll turn away from her so she can't see my front side!" The bird that was finally careless enough to let me catch a glimpse of that rosy glow must have been heckled by all of his friends.

Case #2

(photo left, courtesy of Don Sutherland, from Flickr)
Again with the woodpeckers! "Hairy" or "Downy"? Check the all-knowing Reference Book. "Hairy woodpeckers are larger." Refrain from throwing Reference Book across the yard. That description would be great if only I could persuade one of each to perch side by side on a tree trunk, so I could do a little comparative measurement. When there's only seeing one, it's less than useful. I did finally find a mention elsewhere that you can differentiate them by the ratio of beak length to head width. At that time, they started hiding their heads.

(photo right, courtesy of Anne Elliott, from Flickr)

When the Leaves Are Gone

My world is dominated by trees. The Little House is plonked down in the middle of a patch of deciduous woods about 5 acres in size. Trees jostle each other for position, sneakily sliding branches one way or another in order to slurp up just a little more sunlight during the summer days. When the wind blows, I think the noises are just branches creaking and leaves gently slapping, but it's probably the sound of arguing: "Hey! I was here first! Move your leaves somewhere else!"

Leaves were the first things I noticed about the trees when we moved out here in 2007. It was a wet spring: record-setting wet. The place had been abandoned for several months, and the resulting wall of trees and vines and weeds that surrounded the house made the leaves a real in-your-face presence. Leathery oak leaves. Sandpapery elms. Frilly chinaberry. Cedar elms with foliage that reminds me of cornflakes. All different, and all keys to identifying the tree.

And that worked great, until autumn rolled around. Without the curtain of leaves to assist me, I was forced to focus on more subtle cues, particularly bark.

Ask kids to draw trees, and invariably, they'll reach for the brown crayon when they draw the trunk. Scribble on some brown, draw in a knothole, and move on.

But if they'd just look....

Here's a young hackberry. One of my students called these little corky lumps "tree warts." I think it looks like a three-dimensional topographical map of an area you shouldn't go hiking in alone. I can imagine a tiny little Thelma & Louise driving off one of those cliffs.


Here's another.
Very little of the grade-schooler's crayon-brown bark on the bur oak. Like furrows in a farmer's field, the long, deep vertical grooves are characteristic of this tree's bark.

Similar, but not too alike, is the pecan.

The greyish color and vertical grooves recall the bur oak, but the furrows aren't as deep, straight, or continuous. Pecan trees have what I consider "regular bark." I had to think about why they seem to be the norm from which all other trees deviate, then I realized that pecan trees were all around my house when I was a kid. This was the type of bark I saw most often as I was growing up, so I must have imprinted on it as a gosling imprints on her mother.

I've saved the best for last.


Meet the Southern Prickly Ash. Unless you live in the Southeastern U.S., you probably haven't run across one. The trunk is covered with these little pyramids. Many of them have a single ominous thorn protruding from the tip. My husband cut a walking path through our woods, and there's one place where the ground slopes sharply. When it's wet or icy, that spot is slippery, so it would be great to be able to grab onto a tree for balance. Of course, this is the tree that's right there. I'll be keeping my balance by myself, thanks.

At this time of year, the leaves on most trees are still curled up drowsily inside their buds. What better time to get to know trees from a different angle?