Western Salsify

It looks a bit like a gigantic dandelion, with the "poofball" as my kids called it up to three inches across. Also called Western Goat's Beard, Wild Oysterplant, Yellow Salsify, Yellow Goat's Beard, Meadow Goat's Beard, Goat's Beard, Goatsbeard, Common Salsify, or Salsify, its European kin, Tragopogon porrifolius, makes an edible root eaten for its mild oyster-like taste.

This plant was new to me in the late 70s, an invasive from Europe, first spreading in the western states, and this past weekend, found everywhere along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

My kids loved this plant--one we really had to look for back then. If you take a single "parachute" from the head and remove the long stalk and seed at the bottom of it, the top pappus bristle "sail" is so buoyant it will hang in the air like a strange sea creature suspended in a clear ocean, even on a windless afternoon. They would chase it across the pasture until it vanished into the inverted depths of the ocean of mountain air.

Larger image of Tragopogon dubius is here.

The Beautiful Insects of Summer

UPDATE: You can listen to Fred's radio essay audio of this piece by clicking here.

I have an odd confession to make to you: I actually look forward to the insects of summer.

If this seems hard to imagine, do this: well after dusk on a warm and moonless June or July evening, take a lawn chair to the darkest part of your yard anywhere in Southwest Virginia and witness what few adults-or children-take the time to see: the bioluminescent dance of the fireflies. If there is magic in the insect world, it is here.

Pulsing, calling in a code of cold light, legions of lightning bugs lift from the bracken fern in our meadow, fall strobing from the crowns of the maples that shelter the yard. Close to leaf or trunk or ground, their lightning-fast flash casts a quick brightening over that surface, a miniature of their meteorological namesake. Each summer I watch their Morse code loves song reverberate between indigo hillsides at midnight, and the hair on my arms stands up: far more is spoken in the soundless words of this ancient ritual than we can ever comprehend.

Now I would be willing to bet that even those people who consider themselves squeamish when it comes to "bugs" would put butterflies on their very short list of "beautiful insects". These wispy six-leggers don't sting, stink or eat our garden vegetables. Their silent flight flaunts an abundance of form, color and pattern in garden and meadow.

But if I want to see butterflies up close and in large numbers, I find them gathered in an activity that's called "puddling" along the road or in the yard. Different kinds of butterfly prefer different places for where they aggregate, and it is not each other's company they seek but the common quest for salt that brings them wing to wing at the watering hole.

There is nothing more cheerful and welcoming than to round a curve on our Floyd County gravel road home and flush from a shaded seep two dozen tiger and spicebush swallowtails. They swirl and rise in a shaft of sunlight. But be warned: this time of year, my Subaru should have a bumper sticker that reads "This car brakes for butterflies."

And finally, the group called the Odonata belongs in my top three favorites of summer's flying arthropods. This insect order contains both the dainty Damselflies and the more robust and familiar Dragonflies. Because we have plenty of water for their young, a battalion of these insectivorous insects works for us, patrolling the airspace over the valley where they were born.

Of all the insects, these seem to me the most agile and the most intelligent. Their huge compound eyes give them a 360-degree view on the world that is exceptionally effective at detecting the motion of tiny insects on the wing.

I often watch them lying on my back on the walkway outside the back door late in the afternoon. A half dozen X-winged cruisers zip back and forth along their personal territories just above the roof of the house, thankfully, feeding on those insects that don't seem so beautiful or desirable: the midges, gnats and mosquitoes that also need water for birthing their young.

They all play their roles in our living economy-the voracious insect-feeding dragonflies-AND the bats that take their insect meals a little higher above the house, and the swifts and nighthawks far higher still that patrol the outer sphere of this summer globe of life on Goose Creek.

NEWS FLASH: See Marie Freeman's incredible dragonfly on-the-wing photos!

This appeared in the Floyd Press, July 5, 2007, in my column, The Road Less Traveled. -- Fred

Black Velvet Or Backlight

This tall wraithe of a forest wildflower is Black Cohosh. Like so many other wildflowers that are many times taller than wide, it's a hard one to show off in the best light. Unless, of course, you seek and find the best light.

And that is not all that hard to do along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the morning hours before 10 or afternoon after 3 in the summertime. Shafts of light slanting through the forest selectively illuminate your subject against the black velvet backdrop of unlit shadow, eliminating the busy, distracting blobs of shape and color that leave the eye searching for the picture.

You may have heard of Black Cohosh, if not as a wildflower, as a medication recently in use to treat menopausal symptoms. See this Mayo Clinic report on Black Cohosh. I suppose the drug companies accept wild-collected stock, but haven't heard of people collecting it for cash like they do Galax, Running Cedar, Ginseng and such. I'll have to explore that issue. There's sure plenty of it in the rich woods along the ridges here'bouts.

The larger image does a better job of showing this plant off at its best.

Bloomery Part TWO

Well I can't complain about not getting the word out. Thanks again to Glenn for the Insta-lanche of more than 2500 visits yesterday in response to his post about the Unplanted Gardens idea. From those visitors, not so many pix, and maybe that's a good thing.

Were there dozens, I'd be up to my elbows in alligators keeping track of who sent what where and from where. Per somebody's suggestion, it would be better to have an external site to which folks could upload and provide their own links, comments, and locality data. Don't know exactly where that would be that would allow some moderation of images, as inappropriate stuff (nice pix, just not on target) would be sure to crop up. Ideas?

The tiny gallery to date is here.

Thanks to Sissy Willis for her initial suggestions for getting the word out. She links a blog post to her Unplanted Garden image.

Paul Morris sent a gallery-full, and I chose just one, location unknown but very nice.

Good to meet photographer Don Giannatti, who posted the bloomery link on his blog and also steered me (and all us photogs) to his Lighting Essentials--looks like a great site for photographers who want to "learn how to light like a pro."

Evolving

I have never been able to figure out this chicken-and-egg relationship between an insect with mouthparts, behaviors and life cycles that are exquisitely adapted to a specific plant species and the plant's perfect accommodation to and absolute dependence on those same insect adaptations for its survival. This relationship is often given as the textbook example of co-evolution.

The insect: the Yucca Moth. The plant, what we call Spanish Bayonet, Yucca filamentosa. You can read more about the biology of this relationship here (note the my Natural History page!). The plant from which this photo was taken is just beyond our front porch. We think the species name is based on the word YUK because they are taking over a half acre of pasture down where Goose and Nameless Creeks meet.

And more evolution: I think I have come upon the narrative thread, purpose and theme of a future book that will be a full color nature-related work. I can't tell you too much about it just yet (for both reasons of it's present state of immaturity and because I need a certain degree of nondisclosure to protect the concept). But it seems like one of those AHA! coming-together moments. It will likely take two years to carry to print. But at least I have the sense just now that even though there is not much forward motion in this long journey, the destination is known.

And if this project reaches the conclusion I hope, it will represent the co-evolutionary end point that brings together my long-standing love of light seen through the lens of a camera, my equally enduring compulsion to connect the sense and senses of field-trippers in nature, and my relatively new passion for writing about the images from such personal field trips just out our door.

Orange on Orange

Well, the day lilies are in full and glorious bloom, so that means that the road crews will be along with their mowers to cut them down at their peak of blossom as usual. Maybe this year they'll take my suggestion and put this road on their list for a couple of weeks later in July so the lilies could know their glory days and not be brought low while in their prime.

But honestly, our 4 mile gravel road, like others in the county, show signs of budget cuts for roadway maintenance. Branches hang so low over our road that when they're wet, they drag along the top of the car when we pass by. The place is kinda looking neglected.

There's one spot on the high side where a tree fell across the road a month ago. Somebody cut just enough of the branches out of the top so folks can get past, but just barely. In times past, VDOT would have been on that in a day or so. We haven't seen them out this way in the month since the tree fell.

So. Today the orange day lilies that have escaped from cultivation from the more numerous homesteads that once inhabited this valley add color to every blind curve and hillside along Goose Creek. Occasionally, they come adorned with color-coordinated accessories like this Fritillary.

Click here for larger image.

Morning Walk | Venus Looking Glass?

I think I'm in the right genus, but haven't keyed it to species yet. Those curved anthers should make it relatively easy to distinguish from its kin. UPDATE: Thanks to Rurality for the dope slap and correct ID: American Bellflower.

I had to shoot with the lens at 200mm because these were blooming up a steep shale bank at the end of the valley. The dynamic range from lightest to darkest was too great for the medium to capture so the highlights are blown; would have been a good time to take RAW and use Photomatix to balance light against shadow. But I was too lazy to think through this.

I love bringing images back and posting them while they are still "warm" from the field, though it's not quite as much fun having to upload blog-size and enlarged versions to Photobucket as it would be if I had a permanent place for them. Maybe this will happen soon. Sigh.

Larger images is here.

Slow Roads Are Hard to Find

It's surprising, even with the miles of back roads and gravel roads and side roads in Floyd County how hard it is to pull over when you spot a photo-worthy composition. There's somebody behind you; it's a quarter mile to a place to pull off, and that is across from somebody's house, but far enough away. But their dogs spot you and set up a fuss. And you move on.

I'm hoping to do a better job this year of documenting the passage of time measured in roadside wildflowers (and the insects that visit them) so finding those marginal places for this purpose is high on my list.

And I did find such a place, not very far from home--a mile or more of gravel road that winds down past a sheltered farm surrounded by rising, rounded pastures. A small sign near the road give the name of the owner and his wife. There's nobody there. Seeing the name, I remembered: I visited this elderly farmer at the suggestion of a local minister. He has stories to tell, the minister told me. He's quite ill, staying at his sons, and would love to talk--especially since his wife died a few months back. I recorded about 15 minutes of our conversation from his bedside, and never did anything more with it. Now I've been reminded, I just might.

This very common roadside "weed" pictured here is chickory, Chichorium intybus. It's a pretty little thing, but not easy to photograph to show it off at its best. Chichory is a relative of endive and radicchio, and I'm surprised I never experimented with its edible parts--with the exception of imbibing it this very moment as an adulterant of the Luisianne coffee in my cup.

Note: this image hosted at Photobucket, as my server priviledges are in limbo as I make the switch soon to Wordpress and a new stall for this pony.

Forficula auricularia

Ah, what's in a name? In this case, more beauty to the ear perhaps than the named is to the eye.

But contrary to a long history of misinformation, the earwig does NOT burrow into the ear of someone asleep and burrow into their brain. Hardly ever. Though I met someone in town yesterday who might have been a victim.

I tend to think of these creatures as "coffeewigs" because that's often where I see them--around the sink, often under the coffee pot on first lifting it for the emergency cup of morning alertness.

Pictured here on the buds of some nearby milkweed, they do no harm. Their "pinchers" or cerci are rather puny, and though theoretically they can defend themselves with them, they aren't much defense against a broom and a dustpan. (They do, however, emit a strong iodine odor if picked up and lifted to the nose.

What! You haven't snorted an earwig? Well you certainly have lived a sheltered life!

Hmmmm. My Ears Still Ring.

Nope. It don't make me wanna holler hiDeeHo! (Reference to _____ -- you boomers out there?)

I'm talking about two rounds from the .44 magnum short barrel rifle, fired into the bank. I had nothing to shoot at, and didn't want to. But I DID want to distract the dog from tangling with the bear I saw crossing the creek ten minutes after I got home from work. Tsuga had barked twice from the back porch, and was headed fast in pursuit after a lumbering black form headed for the west ridge.

I was, it turned out, barefooted, but adrenalin can do some amazing things to pain. I grabbed the rifle and got as far as the other side of the garden, heard barking beyond the pines, and fired over into the bank. The dog came running, right past me, across the creek, over into the field, and took a...well, you know the saying about having that scared outta ya. Must've happened to him. Whew! Close call, I said to myself about the time the dog bounded back across the plank, back away from the house, back toward the bear. Oh crap!

I ran to the house, BACK across the gravel drive (after noticing thistles growing the yard I would have missed wearing shoes), grabbed some more .44 shells and my boots, and ran faster in this heat than my heart would have preferred, to where I'd last seen the dog. Again, adrenalin is a heady motivator. Another shot into the bank over my whistles and screams, and sure enough, here came Mr., undamaged, tongue hanging, pretty proud of himself.

And I guess I'd never noticed, though neighbors have remarked about it. It just smelled musty--like bear--and knowing that smell, I'll be more tuned in to when one or more is in the valley. The dog could smell THAT from inside the house, no problem.

Devil's Horse

I wish internet research wasn't so much fun. I have work to do.

Wait a minute: I AM working--on a piece for the Floyd Press column for July 5--about my favorite insects of summer. One happens to be the "dragonfly" and I'm surprised I hadn't wondered about this before:

Where did the name ‘dragonfly’ originate?

Answer: We have not been able to find a definitive answer to this question. One interesting theory about its origin, however, can be found in a book written by Eden Emanuel Sarot in 1958 entitled Folklore of the Dragonfly: A Linguistic Approach.

He theorized that the name dragonfly actually came about because of an ancient Romanian Folktale. In the folktale, the Devil turned a beautiful horse ridden by St. George (of St. George and the dragon fame) into a giant, flying insect.

The Romanian names the people supposedly referred to this giant insect (when translated into English) mean ‘St. George’s Horse’ or, more commonly, ‘Devil’s Horse.’ According to Sarot, the peasantry of that time actually viewed the Devil’s Horse as a giant fly and that they may have started referring to it as the ‘Devil’s Fly’ (instead of Devil’s Horse).

He stated that the Romanian word for Devil was "drac," but that drac was also the Romanian word for dragon. He thought that eventually the Romanian name for the Devil’s Fly was erroneously translated to the English Dragon Fly and this eventually evolved into the "dragonfly!" from dragonflies.org

Dark Beauty

Out the kitchen window one dark, drizzly and overcast day, the hillside behind the house was glowing with white against the dark forest. I went out between showers to explore, finding this odd natural composition that juxtaposed light and color against the dark, soft leaves of a mullein plant gone by.

Wild Life

IN addition to the other aspects of the deer population that we enjoy (weaponry onslaught in the fall with the resulting risk of outdoor excursions and rotting carcases left in the woods; and the season of the deer garden tour, ours is on the list) there is the fawning season. We must be in the very midst of it at the moment. And now, it is not the hunters to be wary of, but the deer themselves.

Twice this past week, does have protected their fawns from predators. Our predator: Tsuga, the wonder dog. I don't think he'd actually hurt a new-born deer, but their mothers don't know that. And I'm not entirely sure myself.

In the second episode of dog-fawn encounter, the mother deer threatened not only the dog, but Ann, who was walking on the back of the land with the pup. When the dog chased the fawn up the side of the hill and wouldn't come back, Ann feared for the dog's safety and rushed back to the house to fetch me (and the rifle) to help. The mother deer stalked her all the way back to the house, snorting, charging, retreating, potentially dangerous.

In the end, the dog reappeared unharmed, and without any visible evidence he'd done the fawn any damage.

But how many more new-borns are out there? And just how dangerous is the wildlife we've come to know and to trust? I have to tell you, my heart went out to the momma deer who was simply following her instincts to protect her young. Whatever fear we felt must have been magnified many times for her. But I had the gun off safety as she paralleled our walk back up the valley, just up the hillside in the shadows.

But then, there are recent instances like this where creatures go psycho: squirrel goes on rampage.

Many thanks to my friend Dennis Ross for allowing me to use the shot he took off his deck this week of a doe with triplets. Oh great. More of the little darlings. (The chard should be ready in about a week.)

DiMorphism

Alternate title: Fly United

Notice how very different these lovely paramours are as they face to opposite poles in this most intimate of moments.

He, the smaller, has much the bigger eyes proprotionally. His visual world through green eyes, then, is likely far different from hers through blue. Things invisible to her he sees with greatest clarity--a matter of survival, or aesthetics perhaps.

She had sent me off on an urgent errand: retrieve the dog who was running off down the road. I shrugged on my boots in grumbling obedience, and tromped down the front steps, leash in hand.

But wait! Check out these ziggy flies! I called back, running inside for my camera.

He's running down the road, you idiot!

Yeah, but look carefully how different these beauties are. It's called dimorphism, I explained to her. She harrumphed in disgust.

I rest my case.

Quiet Places of the Heart

Dew beads up on Solomon's Seal leaves along Nameless Creek, May 2007

Forget me Not -- Part One

On a sandy spit of temporary island heaped up in last winter's storms, blooming in profusion between foot-wide rivulets of Nameless Creek, we discovered a sea of pale blue flowers. (You can see a bit of red barn roof in the background.)

While we had never seen this plant before on our place, I recognized it, drawing from some seldom-visited recess of plant-taxonomic memory, as a member of the Borage Family, characterized by just the kind of infloresence--or flower-growth arrangement--as we saw here in miniature. Lovely, and all the more so for being so unexpected a find on a routine walk: forget-me-not, Mysotis scorpiodes.

But more about this plant tomorrow and Friday.

Wild Life Alert

When we see the dog stand up suddenly from the porch with his eyes focused intently across the pasture, we know it is far more likely we have four-legged than two-legged visitors--usually deer--and at times, he won't even bother to challenge them.

But when we see the dog stand up suddenly and look straight up into the maple tree just beyond the mailbox, our guests are certainly not deer.

While our arboreal drop-ins are most usually squirrels or chipmunks, this time we looked out the window just as Tsuga was about to get a mouthful of raccoon tail.

And here is where our marital dimorphism (a subject for later this week) cut in: she grabbed the rifle, I grabbed the camera.

"It might be rabid!" she warned.

"He seems healthy enough to me" I hollered back, as I chased the uncooperative bandit back and forth from one side of the crotch of the tree to the other. "Hold still and smile" I pleaded.

Finally, he tired of our game, and backed down the tree, down into and along side of Goose Creek, minding his own business, and disappeared.

Friday SHoRTs

&tc... This has been a difficult fern to make look nice, because unlike yesterday's featured pteridophyte (Osmunda cinnamomea) that had feather-duster distinct spore-producing separate stalks, this Interrupted Fern (same genus) looks like it forgot what it was doing, interrupting the leafy sterile frond for a few iterations of spore-producing pinnae, then resuming its green photosynthetic tasks.

&tc... Funny how time heals--even very tiny wounds. I'd almost forgotten. In the garden this week, I've been so intent on my planting I haven't dwelt on the stingy itchy spots down next to my scalp and on my arms. I just remember to wear a cap and a long sleeve shirt and go on. But it occurred to me yesterday: hey, these are not your plain vanilla gnats. I've only one or two years before felt that invisible irritation, but never before the middle of June: Noseeums. Biting midges so small you can fit three on the head of a pin. Dang global warming.

&tc... Places of Our Lives: a Visual Essay. That's what I've tentatively titled a program I'll be giving twice in October. The plan is to take three "makes a point" essays and illustrate them with digital images. The chosen pieces are (1) Child's Play: Addressing Nature Deficit Disorder; (2) Calling Them By Name--that encourages folks to learn to identify trees, birds, wildflowers etc as a way of gaining appreciation and respect for our personal environments); and (3)Where I am Married--that talks about sense of place, particularly mine for where we live our lives.)

&tc... I plod with the iPod. Personally, I'd ditch iTunes if I could. I'd expected more of Mac. Even so, I'm manually adding and deleting now, and it's working okay. Yesterday I loaded an mp3 book-on-CD (not exactly a streamlined process but it works) and with my new Sony Earbuds purchased at BestBuy in South Dakota, I'm happy. I also found most of my lost music library on CD's hidden in the wardrobe. I used to take these to work years ago--Beatles, Lettermen, lots of classical stuff, Harry Nilsson. NeoLuddite wife Ann still gives me grief, which I accept, having had lots of practice.

Ant Ecology | Old Dog, New Tricks

I love that nature is an inexhaustible source of solace, beauty and education for me--and that it is so easy to approach in our chosen location and style of living here in Floyd County.

And I love the fact that I can still share my discoveries of aesthetic or natural history interest with "field trippers" from around the world who share the journey with me through the weblog.

I'd rather you have been there to see it, but next best thing, I can show and tell.

I remember being told in my Pteridology summer course at Mt. Lake Biological Station (back in the Pleistocene era) that Bracken Fern (pictured here) was perhaps the most world-wide of plants, found on every continent. So, it has been around for some while, and done quite well for itself. I wondered back then what made it so successful. Now, I have one clue towards an answer.

Every Braken fiddlehead in the sandy meadow along the Blue Ridge Parkway earlier this week had one or more Carpenter Ants stationed on its three-part unfurling frond. This certainly was more than a random search for food or mates, I figured, and when I got home, I looked it up.

Take a look at the right-hand image. See the wet black spot near the spot where the three prongs of the fern leaf come together? It looks rather like the eye of this otherworldly bird-like creature.

It is a NECTARY, not unlike what many flowers offer their insect visitors. Except, of course in this case, there are no flowers. The ant gets a sweet treat. It seems what the fern gets is protection from other predatory insects while it is in this tender, vulnerable stage.

In our meadow over where Nameless and Goose Creeks come together, there are NO ants on the mature fronds of Bracken Fern. By then, the plant is tough and able to take care of itself. Maybe this association accounts for some of the success of this worldwide fern.

So whaddaya know. The old biology watcher has learned something new about this amazing world--a living planet that has been equipped to take care of itself so very well in such interesting, cooperative ways.

Great To Be Alive!

This is what you'd think the birds were singing the other morning--so cheery and sweet, peppy and happy! But of course the males are really chirping "you want summa me?" and "so's ya muddah"--that sort of thing. "Step over that line. Dare ya!"

But it lifts my spirits, even when I'm objective and face facts as facts. We are blessed to have such a rich diversity of bird life yet, and should not take it for granted. It could well be that our children's children might only have the recordings if we don't do a better job of protecting our passerine (songbird) winter habitat in South and Central America from the logger's chainsaws (among other weak links in the chain of bird life.)

This home grown clip (link below) was taken hand held with my ever-present Olympus DS2 recorder. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) you can never get a clean recording of birdlife here on the creeks for the incessant babble of water over rocks. Can you hear it--Goose Creek in the distance, the brook by the house only 15 feet away as I stand on the back porch with the birds all around? Imagine you are out there with me, an audio field trip to Goose Creek.

http://64.106.159.99/sounds/morningbirds.mp3

Check out indentify.whatbird.com for great information and help identifying those unknown birds you spot or hear every day (don't you?). In my clip, prominent (though by no means exclusively) you'll hear Kentucky Warblers (ChippyChippyChippyChippy). And who is making the cheWit cheWit CHEWITT! (Listen and compare my Kentucky warbler and Hermit Thrush --tee oh lay! oh lay oh Teee!--to the website's recordings) And what other featured songsters do your perceptive ears hear?

And while you're in an audio state of mind, visit the freesounds project to which I will probably upload my bird clips when I've accumulated a few more.

Spring in Passing

The solution to finding the spring we missed while out West: go HIGH young man, go HIGH. (Well, forget the young part.)

The Blue Ridge Parkway is lush with spring wildflowers along its 3000 foot plus ridges, and it took great will power (I caved a couple of times) to keep my appointment at Mabry Mill and Chateau Morrisette yesterday afternoon. Oooh! Black Cohosh, Fire Pink, Pink Geranium. Interrupted Fern--so much more a blur as I sped along to my appointed tasks.

I did pull off a couple of times and wandered down into the woods. I caught myself just before I got down on my knees in my dress pants to get a better view of this patch of Lily of the Valley. I intend to go back right away. The Flame Azalea is almost in full bloom.

Bee Mystery More Serious by the Flower

This mystery continues, and chances are, even if we discover the cause, it will be years before things get back to a healthy normal.

"Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees. So if the collapse worsens, we could end up being "stuck with grains and water," said Kevin Hackett, the national program leader for USDA's bee and pollination program.

"This is the biggest general threat to our food supply," Hackett said." Yahoo News

Want to keep up to date on this topic from a reliable source? Check out the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture site's coverage of Colony Collapse Disorder.

Jack or Jill in the Pulpit

This odd spring of early warmth followed by a return to winter seems to have been to the advantage of some, the detriment of other wildflowers and trees.

Jack here is doing rather well down along Nameless Creek, the "spathe and spadix" of the odd flower coming up conspicuously before the taller three-parted leaves unfurl to shade the sex-conflicted plant. Seems I remember it starts out as Jack and in later years, becomes Jill--depending on which parts of the central shaft develops.

While I've been places that had both, our place lacks the green striped variety and we have exclusively the maroon striped, more showy version I like better anyway. I'll be lying face down in the meadow again soon, though this shot will do for starters. I'd like one with a bit more mystery and GeorgiaOkeefe-ness to it eventually--to bring out the dark sexy side of this lovely form.

And by the way, while you may be tempted to cook up a mess of "Indian Turnips" as the plant is also called, don't.

It's stem and root contains calcium oxalate crystals that will lodge in your lips, mouth and throat like so many tiny needles. How do I know the sensation? Well, there's another story.

Giant Chickweed

They grow close enough to the ground on short stems, and so even in the bluster yesterday, I could get a shot of chickweed--perhaps the most common and this year most successful spring wildflower. Most chickweed species are, well, weeds.

These particular little plants used to make for a nice field trip object lesson.

"How many petals?" I'd ask. "Ten" they'd say. And I'd pull off one of the five tiny V shaped petals to show them you have to investigate before you answer based on what seems to be true. Then I'd stuff the specimen in my mouth, chew and swallow. (As my ol' buddy Euell Gibbons used to say, "many parts are edible.")

Fern Glade | Forest Ecology

I was hoping to get back to the nearby meadow where Christmas Fern , Cinnamon Fern, Interrupted Fern (pictured here), Northern Maidenhair Fern and Wood Fern all grow together. But it's blustery, and for such tall, frail plants, they will be all in a whirl of motion. So perhaps I've done all I'm going to do pteridologically for this season. Or maybe not.

I'll try in the next few days to go back and do some 'splainin' about the odd fern structure in this recent post.

While Ferns and their kin are a relatively minor part of the vegetation in most of the southern Appalachians, there are glades where fernsare the dominant understory. And on our one visit to Vancouver a few years ago in May, fernsstood leaf to blade and six feet tall, acre after acre.

And of course if you go back in history far enough, the fernsand their kin were the dominant land plants, some sixty feet tall and a foot or more in diameter!

Fertile Fern Fronds

Were I still teaching, or if I thought there were blog readers who cared to know the minutiae of pteridophyte reproductive biology, I'd launch into a soliloquy about Interrupted Fern, the structure and function of sporangia, and the place of ferns in the history of land plants.

But suffice it to say that today's post is lifted to the page simply because I like the title. Try saying it real fast followed immediately by the name of this blog.

Fido Fiddlehead

Dog-gone dog. Ann always insists that I take Tsuga along as a photographer's companion.

And she's right: the dog is wonderful help if I need a distracting patch of buff-colored fur in my otherwise muted-shadow background; if I need my legged or leafy subject crushed by a size 12 dog paw just seconds before snapping the shutter; or if I need my ears licked while lying prone, defenseless against dog tongues, holding the camera with both hands in the most awkward of positions.

Yeah. Every photographer needs one of these along.

But that was then. This is now, and I'm off for a full day seminar (the first continuing ed for this PT license period) in Roanoke: a program called Memory, Aging and Sleep. I only hope I can stay away through the most of it. And remember what I heard when I get home. Sigh. I hope they have wireless from the meeting room.

Carrion Without Me

A favorite warm-weather passtime of which I am only mildly apologetic: lying on my back on sidewalk of warm pavers outside the back door, trying to comprehend where in the world I am; where in the universe, where in time. And why.

Almost always overhead, soaring birds on warm thermals trace spirographic arcs through my vision and my thoughts, lifting me up out of our valley to gain perspective, often to look back down through keen avian eyes at the sprawling man, arms outstretched--a tiny squinting crucifix, searching Heaven for Truth and Beauty.

Sometimes, from this supine perspective, the performances of bird with bird, birds with the very air, are so impressive I have to stifle applause. And only rarely do I have my camera beside me. Yesterday was one of those days. And no, this is not an altered image; it took almost 30 minutes for the right combination of heavenly and earthly body to get a shot.

Vultures get some coverage here rather often, starting early in the blog five years ago. Here's one Fragments piece in praise of "buzzards".

Elsewhere in the world of lenses: you'll laugh. Especially if you're a serious bird watcher and maybe even have your own pair of Swarovski (at $600 plus) you won't believe what I ordered yesterday. A pair of $16 binocs. Binolux Rubber Armored.

My mom had a pair that someone had given her. She wouldn't part with them, even though she only watches cardinals in her bird bath on the porch of her apartment, and my heavier, better quality pair would have been a great exchange.

Cheap. Shirt pocket. Free shipping. They should be here in time for our trip to South Dakota.

(And this image, shamelessly photoshopped, to imagine life above the clouds.)

Virginia Bluebells

I hoping for at least five "keeper" images of spring wildflowers for a possible future note card set. So far, it's been slow to happen, first with the early warmth the first of March followed by the rapid return to winter in April.

These Virginia Bluebells are tamed wildflowers; we transplanted them from their original hillside home over on Walnut Knob. And wish we'd brought a dozen more, if only for this one week in spring when the magenta and cyan buds become pale blue and pink bell-shaped blossoms before being eaten by the deer.

Fancy Frustrating Ferns

"God made ferns to show what he could do with a leaf" said Thoreau.

And I'm convinced God also designed them so that no one could ever do them justice by means of a photograph. You have to be there, close to the earth, sitting on a fallen log at the edge of the wet meadow, to full appreciate them.

Early on as they first emerge and uncoil in their singular fiddlehead fashion, they hide among the jumble of leaf litter and fallen branches from spring's last ice storm, camouflaged among the distracting flotsam of the forest floor. You'll not likely find that one composition in all the forest where two or three tiny fiddleheads of Christmas Fern stand in the same plane, illumined against a black backdrop of shadow.

Later on, the Royal Fern and Cinnamon Ferns will shoot up in a matter of days to a ridiculous ratio of height to width so that you see them whole only from fifteen feet away or more, and lose all their divinely-inspired fanciness of detail. They are creatures you have to see complete and in place to imbibe their intricate beauties.

But I'm going to keep trying with my lens. So expect more less-than-heavenly fern pix in the next two weeks--if I'm not embarrassed to show you--and maybe if the gods smile, I'll finally get a fern portrait I'm happy with.

Wildlife: Up Close and Personal

Ann called almost inaudibly from the kitchen. It almost seemed as if she were trying to talk without even moving her lips.

Finally I made out what she was almost saying: turkey. Right. Here.

I grabbed the camera and got a few mostly bad shots, because the window glass reflection played havoc with the autofocus on the lens. There was practically no light, so the ISO got pushed to 800. I can say this: this is the best picture of a turkey I've ever taken. Because it is the ONLY picture of a turkey I've ever taken.

Ah, wildlife. Thursday, driving to work, I hit a deer. It came up out of a ravine and was maybe 20 feet away when I hit the brakes hard, and the deer the same way--broadside. Thankfully, I had slowed enough that I didn't go up and over the deer, which probably would have turned me into the ravine.

The deer didn't tumble, but instead slammed hard into the bank, staggered and ran back infront of the car AGAIN. I slammed on the brakes AGAIN. And the deer bounded back down into the ravine along Union Valley Road, and I feel certain is still out there somewhere, not feeling so very good.

And the Subaru: a few coarse deer hairs under the license plate frame. That's all. This time.

Creature Feature

So we've now had two full nights without a nibble. No creature was stirring, not even a mouse. What a profound relief to be free (for now) of things that go bump in the night. The scratching was so loud at times it even upset the dog, who would come stand in the dark at my side of the bed for reassurance.

But yesterday, we were all well rested. The dog was up to his usual antics for this time of year, what with the butterfly shadows zigging and zagging around the yard on a sunny afternoon.

But when I called him to come in, he balked. He'd come just so close to the house, then acted as if he was guarding something in the grass. And as I stepped closer to see, he picked up his kill du jour: a rather large, long-tailed mouse (species unk).

Odd, I thought. He catches lots of moles, and the cat (rest her soul) used to catch the much quicker and more nocturnal and secretive mice. But I don't think I've seen the dog catch a mouse before. It must have been sick. Uh-oh.

Do you suppose this was one or our poisoned evictees?

I lassoed the dog and drug him inside, and came back and bagged up the potentially warfarin-laden mouse carcass and put it out of harm's way. And we will have to be vigilant over the next few days for a repeat of this scary consequence of our purging the dancing mice from over our not-quite-sleeping heads.

And while in the dog-zone, we discovered last week that the dog had tape worms. And looking back, I have to wonder if this helps explain Tsuga's bizarre eating disorder that had him eating (and puking) walnut shells. Maybe this was just the wisdom of the species (along with eating grass) as a way to either 1) make himself throw up, or 2) cut/shred some tapes in the intestines from sharp edges of the odd stuff he'd eaten.

High Places

Fred "Walter Mitty" the blogger pretends to be places he's not. Wandering through his digital scrap book, he goes far afield in his head, even while the rains pour down and cold winds cut like a knife, and he sits behind his desk, not far from the cheery fire in the woodstove.

Here's one I found going back to a Parkway excursion a month or more ago. I had passed over it in Photoshop when working on that folder of images, since my main purpose that day was to document infrastructure decline in the National Park. Of course, some of the pix that came home were of scenes and landscapes for their own sake, this being one of them.

There is something about tree silhouttes that intrigues me. One future note cards set, I hope, will be of trees through the seasons: maybe a winter set, and another with them in leaf in spring or fall.

Speaking of note cards, the Parkway cards I wrote about a few weeks back have been delayed by some printer-color problems at the shop. They've had to replace a part or two, and that has delayed the availability of the cards by a couple of weeks. Best laid plans (of mice and men...)

Which reminds me: last night--no mousey noises. Bar Bait. Thanks for the tip, y'all.

Bloodroot

It's happening, as it always does, too quickly. Every drive down the lane shows something else already gone by as Spring rushes through on its way to summer. Already, these bloodroot photographed a few days ago along the roadside near home have dropped their petals; the oddly-lobed and distinctive sheathing leaf that belongs one per plant will now begin to swell, growing six inches across by the middle of May.

The red-sapped rhizome that gives this plant one of its common names contains some caustic substances (perhaps accounting for the native American use of this plant as a emetic.) They also are said to have used the "blood" as a war paint or skin "tattoo".

I used to demonstrate this on field trips by digging a bloodroot rhizome, breaking it in two to show the oozing red interior (I once had a student become faint from seeing this gore) and paint a red-orange stripe across my forehead. Very dramatic. Very stupid, I've learned since.

The sap contains the toxin sanguinarine. Recently, some ill-advised breast cancer patients used bloodroot sap topically, and developed disfiguring skin lesions.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about bloodroot is a feature it shares with two other very early-blooming plants, Dutchman's Breeches, and Trillium. They all exhibit myrmecochory and produce elaiosomes.

What? These aren't familiar words? Don't you just love botanists for the way they wield Latin and Greek to their advantage and the obfuscation of others?

Very simply, these plants produce a little nutrition treat called an ELAIOSOME attached to their tiny seeds. These are "intentionally" attractive to ants, who gather the seeds, feed the treat to their young, then dispose of the actual living seed in their nutrient rich frass, or waste bin.

In a week or so, I'll see if I can show you a closeup of a dissected Bloodroot seedpod and enlarged leaf to compare to the tiny leaf wrapped now around just the base of the single flower.

Behind the Veil

I pulled into the parking spot at the Floyd Library yesterday, and the crows in the walnut tree stayed put.

City crows, I thought, with the notion that our Goose Creek crows spook at the slightest hint of human activity. From two hundred yards into the pasture they will take flight when I crack the front door open. But these City Birds are used to commotion and noise--maybe even follow it, since where there's city life, there might be the scraps of a tossed hamburger. Or road kill.

I reached reflexively for my camera, even at the time thinking "common crows: not much of a picture."

And yet, I'm rarely this close for so long, so I trained the lens on the nearest one of three, and hoped I'd see something image-worthy. But the one I focused on wouldn't even face me. All I could shoot was bird booty, and I was about to put the camera back in the bag and go check out a book.

Then, this bird turned his head over his shoulder and looked directly at me, with some apparent disdain, I might add.

And as if to say "I ain't puttin' on a show here, bubba" he fanned out his primaries like a cape, spread his tail feathers, and disappeared from view behind a screen of blue-black. And the show was over. And this was the show!

What wonderful control for each individual feather had this common blackbird--moving each independently as he preened feather by feather. I'd never before thought of feathers as anything but passive, and yet here was a dexterity of control not unlike the way I move my own fingers just so, mind over matter.

But then, it should come as no great surprise that to perform the aerobatic maneuvers we see in our distant crows against the sky takes precise adjustment second by second in the spread, pitch and camber of individual feathers. But this was the first time I'd really watched it happen in this crow so uncommonly close out my window, perfectly at rest, and disappearing briefly from view behind a living fan of feathers.

Step It Up!

Speaking to a Dartmouth audience about changing global warming's impact by modified lifestyles and economies, Bill McKibben was accused of "preaching to the choir". How will converting the converts do any good, asked one person in the audience.

"Only if the choir sings five times louder is there any chance we'll get federal legislation to help stop global warming", McKibben said. "It's important now to get everyone in the choir to sing at the top of their lungs."

His timing may be right: Congress is considering more than a dozen global warming bills, Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" just won an Oscar, two global oil companies are investing in wind energy, and several corporations are backing legislation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

A youthful-looking 46, McKibben was among the first to sound the alarm about global warming in 1989 with "The End of Nature." But after that book and nine others, he no longer seems content with just issuing warnings. He wants to lead people into action."

Step It Up happens in your area on Earth Day, April 14. Be there. (Click JOIN AN ACTION at top of stepitup web page to find an event near you.)

And I'm buying DEEP, McKibben's book (which he recommends you buy LOCALLY), published just this month. Here's an excerpt from the author's webpage that talks about the book:

"The time has come to move beyond "growth" as the paramount economic ideal and begin pursuing prosperity in a more local direction, with cities, suburbs, and regions producing more of their own food, generating more of their own energy, and even creating more of their own culture and entertainment."

Giving Nature Back: To Our Children, Ourselves

...Abby had found the broken remnants of a tailless kite, and entertained herself (and us) for a delightful hour under the blue prairie sky.

That afternoon I witnessed in a most striking way the contrast between the old-fashioned play of children actively entertaining their bodies and imaginations in the out-of-doors, and the modern, physically-passive, over-stimulating kinds of "recreation" that happen to kids almost exclusively indoors and may involve use of the thumb muscles alone.

"I like to play indoors better 'cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are" explained one urban fifth grader.

Read More (quick-loading Scribd pdf). This is an early draft, editorial comments welcomed and appreciated.

Picture This

"The back page of an October issue of San Francisco magazine displays a vivid photograph of a small boy, eyes wide with excitement and