December 2017
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Ants in Your Stockings
Better than coal, right? Hell, what isn’t? The Eleanor Spicer Rice series of books about ants are for the younger naturalist, but we can all learn a thing or two about these omnipresent critters in these pages. I perused Dr. Eleanor’s Book of Common Ants and Dr. Eleanor’s Ants of New York City; Chicago and…
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Onwards!
The sound of a single leaf scrape-skittering across the road, Or the sound of hundreds, dry susurrations and crinkly waves, crumpling beneath the feet, parting before the bow of the shins: I’ll take both those paths.
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Bur!
Quercus macrocarpa, the bur oak, is supposed to have the largest fruit (macro carpa) of all North American oaks. This acorn is in a 1.5″ long mossy cup. One of the species’ distinctive, pinched-waisted leaves on the plate, too. The plate was purchased by my parents in my natal Japan. How about these apples, from…
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Kestrel Wednesday
I walked by the Kestrel perch the next day, on the off-chance he would be there. Nope. But I was on a round-trip errand, so when I returned, there he was. Not the same branch, but the same linden. This time I was on the avenue, meaning rather closer to his height on the tree…
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Red Star
Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) amid oaks and others. * Hannah Arendt, who died on November 4th, 1975 wrote this: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” (Alabama Republicans the latest marks of…
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Revealed
Paper can be strong stuff, but it’s all relative. The exterior coating of wood-pulp paper made by Dolichovespula maculata hornets, who scrape dead trees (or fence posts!) with their mighty jaws, has been stripped off by the weather. Horizontal layers of comb are revealed within. And still-capped larvae probably all killed by the freeze. The…
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Belted
The female Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) was tick-purring at Valley Water again recently. This time I got some better photos and got to listen to her for some minutes. (Long-time readers may recognize the hedgehog galls glimpsed on the leaves of this oak, and also that the tree has gotten a bit taller in four…
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Ecrasez l’infame!
We interrupt our usual programing to bring you this breaking news: the plutocrats are winning the class war. Last night’s 2 a.m. passage of a unread bill stuffed with handwritten-by-lobbyists giveaways to the ultra rich is a brazenly kleptocratic transfer of wealth towards the 1% (and their children, an aristocracy in the making) with radical…
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Spider Update
On Wednesday, Araneus diadematus ate brunch. Judging from the size and shape of the mummified-in-silk prey, I’d say it was a fly. The temperature was already near 50 that morning and would rise up to 60 in the afternoon. Diptera weather! There were also two gnats stuck to the web, but these were so small…
Backyard and Beyond 