First dragon of spring
Posted on Mar 11, 2010 by jason
I saw my first dragonfly of 2009 on February 15. This year the same species showed up almost four weeks later. Harsh winter? You betcha!
The variegated meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum) can survive year-round in Texas if winters are mild enough. No one can say this winter was mild.
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The mourning morning
Posted on Mar 10, 2010 by jason
Memory has vexed me of late, hence the suddenness of these prose spillings from life drawn of days passed. Memory of yesterday, memory of yesteryear, memory of walking out the door and in the door. Memory… A curse and a blessing. A road upon which we travel both willingly and unwillingly. Memory… Glance upon what is and what was. Therein you realize its potent friendship and its spiteful devilry. Memory… Cut me deep and love me deeper.
Before each step reaches the sleeping grass drawn in winter’s brown, the telltale crunch of dry leaves and twigs already sounds into the cold air. Measured footfalls carry me forward ever slowly, ever carefully. Suspended on a carpet woven by nature and spread in all directions, I walk silently in the night.
Morning has yet to reach this place. Gilt warms the eastern horizon with the day’s promise as friendly hues of amber and crimson reach into the sky with delicate fingers. Too soon will the sun visit me, and too soon will it bring forth the hordes of those too frightened of the dark yet too brave in the light. But for now, at least, the lake welcomes only me.
Perhaps in declaration of the dawn, a gull’s shrill cry echoes across the water. I listen intently as the penetrating sound flies effortlessly to the opposite shore before returning. Yet like the rapidly disappearing night, the avian exclamation dies on the cold morning air before its second life is lived. So it shrieks again. This time more voices fill the gossamer air, more gulls bellow into faint morning light.
Stirring only a short distance from shore, dark silhouettes of unidentifiable waterfowl tell me some have risen early for breakfast, while similar stirrings in the brush nearby tell me others have not yet taken their first steps of the day. I look with eyes hungry to consume all that can be seen, and I listen with equally ravenous ears desirous of that which can only be heard. And I continue walking.
Finally standing upon the pier above gentle waves lapping beneath me, a breeze caresses my cheek with cool affection. It rushes by in carefree folly and the encounter is over before it begins, my skin left slightly cooler by the invisible lover. Although I can not see it, I hear it fly along above the water’s surface, scatter a few dead leaves it wrestles along the way, and finally leap ashore not too distant from where I stand. It’s gone even while I hope for its return, perhaps only to share the moment with such a free spirit.
I start at the nearness of another gull screeching into the night. But the darkness draws to a close ever more quickly as an eager star claws its way toward daylight. Over my shoulder toward the east, the sky offers new warmth. I am reminded of a single candle burning on a desk, a wooden desk in an otherwise unlit home. Flickering casts amiable shadows on the walls. Sitting at that desk near to that candle, I picture myself wishing that its flame cease burning for but a moment more.
When I look again to the east, the candle has grown brighter still, and looking carefully toward the water reveals my own shadow drawn on a canvas of shadow. Too soon will the day break. I am not ready to leave the night, but I likewise doubt I have a choice.
As the gull again cries even nearer than before, I set my eyes upon its form floating lazily in the water only a stone’s throw away. The dark can not stop me from seeing it clearly now, from seeing its eyes cast in my direction as its voice calls out one more time. Harsh and wonderful, I let its greeting pass through me and around me, and I wear it like a blanket on a cool night in front of a campfire.
Is it loneliness, dearest bird, that makes you speak to me? Or do you hope I have some offering upon which you might dine? I hope it is the former and not the latter.
For both of us, my gull friend, cry aloud and cry often. Let your voice shatter the morning like the rising sun. Call out your desperation for companionship, for but a hint of attention from some other life, and I will share the moment with you here in this place.
Speaking for both of us, cry your heart out. The lake will welcome your tears like rain. I will welcome them like a brother.
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Ladies of spring
Posted on Mar 10, 2010 by jason
The light switch of spring has been thrown. One day it was cool, and the next it was warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt. There it has remained, warming the earth and inspiring an explosion of life.
A veritable smorgasbord of insects and arachnids has appeared. Flies buzz, wasps and bees flit about, beetles emerge, spiders spin and leap and dash, and where just a few weeks ago the days passed with scarcely a single small critter to enjoy, now it’s difficult to know which one to focus on.
But winter’s dearth always gives way to spring’s bounty, something that plants and insects demonstrate with great passion. And often one of the first things to appear in abundance is the lady beetle.
Standing on the patio the other evening, only a few moments before sunset, a small beetle rushed along the patio fence. I ran inside, grabbed the camera, then returned to snap a picture or two. By that time the little lady had scampered between the slats where it no doubt wanted to grab some rest for the night.
So I was mocked by this ashy gray lady beetle (a.k.a. ash gray lady beetle; Olla v-nigrum) who showed me nothing but buttocks. I stood patiently hoping the hideout was temporary, but alas the insect nodded off to sleep and stayed put, so a gray moon was all I had to show for the encounter.
Finding this seven-spotted ladybug (a.k.a. seven-spotted ladybird; Coccinella septempunctata) larva came as no surprise. These beetles start mating and multiplying the moment it’s warm enough outside.
(No, it’s not missing any legs. The one good photo I took happened to have one leg curled underneath the larva as it changed direction.)
And an adult seven-spotted ladybug (a.k.a. seven-spotted ladybird; Coccinella septempunctata) soaking up sunshine atop a dandelion. Days may be warm, but nights are still cool enough to require a recharge of heat each morning. Though that’s changing quickly as quite soon nights will be comfortable and days will be unbearably hot.
As these two multicolored Asian lady beetles (Harmonia axyridis) show, the season is never too early for making babies. If it’s warm enough to move about, it’s warm enough to mate and multiply.
This multicolored Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis) landed on my shirt as I stood on the patio enjoying warm sunshine one afternoon. It’s unwise for anything small to enter the house since The Kids take seriously their duty to hunt down and dispatch invaders. So I plucked the little beetle from my shirt in order to place it on the patio fence.
Then, for the first time in my 40 years, a lady beetle bit me. The ungrateful invader apparently found the relocation disagreeable and decided to nibble on me as repayment for the move. The experience was interesting but not painful. The biggest shock was that it took four decades to experience it given how much time I spend in nature and how often I have run-ins with fauna.
Despite the transgression, I put the beetle on the fence with gentle care so it could go on with its day. Though I did scold it briefly and warn it that others might not be so forgiving.
Walking across the bridge over Dixon Branch, a spark of color on the concrete railing gave me a moment of pause. This convergent ladybird beetle (a.k.a. convergent lady beetle or convergent ladybug; Hippodamia convergens) faced into the rising sun to gather warmth.
The number of lady beetle species at White Rock Lake is high, but unfortunately a great many of the numerous examples are from introduced species. Finding endemics like the ashy gray or the convergent tends to be like finding a needle in a stack of needles. Nevertheless, they can be found if one looks carefully enough.
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Sitting and strutting
Posted on Mar 8, 2010 by jason
A sense that life must be found, discovered, pursued until it succumbs to the whims of a camera lens, or binoculars, or naked eyes. A headlong rush to see, to scamper hurriedly to the next luscious visual, and the next, and the next. A flagrant hop from plate to plate whilst consuming only a sample of what each contains, an endless dining without stopping, a meal that satiates only in brief moments of time but always gives way to an empty longing for the next taste, the next morsel, the next bite.
Sometimes I wander about nature’s buffet without pausing to savor, pushed along by a jittery need to move. Walk, stroll, hike, or whatever name it takes at the time. These are not bad things. Yet so much hides in my hurrying.
One of my favorite pastimes is sitting. Sitting and watching, sitting and listening, sitting and absorbing. And I’ve learned that nature finds comfort in that stillness, in that silence.
So it was as I recently sat upon a hillside with sunshine blanketing the world that a strutting male great-tailed grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus) shared the leisure of the morning with me, shared the warm slope that supported us.
All black birds captivate me. Subtle beauty painted in fine brushstrokes of darkness. The energy used in the production of bright colors shunted to the production of extra personality instead. Under appreciated and oft overlooked.
That my favorite bird is the red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)—and has been since kindergarten—no doubt says a great deal about my adoration for dark avifauna. No flashy designs and no showy colors; just a sense of simple beauty in which hides a kaleidoscope of awe.
I watched the grackle as he strutted through russet grass speckled with spring’s verdant green. He grabbed an insect here and there, turned this way and that, carried on with his morning as though I did not exist.
All the while I lost myself in the iridescent rainbow hiding in the black of his plumage. That people can find these birds anything but beguiling and majestic leaves me speechless. They are a proud species, and no matter the derision and dislike that surrounds them, they intend to go on being proud.
Then, head held high, chest puffed out with pride, he marched by as though in a parade, as though on display for all the world to see. Then he was gone, wings carrying him to the next plot of land, the next branch, the next sumptuous delight to include in his breakfast menu.
And I remained where I was, still sitting, still observing, waiting for the next encounter.
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Writ upon the brow of lonely men
Posted on Mar 7, 2010 by jason
In times and tribulations writ upon the brow of lonely men, what say the children of humanity? Do they see innocence and suffering, or do they only see another beggar on the street?
And if I try to be someone else? Dare I be a stranger to some and a familiar to others? Or a stranger to all?
What comes beckons from yesterday. No todays sound in its voice, and fear alone sings its lamentable chorus from empty promises woven from tomorrows.
Do I beg for the rest of my life? What I wait for is the more I seek. Can you give it to me? Or would you deny me?
This is who I really am. Inside skin wrapped taught over the limits of infinity, within packages made of hopeless promise and desperate satisfaction, what breaks me can neither be told nor hidden. And would you refuse me such a thing?
Or anyone else?
Suffering in a broken lineage of discovery wrought of searches both endless and finite, dare I mention the me revealed is not the me shown?
This is who I really am. Would you reject me thus or embrace me as one would a brother?
What life has been displayed now seems a trite fakery, an imitation of what was, is, and will be, but what has so far been denied.
Perhaps in fear. Perhaps in desperation. Perhaps in longing for conformity and belonging.
It matters not.
In minutes near and far I see unfilled and unfulfilled promises as the lies they are. This is not for me. Not now. Not any more.
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