Butterflies on Water

Just some natural non-drugged beauty to respect all the heat we have endured.

(I had to reduce these and convert to .gif because I have been told that people are stealing photos and using them as their own on the net and perhaps putting up in places we would not approve!  Any of my readers could certainly have a file if they wanted and were willing to give attribution---just ask. )

A Green Ocean of Grass

The fresh water marsh behind the barrier islands that I have been posting about in an earlier post is shown above. This nature preserve is lovely and peaceful and felt somewhat mystical to me as I stood there with my back to the ocean wind.   I could still hear the power of the pounding surf not far behind me when I took this photo, but the view in front was quiet like a painting or the entrance to another world.

The wading birds take advantage of this area all year but more so during the migration times of seasonal change.  Further in toward the land the water was not so high in the marsh and actually dry in places during the time that I was there.  This is a carefully 'managed' marsh with flood gates and water levels closely monitored and changed by man.  The natural resource folks want to make sure that this area does not face drought or flooding to the extent that animals or plants would be adversely impacted.  (The hubris of mankind...)  The gates are hidden by foliage so it all looks perfectly natural and wild.

The grasses flow like green ocean waves against the expanse of the blue sky.

Due to the Heat and CRAZY Storms --- Butterflies on Acid.

Just messing around.  Feel free to use as screen savers if so inclined.

Island Friends

My return brought photos of my recent visit to Assateague National Seashore where I encountered a number of new friends. The one above is familiar and he was absolutely sure that if he stood very, very, very still I would not see him. He was almost right!  I am sure he was not drinking out of that discarded bottle, but one never really knows.

This above is not a fawn but a non-indigenous Sika deer that lives on the island. They were brought to the island from Asia in 1923 and are actually regarded as an elk and do not get much larger than seen in this photo. I have read that they make ten different sounds!  They were quiet while I was watching them graze in the marsh land.

Above are the famous wild ponies of the island. Perhaps when you were a child or your children were young you read them a book called "Misty of Chincoteague" by Marguerite Henry.  She wrote two more fictional horse stories based on real ponies from this herd. (This photo has been reduced in size and is a bit grainy.)


One story is that these ponies arrived via a ship wreck in the 18th Century. Others say they were part of farms in the early years.  There are two separate herds of about 150 each.  One is managed by the park service and the other by the volunteer fire department.  They are managed by using anti-fertilization injections and a big pony swim in the summer where they are driven across the channel during slack tide and then about 70 are auctioned.  About a dozen of the ponies purchased in the auction are returned to the island as a gift.  This has been a money source for the volunteer fire department since 1925.  They are truly wild, and other than wild mustangs out west, perhaps the last remnant of early horse days in America.

Fly Catching

I am guessing that this is an Eastern Phoebe since he does not appear to have the conspicuous wing bars of the Tyrant family. Although, he looks larger than images I have found on the Internet, so I am open to correction.  This bird is fairly common in the United States, but certainly not common in my area.  These were taken on a freshwater river several hours from my house.  Three of these were catching flies along the Pokemoke River while we were canoeing and poking in and out of the 'gunk holes' that were hardly the right size for canoes.  They allowed us to get right under their tree and that is why one of the dozen photos I took looks decent.  We watched them catch flying insects and bring them back to eat.

The day was hot and close and each gunk hole provided a mysterious cool respite from the open sky and sun on the Pokemoke river that we visited after our beach sojourn.  We carefully maneuvered the canoe past low branches and out-reaching snagging vines into those mystical shadowed fingers of water that you can only reach by canoe.  Wondrously the mosquitoes were non-existent and the biting flies must have all been eaten by birds.  We spied on a what we think was a fish crow poking along the muddy areas for food but he was hard to see in the thick foliage and we also disturbed a wary wood duck that splashed noisily up a finger of the river.

Later, out in the open river, there was an abundance of dragonflies very large and small skimming and breaking the shine of the river and then zooming above close to our heads with that buzz they have.  With each pull of the paddle, the water beetles scurrying across the surface of the water ahead of the canoe were fascinating to watch, hurrying quickly like rolling pearls.  We heard but could not see prothonatarys and various other unidentifiable warblers in the dense shade of the trees.  Such days are really gifts to be remembered.

Bye Bye

I took a little trip to Assateague Island (connected to the community of Chincoteague Island on the Eastern shore) a few weeks ago. There the beaches are vast and austere, and if you are willing to walk a little bit, you can get away from the crowds.  The island is a nature preserve, so you will not have access to bars with cool drinks, swimming pools or showers to wash away salt spray, and indoor plumbing.  The port-a-potties are clean and in the parking lot.  You must haul your own crap...whatever you cannot live without on a day at the beach.


There are 14,000 acres of protected beach, saltwater marsh, and fresh water marsh to enjoy.  About 1.5 million visitors make their pilgrimage to this island every year, but, as you can see, you can still get away from it all if you want.  Behind the beach area are very important bird nesting and bird migration habitats.

You can see in the photo above that this beach faces an ocean on the move.  Those spindly trees were behind protected dunes at one time.  The surf does not care for trees or marsh grass in its path to the South.  A severe Northeaster hit last year and removed the parking lots and much of the dunes which are precious bird nesting areas. Since it costs the American taxpayer $600,000 each time parking areas, made only of gravel and crushed shell, must be rebuilt, easy access to this long beach is becoming more tenuous each summer.  An additional threat is that the land mass is shrinking and the ocean is rising due to global climate change.  By 2100 there are predictions this may all be underwater.  It is all just grains of sand sifting in time.

The Monarch

The first monarch of the season was seen here in early July. I photographed its arrival from my canoe. It followed us up the river dancing over marsh grasses and pausing in trees as if overjoyed to be part of our trip and eager to show us the way.  If the monarchs are arriving, can fall be far behind?  ( I guess I will have to stop complaining about the heat.)

Exhaling

Like a steaming cauldron

the night bubbles

with hot mist

crossing the river.

Like a faltering soul

I hold my breath

pretending the

cool night will come.

Everywhere the heat

simmers with the

earnestness of

a 16-year-old

seeing his first beauty,

Even though the days

are growing shorter

like the memory

of an old man

facing his next birthday.

But no one notices because

The beat of the heat goes on and on

And on...

I Am Not Being Coy!

I am not coming out until you fix this whole f****ng mess!

Volunteer

Last year I spent lots of time trying to grow sunflowers.  My garden is too wet and has too little sun in these woods, but I was determined to add some of the sunny faces to my garden. They are the flowers of nursery rhymes and fairy tales and add necessary whimsy to one's yard.  The few long-time readers may recall I got about a dozen plants zooming up, and when they were about 2 feet tall and forming flower heads, my eager visitors, the rabbits, ate them one by one!  Some former acquaintances of Mr. McGregor, I assume.

Now this summer on my back deck, a bird that felt sorry for me, shared his winter food and planted a sunflower in my pansy pot!  It grows lonely and tall in the pot.  I stake it and water it and I am rewarded with this sunny smile.  You cannot be in a bad mood standing next to a sunny flower taller than you!

Tenement Birds

As I wrote in the prior post, it was one of those very calm and quiet early summer mornings.  Everything living was tentatively waiting for the hot sun to break over the horizon and wondering how to begin another day trying to exist and make some progress in the steam bath that is here to stay for many weeks more.  I dipped the canoe paddle into the silver surface and gently headed beneath the highway bridge toward the open marsh hoping to enjoy the early morning 'cool' as long as I could.  I saw the silhouettes of swallows against the gray blue sky on the other side.  They were already diving and swooping for an early breakfast.  As I pulled into the dark shade beneath the bridge and beneath the regular and intermittent rattle of the cars on the highway above, I looked up and saw these twins sitting regally.  I wondered what solemn conversation I had interrupted.  It was a Paris Hilton with her BFF moment to be sure and their look made me feel I should have dressed better and should not be eavesdropping (although technically I was bridge-dropping).   Actually, regarding dropping...no I won't go there.

Such elegant seriousness.  They did not have that look of the starving young leaning forward with over sized gapping mouths. They did not have that look of startled young calling in shrill notes for mom and dad to return and save them from this giant below.  Instead they had the look of royal resignation about how boring life can be when you are waiting to be waited on.  They knew that eventually the mosquito caviar would be served.  Living in a castle surrounded by the noise of 'civilization' and resigned to the rumble of man's machines overhead until their graduation would release them from such irritation was their accepted fate.

Patient and regal, they keep their royal prince and princess style by staying so amazingly clean while living in a nest of mud.  

Summer Sauna

I took a canoe ride on a fresh water tributary that emptied into a brackish marsh the other day.  We started very early before the hot iron of the sun could bake our shoulders and arms and turn the air into thick mist.  Even though the sun was just breaching the eastern horizon, the air was already a wet and warm washcloth against our skin.  Red wing black birds were singing broadly like brass trumpeters across the marsh grasses.  Other birds, not seen, were twirping and tooting hidden deep in the center of the marsh, maintaining their mystery.

Gliding quietly and slowing across the broad green mercury surface our profile was still high enough to disturb the numerous herons who were picking out their breakfast snacks in the shallow areas. The surface of the water was moving with life and they had plenty in the breakfast buffet to choose from.  They would depart swiftly but elegantly as we got nearer while sometimes scolding us with a sound that could only have come from their ancestor pterodactyls.

Ospreys, also planning breakfast, had staked out their posts on eroded stumps of waterlogged trees in the middle of the water.  They sat in frightening, dangerous elegance surveying their domain.  There were dozens of aquatic species to choose from on the breakfast menu.  (Don't forget to click on the photos...I just love sharing.) Next post I will reveal the surprises we got while crossing from the river into the marsh.

Contrast

This old Mother Nature always gets it right. While we spend our energies and our focus on pointing out how we are so different, she shows us how beautiful we are when we come together, when we help each other, and when we share.


I truly wish we could all be this way and be willing to compromise just a little in life.  Try to understand why your enemy is so adamant in his ignorance.  Try to understand how Pretty Patty is so much an airhead, but she does smell nice.  This stinky garlic blossom is so lovely next to this swallowtail butterfly.  They have worked it out.  Why can't we?

Here are two nectar suckers sharing the same Echinacea blossom.  There is enough for all.  Really, there is, we just have to be a bit more frugal.

Share something with someone today.

Don't Touch! That is Not a Sea Anemone

This sparkley, prickly, delicate looking "wet fur" was something I photographed recently while walking through a natural tourist attraction.  According to the guide there are only three known places on this immense globe where these can be seen.  The story of their discovery is even more interesting.  It involves a researcher, a shovel, and lots of mud.  The researcher/explorer was digging out mud to follow a cavern opening.  When the researcher put his shovel into the mud it became irremovable!  It was just like the sword in the stone.  He pulled and pulled and the shovel would not become free.  He actually had to get a number of friends to help him pull out the shovel and when it finally broke free his watch and hat were sucked off of his body and into the vacuum that had been released by the hole in the mud left behind.  When he widened the hole, the delicate hairy spikes are what he found on the ceiling of the cave that was revealed behind the wall of mud and shown in the photo above.


These are cave formations called Anthodites which is taken from a Greek word meaning flower-like.  They are calcium carbonate forming aragonite crystals.  Exotic sounding and precious.  Because of their delicate nature and rareness they are protected by Federal law.  It takes 7,000 years for an inch on these to form, but because these are no longer in a vacuum, they are no longer growing.  These have been around for a long, long, long, long time.  Hard to get my mind around that.  One of them was 18 inches long.  I guess we all missed that time in history even though it was much much later than the big bang.

There is a new book out called Blind Descent by author James Tabor (no relation).  The author discusses caving and one of the deepest caves which is 7000 vertical feet!  I have not read it, but it sounds very intriguing.  


Caves have such a garden-like thing going on and cave researchers are such poets in naming cave formations.  According to E-notes. com "One-hundred and two cave minerals are known to form coatings and crusts, 57 form stalactites and stalagmites, 23 form moonmilk, 15 form anthodites, 14 form helictites, 12 form Angel hair, 7 form coralloides and pearls, and 6 form cave balloons."

It is so magical this earth of ours.

In the Heat of the Summer I get Visitors

As the summer dials up the oven temperature all the little creepy crawlies (entomological treasures for some and 'unable to ignore' pests for others) have begun arriving along with their families.  While hiking in a nearby woods I came across this little 'nest' of orange baby spiders.  I could find momma no where in sight.  I blew gently on the group and they spiraled down like miniature parachute jumpers in a delicate dance closer to the ground, but soon returned to their home when the carbon dioxide 'breeze' stopped.  (Click on photo for closer views, of course, and remember they are just photos!)

This little congregation of aphids in the photo below was holding their late spring war convention in the green lobby of my back yard the other day. They were discussing strategies and priorities I am sure.  Which area to invade first might also cross their tiny red brains.  I didn't kill them because they were meeting far from my flower beds...perhaps planning their attack on the newly planted roses?  I leaned closer but could hear no battle plans.

As I my face filled their blue sky, oddly enough, they look like they were circling the wagons preparing for a bird or wasp attack perhaps.


And of course, I cannot leave this post without posting at least one photo of the hundreds (thousands?) of pollinators that are humming around my sage and my lavender and everything else that has blooms.  They are drinking all the summer honey wine and usually hanging on in a gluttonous stupor the next morning covered in the mist of cool dew.  These guys hit the bar all day everyday.

Japanese Orgies

Japanese Beatles

barely exotic

Cling in opalescent disregard.

They dine with

refined tastes 

on only rose petals

and crepe myrtle leaves.

They don't speak the

language

ignoring my pleas.

Holding open orgies

between the petals of

the pink Savoy Hotel 

and

too drugged to see

 my dismay

at the confetti-ed

evidence 

they always leave behind

when the party

at long last ends.

The Nursery

Each new season I spend in my woods, I am charmed by the local residents. Last spring a turtle laid her nest of eggs just below a basil plant in my herb bed. I placed a protective fence around the nest, but the little ones never hatched. Too much rain?...too hot?...life with Mother Nature is sometimes  unforgiving.  We are now entering the season of the box turtles.

Yesterday after a long and violent rain I opened the front door in the early morning with coffee in hand and saw this gal making her way toward my hosta bed across my new paver sidewalk.

She was a stunner in colorful beauty. One of the most striking box turtles I have ever seen, a newcomer. 

She has all her parts, which is sometimes not the case for these gentle creatures.

I went back inside and finished some housecleaning and then decided to walk around the house to see if the storm had created any damage. There had been some pretty high winds along with the downpour.   I rounded the corner to my newly created liriope grass bed that lines the side of the garage.  This new bed was part of the work from the changes to the driveway and retaining wall made this spring and gives some grace to what was a grass-less pathway to the water along the garage wall.

I was a little shocked as was this gal when we happened upon each other.  She was a different turtle, more faded in color and a little larger.

I soon realized that she was working on a nest (click on photo below for better view.)  Once again my home has been blessed by its selection as a box turtle nursery. I hope these little ones do better than those from last year.

When I returned an hour later you could not tell that anyone had disturbed the earth. It was perfect!

Deceptive Beauty

One man's weed is another man's nightmare.   By early June, the woods at either side of my house are thick with all kinds of invasive green, glowing, and growing plants.  This one above is one of them.


This lovely plant is the very sturdy Smilax rotundifolia.  There are some lovely inns and restaurants through out the United States named after this vine as its common name is Greenbriar Vine.  Before you fall in love with its spring beauty, I must let you know that it is invasive and can form impassable thickets.  It has nasty argumentative thorns and with bursts of energy climbs trees without pause.  The vine is strong enough to pull down young saplings.  The leaves become a pale waxy green with age and their heart shape grows quite large.   I even read on the internet a story by one person in Texas who said that a small dog had become entangled in a Greenbriar thicket and he had to go in and  rescue it!  If you declare battle with it, you will not come out unharmed.


I must admit that I have pulled or dug up a number of these plants at the edge of my lawn as they creep toward my yard.  I never got down to the root which is supposed to look like a potato.  This photo above, taken at the edge of a swamp in a nearby park, is most deceiving but perhaps worth framing?


Below is another beauty that grew just a few yards away at the edge of the same water feature.

Slow Food

By early June the strawberries are done. We have picked our 'bushel' or so and made our jams and syrups and frozen bags for later recipes.  We are satiated on strawberry smoothies and sliced berries on top of vanilla ice cream.  We are more than willing to let the last strawberries remain on the vines.  It is nice to know that the slow food set helps with the clean-up of the those we missed.  He/she need not look so guilty as we are now working on the raspberries and blueberries.

Resiliency

Resiliency. I try to remember that animals have resilience.  Two weeks ago I left the sad news about the oil spill and its toxic claim on beaches, estuaries, coastlines and ocean life and headed outside to ease my heavy heart.  I needed the good news of a warm spring day to assure me that Mother Earth was continuing her natural way.  As I was on my knees, as if in supplication to Mother Earth and asking her forgiveness for mankind's greed, I focused my camera on the many new white mushrooms that were dotting the edge of my lawn.  Just above my head I heard lighthearted birdsong and looked up to see this juvenile titmouse singing with such energetic youthful joy while perched on the cage that protects the hardy kiwi plant.

I think he was singing, "I can fly!  I can fly!  Mom, look!  I can fly!"

He looked at me with what could only have been the silly self-confident smirk of a young one and then with such ease flew up into the nearby tree knowing full well I could not join him.  Mom must be very proud at this spring graduation ceremony.  (Of course, now he really begins to get into trouble!)  As always, you can click on the photos for a closer view.

Orphans

These are the babies that were abandoned during the time we put in the pavers and the asphalt driveway. The nest was about 30 feet away and the noise and dust for 5 days were just too much for Mrs. Bluebird. I must admit that it was almost too much for me.  Another (?) Mrs. Bluebird was seen bathing in the bird bath near the birdhouse a day ago; so we are hoping she found somewhere near to start a second nest. :-(

M. Erythrocephalus

A few weeks ago I spotted this eyecatching woodpecker on a snag overlooking the marshland in a local county park while walking the marsh's edge and watching a resident beaver eat the leaves of the water lily plant in the marsh.  Spring was well on its way and the marsh land was a stunning lime green in the angles of the golden sun.  I looked up at the brilliant blue sky and this fellow was very easy to spot even without a bird call.


These redheaded woodpeckers eat both meat and plants but they do like their meat fresh.  According to the Cornell bird site this fellow will store live grasshoppers by wedging them in the wood so that they cannot escape before he decides to eat them.  Sounds like some horror movie!  He also is a robber of nests and killer of the eggs inside.  A real horror movie lead.


A little fact you may not know is that these woodpeckers have an exceptionally long tongue, up to 2/3 longer than their bill.  This tongue is used as the padding around their brain to prevent concussive damage when they are hammering away at that hard old tree.  I wonder if Darwin knew this?  I must search to see if I can find an anatomical diagram of this.