Swamp Creatures in the Rain

Thr Biophilium Bayou

It rained for days. My tent kept the water out but my campsite was swamped. My kitchen was quicksand and (the best part) the ground under my tent was a soft squishy mud puddle.

Prothonotary Warbler

I did a Photoshoot in the rain with a sexy Prothonotory Warbler who had been posing in the forest swamp. Thousands of photos. I usually take a couple hundred photos a day and post any useful identification shots on iNaturalist and then post 5 or so nice images on IG. It’s been 14 years that I process my photos at the end of each day otherwise they would just pile up and never be looked at. Until this day.

From the swamp I walked down a forest path and came upon a little clearing. The same clearing where I’d watched some Sandhill Cranes fly over the day before.

Little Red Bat

Then, finally, the sun came out, and so did the insects and then so did everyone who eats insects and so on all the way up the food chain. Which meant that all sorts of nocturnal animals who hadn’t eaten all week came out to play like a hungry looking Coyote, a starving Great Grey Owl and this Little Red Bat.

I plopped down on my knees to steady myself and chased her with my camera lens taking thousands of high speed shots. It was a great workout (my lens weighs 6 lbs) and she was moving fast. She made hairpin turns after flies that I couldn’t see. After this it was much easier for me to shoot the Ruby Crowned Kinglet, who flits around and never stands still. The sun shone through the little bat’s wings showing off why she is called the Little Red Bat. She flew around in front of me, catching insects out of the air for 45 minutes before I had to walk away because it was too exciting.

So now there is a time capsule on my hard drive. Thousands of unprocessed photos of a little yellow bird admiring his reflection in the rainy swamp and an aerobatic bat feasting in the sun.

Out of the Corner of my Eye

Non-breading male Redstart before his breading plumage has developed

This young Redstart watched me have lunch outside during the 30 minutes that it didn’t rain today. Then I took my camera for an adventure. I spent 2 hours exploring a Birch forest that was filled with Warblers and Flycatchers and I remembered how good it feels when I’m in my rain coat and warm dry boots and my camera is wrapped in plastic bags and I think ‘Oh! I really do love birding in the rain!’ One of the things that makes it fun is that rain drops disturb leaves just the way skulking birds do. So my eye is constantly chasing invisible Goblins. I bird with peripheral vision because all the magic happens in the corners of our eyes. Like that scene in Labyrinth when Sarah is checking on her baby brother’s crib and keeps almost seeing the Goblins out of the corner of her eye but they disappear before she can get a good look at them.

I followed a creek to a bridge and watched a Male Redstart forage the banks. He climbed into crevices and caves and ducked under tree roots. He disappeared into a subterranean tunnel and I imagined him resting a moment out of the rain, looking out at the wet forest before he popped back out the other side, but I knew he wouldn’t really stand still, he was too busy collecting insect snacks and his feathers make him waterproof. I took lots of photos. It was a beautiful place just behind the garage where a mechanic was fixing my van. I managed to drag myself back just before the garage closed for the weekend with my keys inside but when I got there he was only just getting to my van. He apologized, but I was happy for the excuse to go back into the forest. The guys in the garage all laughed that I was having so much fun out in the pouring rain but they believed me that there were good birds out there because while I had been out walking an Oriole had flown into the garage and perched on their hoist.

My second dip into the forest was just as birdy as the first. This time I thought I’d try sitting on a fallen tree and waiting for the Warblers to come to me. While I waited I went through my photos and did a little editing and was pleased to find what I thought was my masterpiece. A shot of the male Redstart. He was jumping out of a cave in a gymnastic twist with all feathers fanned showing his shocking orange on black markings. There was a sparkle in his eye and the rain drops around him were frozen still. I thought ‘This is exactly why I shoot in ultra high speed!’ It was perfectly framed and in focus and was worth drawing later. I hadn’t even noticed taking it because I was looking through the viewfinder through a plastic bag. I do have good luck shooting through plastic bags but it felt as if it had been left there as a gift from someone else. I looked forward to looking at it properly at home, out of the rain and the plastic bag.

I photographed lots of nice birds on the way home including some mystery birds I’d use the photos to identify later, but I didn’t bother try to shoot another Redstart because I had that one perfected.

When I got home 200 photos were mysteriously missing from the camera. Presumably taken by forest Goblins. I wish I hadn’t sat on that log and looked at what I was about to loose because now that pirouetting Redstart is the-one-that-got-away. That legendary big fish or lost love. I know its just a game and I don’t really keep the photos I take in any special way anyway, but I’m surprisingly upset about it. Perhaps from now I should treasure my photos more and find a way to appease the Goblins. Tomorrow I’ll go back and shoot more Redstarts. I hope it rains.

Yellow is the Lightest Color

Yellow Warbler

This is one of many warbler species that people flock to Point Pelee to see this week. They are migratory birds. They are made of tooth picks and cotton balls and tiny yellow feathers because yellow is the the lightest color. They are so small I could probably fit 3 of them in my mouth with only their tiny heads peaking out to sing. Most Warblers winter much farther south than here and summer much farther north than here so the only time I ever see one is if I am lucky enough to be looking right where one lands momentarily to catch their breath while they make their long journey. They pass through for a few days each spring on their way to breed. Spring is the most fun time to see them because they are wearing their party plumage and singing all the way.

Made of marshmallows

My first day at Point Pelee I walked down to the point, stepped out onto the beach and looked out at Lake Eerie. Its called the Angry Lake and is so big that it feels like a sea. It might even have tidal behavior. The wind and waves on the beach were so powerful they pushed me off balance. And I chocked on my breath from admiration that these tiny yellow birds of toothpicks and cotton balls sail between the heavy sky and the Angry Lake to touch down just where I am looking.

Avian Hypnosis

Killdeer distraction display

Killdeer are little wading birds cute enough to eat. If a Killdeer is nesting and she sees a predator coming (like me for example) she does something special. Something that would make your mouth water. Something that’s so utterly hypnotic to any one with K9 teeth that it becomes physically impossible to look away even though there is a little voice in your head begging you to look for the baby Killdeer near by that she is distracting you from.

Killdeer Mum standing between distraction displays

Baby Killdeer are probably dangerously cute. They are probably stripy cotton balls balanced on q-tip stilts. They probably have slapstick walks and probably wrestle like kittens. But nobody’s ever seen one because it’s impossible to look away from Mum’s hypnosis.

I tried once. I turned away from her and walked in the opposite direction from where she was leading me. She ran right up in front of me crying and stood at my feet. All of her 6 inches tall. She went quiet and she stared me in the eyes. So I did what she asked, I apologized and I walked away.

Avian Hypnosis

Asparagus Ghosts

Field Horse Tail (Equisetum)

These Asparagus Ghosts come from a long line of silica structured plants. So long that they don’t even seed. They are ooold school. Their spores each have 4 legs that trot, canter and dance dressage to spread their DNA to greener pastures. (Seriously, Google Horsetail spores and watch a video.)

Each of these mushroomesque spears come from a long root. So long they can taste the center of the earth. Their lives are measured in centuries, they look prehistoric. I used to think they were sexually dimorphic, having differently shaped male and female plants, but those different shaped plants are connected rhyzomatically, this one is the sexual part, that other horse hair looking one is the leafy part. This is one of 5 species I’ve seen growing around here: Field, Marsh, Variegated, Wood and Dwarf.

Spotty, Stripy, Rainbow Birds

What a spikey beard. And such respectable spots. And stylish stripes. I love a black rainbow. Starlings are mimics. They don’t have their own song, but I recognize their voice because when I was 17 I raised one as a…. What do you call a Starling fledgling? A Starlingling? She had fallen out of her nest. (Perhaps she was kicked out by a parasitic Cowbird) She didn’t even have feathers yet! The local wild bird care center wouldn’t take her but instructed me on how to take care of her. Wow. It’s trippy being a bird mom! I fed her scrambled eggs constantly which involved pushing food into her crop with my baby finger. She looked at me like she expected me to teach her to be a bird. Starlings copy the songs they hear so Star and I would sing together and she would repeat the rhythms I’d make.

I wonder how I knew she was a Starlingling when I was 17. Before there was anything on the Internet. Bald babies are pretty hard to identify.

Now that I’m a naturalist I know that Starlings are an ‘invasive species’. They were introduced to Central Park because it would be cool if Central Park had all the birds mentioned in Shakespearian plays. The Starlings did very well and have spread all over the continent. It turns out that wild bird care centers are not allowed to care for them! Even if they are fatherless babies who have fallen out of a nest, hungry and looking for someone to teach them to be a bird!

I think they are beautiful. Look that those spots! Those Stripes! Those Rainbows! Have you ever seen a murmuration? When a large flock of birds fly in a formation that makes a twisted undulating shape of emergent motion? They were probably Starlings. 

A Book About Home Wildlife Conservation

Whatever you are reading put it down and read this.

Nature’s Best Hope is a book of DIY conservation. It explains why and how we should plant trees on our lawns and which trees to choose for maximum benefit to wildlife. It explains the mechanics of ecology in ways that are crystal clear, easy to understand and very motivating.

The book presents a history of our relationship to wildness and nature and talks about how and why the aesthetic of our landscaping of private land is the way it is. Tallamy suggests that the current aesthetic of suburban front yards is a status symbol that says “I have the money and time to manicure and weed my lawn” and is a symbol of community solidarity and a message that we care about our property and look after it. The problem is that the aesthetic is outdated and actually does an enormous amount of damage to the land and to wildlife we are trying to signal that we care about. He suggests ways to update that culture so our aesthetic supports our values.

His ideas of how to make forests instead of lawns would save, money, time, and fuel and provide productive biomass, habitat and take carbon from the atmosphere… Really his ideas would solve a lot of our problems. If you own land you must read this book. It will guide you to make a deeper more loving relationship to your land and your neighborhood. If you are feeling nervous about climate change, or loss of biodiversity, read this book. It will give you hope and ideas about how you can be a positive influence in the world.

Making a Stink about Bugs

Boxelder Bug party

We use the word ‘bug’ colloquially to mean any small animal that has more than 4 legs, or non at all. All insects are considered bugs and so are spiders, millipedes, worms, slugs and crustaceans. It’s a derogatory term for small things that bug us.

The word is used scientifically to refer to a large family of over 80 000 species of Insects including Cicadas, Leaf Hoppers and Shield bugs. The Boxelder Bug is a True Bug.

They make a stink when disturbed so they are safe from predation which makes it OK for them to congregate in large Boxelder gatherings on the sides of Maple trees. They eat Maple seeds and sometimes spend winter inside human homes.

Lightning Trees

White Pine

White Pines are often the tallest trees in the forest. Around here you can ID them easily from far away cos they stick up above the rest of the canopy like a lightning rod. Water clings to their needles in a storm and they are often the juiciest, closest path of least electrical resistance to the ground. But they’ve evolved to survive lightning strikes.

The bark of most trees divert rain water down in a cascading way, lots of little splashes from one bark scale to the next. This makes the moisture being pumped up the inside of the tree, just under the bark, the smoothest continuous stream of water and the fastest unbroken route for lightning to take to the ground.

When lightning travels under bark the moisture there heats up hotter than the sun! Sap boils and turns to screaming steam with nowhere to escape so tree bark explodes off the tree from top to bottom like all sides of a banana being peeled at once. Trees don’t usually survive without their bark.

White Pine bark isn’t smooth but it has a vertical maze of cracks that facilitate lightning passage on the outside of the bark, keeping their heartwood safe from explosion and bark safe from banana-peelation.

Sneaky Blue Jays

Blue Jays stay here all winter even though foraging is hard with all this snow. They manage by stashing snacks in times of abundance. I’ve heard that caching bird brains expand during autumn when they begin caching – so they can remember thousands of secret locations spread out over several kms and what’s hidden in each spot.

If a Blue Jay feels some one watching him while he hides a peanut he’ll pretend he didn’t notice and come back later to move the treasure, but they only think to do this if they themselves have stolen some one else’s stash.