The "Constant- Not-So-Constant-Butterflies are Back!

I believe last year, just about this time, I wrote a blog on the “constancy of butterflies” for truly, the first year I was here, there wasn’t a month that passed that didn’t feature some species being omnipresent in the yard.  Then, this year, when I was all set to lay out the plates of smashed bananas for the Red Admiral butterflies, I was disappointed to find only a handful were about.  Summer slipped by with Pipevine Swallowtails skittering about the ground looking for pipevine to lay eggs on, but no where near the numbers that had been present that first summer.  So, earlier this year I wrote about the NOT so constant butterflies.

Ah, but I spoke too soon, for today, while cutting grass, I noticed the locquat tree was in bloom, and was once again it is THE hang out spot for several different species of butterflies.  Plus the tree was swarming with bees, beetles, and those flies that want you to think they are bees.  What an entomological bonanza!

To be honest, butterflies have been abundant for the last few weeks.  We had a huge rain a three weeks ago now, as happened last year, there was an explosion of snout butterflies, flying low, flying high, flying in butterfly squadrons seemingly from north to south, although they don’t really migrate,  they surely appeared to be heading somewhere together.  The Queen butterflies that I also have written about were back feasting on the blue mist flowers, and mixed in with them, on occasion, were a few, a very few Monarchs.  They are sadly said to have been at their lowest numbers ever this year in Mexico. 

It was a delight to see them all, yet they have once again set me back on any sense of Thanksgiving and Christmas being on the horizon.  I had worked so hard to convince myself it was “peanut butter ball making” season this morning, playing Manheim Steamroller and pretending the gray clouds had a promise of snow in them.  But then, out I went to cut the grass, and with the air alive with butterflies, I have been transported back to a summer frame of mind.  And the sun is out.  And it is climbing into the 80’s.  What's a person to do but go with the butterfly flow?  In a month I will be in Maine and I will have no trouble at all imagining I am at the North Pole!

The Tale of Two Cities- Completed

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Or we could have called this, “Ricocheting Through the Seasons”.  For two glorious weeks I was jettisoned into fall; maple and aspen trees aglow, blue skies with scudding white and gray clouds, crisp at night, but lovely by day.  I truly lucked out, for these were some of the warmer days that my daughter said they had had in Maine in awhile.  We were able to pick apples from an orchard and chose a pumpkin growing in the field rather than one at the supermarket; all nostalgically wonderful in my book.

I also got to the Cape, even if only for a day.  The swallows were no where to be found, but the river of bayberry seeds spread over the dunes showed that they had been there and had eaten well.  My friend, newly transplanted in Rhode Island, treated me to a delightful afternoon of watching gulls smash quahogs on the pavement.  Amazed us how fruitful the waters were.  No sooner had they snatched a clam, seemingly from the water underneath them, than another gull would come along and be successful too- a clam soup of a bay.   

Most amusing was watching a younger gull that didn’t quite seem to get the physics of it; that in order for the clam to crack open, it really had to drop it from a height. It kept dropping it on rocks without flying up first, which took about a zillion drops to get the desired result.  Then it finally figured out to fly up with the clam in its beak, but forgot to drop it, and would settle back on the pavement and drop it again, from about 4”.  Perhaps not the brightest gull in the flock but then it was persistent, if nothing else, and we did see it finally eat some.

In Maine, it was all grandchildren, all the time; singing while pushing swings, reading truck book after truck book, rocking and walking a 4 month old baby.  On the Columbus Day weekend we got to hike Blueberry Hill, which affords a panoramic view of the bays and islands around this particular peninsula in ME. This sort of view of distant curved bays and inlets peppered with pine- covered islands is typical of the Maine coast. So beautiful, making me sadly wish again that we had stayed put on the Cape, a mere 5 hours from our grandchildren.  Sigh.

With multiple adults we were able to can applesauce and apple butter, something that is such an annual ritual for our family.  Back in Texas I bought about 20 lbs. of apples from the store but they weren’t nearly as juicy as the varieties we usually use.  Still, it is something to try and continue the fall feeling here.  It’s been in the mid-80’s since I returned so all that momentum built up in ME feeling that the holiday season is upon us has stalled a bit here, and very badly needs to be restarted.  Two years in and I still remain a seasonally-activated person.  It seems I am incapable of thinking Christmas thoughts or even Thanksgiving ones when it is in the 80’s.  Not good news to those who are the recipient of holiday giving. 

And as part of that seasonal ricochet, butterflies have increased while I was gone.  Queens and a few Monarchs settle on the blooming blue-mist flowers, and those amusing American Snouts are crossing my path with regularity again. 

Acorns are raining down, clattering on roofs and deck, the squirrels will be well set this “winter” it seems.  So, give me another week or so to get my Texas legs under me again and write about the happenings here.  And with luck, in a few weeks really, I will be headed back for more ricocheting if we get to spend Christmas in Maine again.  Meanwhile, may you all know what month you are in and be acting accordingly. 

The Tale of Two Cities- Part 2

Several blogs ago I mentioned my incredible luck of having trips planned to two Portlands.  I was able to jet west to see my much-missed cousins, and now, as of tomorrow AM, I will be jetting east to my much-missed grandchildren.  Both trips equidistant, and both able to transport me back to the flora and fauna I know and love.  Oregon was all green and overflowing with abundant plant life and the Northeast, in Oct, should be all gold and vermillion, scarlet and electric yellow, depending on which trees will be turning.  I can’t wait.

I know people who say they fall prey to SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) during the winter months, and I think I can begin to sympathize with them.  Texas, and its long hot summers that continue well past the time my internal clock says it should be cool, seems to create my own “misplaced New Englander” kind of funk.  But here comes a chance to counteract that. 

I am flying to Rhode Island, with one day to get to Cape Cod and, with luck, get a glimpse of Tree swallows that mass on the dunes by the thousands in the fall and pick wild cranberries and see old friends.    Then the continued delight of linking up with one of my daughters as we drive from Boston to Maine, perhaps by way of color-splashed New Hampshire.  Then for the remainder of the two weeks I can be a part of the wildness that is life with 3 children under the age of 5.  And if my SAD isn’t gone by then, well, there will be no hope for me!

So, although I can’t imagine any time to blog while doing all this, I hope to refill my “blogability” column with new topics for my return.  And by then Texas will have cooled down.  For that matter, we actually had a cool front pass through this weekend that dropped us from 90-50 in a matter of hours, perhaps the same one that was dropping snow all over CO. 

I hope your Fall is taking place in the tradition you are used to; different seasonal changes in different places.  TX actually “springs” into fall, with a return of flowers when the rains come and a feeling that Easter must be in the air, or does the omnipresent barbecue smell mean it’s the Fourth of July, or the heat imply it is still August?  Well, at least for the next two weeks may my October feel as October used to feel, crisp and colorful. 

Hummingbird Weight Watching

No, this is not a weight program for hummingbirds, but a quixotic attempt to see if I can detect what a “fattened up” hummingbird looks like compared to their usual size.  Its fall, you see, and I have often read that they need to add a good 40% to their weight before they attempt migration, at least migration over a body of water, like some of them may do over the Gulf and so, I am looking for a chunkier than normal looking bird.

Quixotic is the right word for this, for I have read that they go from 3.25 grams to 6 grams prior to flying over the Gulf.  Something tells me 2.75 grams doesn’t show up as much as my 10 lb. gain since being in Texas does.  Still, life is made up of little challenges like these.  Poor little things, they weigh them again when they land and they are only at 2.5 grams.  Hopefully some nice Mexican spiders are waiting for them, lush nectar to wash it down with so they can regain what they lost.

Here in TX we are host in the summer to the Black Chinned Hummingbird, whom I haven’t seen in awhile.  Visitors to my feeder are definitely that, visitors.   Red Throated Hummingbirds, first the males, then the females, have been straggling through.  They stay a few days and perhaps are fattening up, indiscernibly, then flying every southward.

So many of the small song birds and others fly by night; its cooler, fewer predators, but the hummingbirds travel solo, and by day, supposedly, just over the treetops.  They do stay and dine awhile where they find nectar available and the only non-stop push is the 500 mile flight over the Gulf.  Not that all of them go that route, at least not in the fall with the threat of hurricanes being encoded somehow in their DNA.  Instinct is what drives them on; the ones born this summer aren’t following the crowd but just following the inner drive to eat a lot and head south. 

And whereas the larger migrating birds may cover a couple of hundred miles a day, hummingbirds do about 23 miles a day.  Clearly, those coming from Canada have to leave early.  I know on the Cape, by now, I would probably be missing them.  For that matter, it has slowed down here in TX too, with most of them making the TX coast by just about this time in Sept but not all. 

And that is the key point.  Keep those feeders out, even after they appear to be gone, for the late straggler, the last one hatched out of the nest etc.  And they are faithful to return to where the food is something they can count on.  The hummingbirds that stay with you all summer are the progeny of generations of hummingbirds that have found your sugar water and flowers to be just right.  Even the migrants are said to have their own favorite remembered stops along the way.  Makes me think I should maybe hang my feeder on a really high pole in fall so it can be seen from the “interstate”. 

And if you happen to see any that have let another notch out of their belt, let me know.  You may have keener eyes than I do for such a thing. 

Why Did the Beetle Cross the Road?

That’s what I would like to know.  On Saturday I walked the dog around the neighborhood much later than I usually do, around noon.  And although a scan of the skies turned up only the usual vultures, a scan of the road was far more productive.  It seemed everywhere, there were ground beetles crossing the blacktop.  These can be fast moving beetles, usually found scuttling from under the mulch or under a rock, but here they were, in several places, some sauntering, some zipping, and some raising up on higher legs to miss hitting a pebble on the road.  We had had rain a day earlier, and it was one of our coolest days yet; first day of fall for that matter.   Why not take a brisk walk on such a lovely day?

But then, a neighbor asked if I wanted to walk with her, so, no sooner had I got home than we went back around.  I wanted to get a closer look at exactly which species of ground beetle this might be, when what did we see?  What looked like a dung beetle festival!  Coming around a bend the road was alive with lots of dung beetles “on a roll”, rolling their dung ahead of them as though they were in a race. Wow!!

Now nothing is more entertaining to watch than a bunch of dung beetles racing across the road, pushing, balancing, sometimes from a forward position, sometimes from a backward position, some going it alone, some in pairs. 

 Well, there probably are some things more entertaining, but if you set your bar low enough, then this can be a riot to watch.  Why so many? Why now?  Again, it had just rained, an unusual event in TX and here in our neighborhood the reigning scat is deer scat, but in normal conditions it gets hard pretty fast, and is elliptical in shape.  These beetles were all pushing a very rounded, larger than originally produced, deer scat ahead of it. I can imagine that if you wanted to shape these scats into nice round balls, than after a rain would be the best time. 

On the remote chance that you aren’t up to speed on your dung beetle facts let me provide you with a few.  They are found on every continent except Antarctica; there are thousands of different species that they divide up into rollers, tunnelers and dwellers, depending on how they access the dung in question.  Only 10% are rollers but they are the ones you are most likely to see, and that was clearly the kind I was seeing.  “Rollers” go to the site and forms their balls that they can push either standing on their head or forward and they are in a hurry to roll it away from the competition.  If two seem to be working cooperatively, you are seeing a male and female getting their “nursery” ready. They will roll it into their underground tunnel and lay the eggs right in it, where the larvae will feed on it as they grow and pupate within it and then emerge as adults. 

 But seeing two can also be the scene of a “snatch and grab” as one beetle bumps off the other and makes off with the stash! 

If you really are looking to fill the vacant hours in a day, check out the amazing video on TED.com “The dance of the dung beetle” and you will find out that they roll those balls in a straight line, using the sun as a guide by day and polarized light from the stars by night!  And all this with a brain the size of a rice grain!

The other thing they studied was why they do this little dance on top of the ball on occasion.  Crossing a hot stretch of sand, a hot road or whatever they are looking to cool their little hot feet, and they also think they are visually orienting themselves.  Wouldn’t I love to get paid to run experiments like these!

So why did the beetle cross the road?  Well, in the case of dung beetle, to get to his home with the goods as quick as he could.  The ground beetles; the jury is still out.

Harvestmen at Harvest time

 Fall on the Cape meant the return of “Project Life” at our Nature center.  A time when we would teach various grade levels about the pond, forest and marsh.  I loved the Forest program in the fall when we would take the kids out into the woods for a 2-hour field trip looking for all the signs of nature we had been teaching them about in the classroom.  And one thing you could always count on was, a preponderance of harvestmen, “daddy long legs”, covering the fallen logs, looking to find a sweet someone before life just got too cold for an arthropod to bear.

Now here in Texas, I was dazzled my first year by the presence of hundreds and hundreds of a Texas species of harvestmen hanging out in huge clusters in every corner of my overhanging porch. 

And then this year, there was maybe a 1/10^th of the amount and lately even they have disappeared.

However, coming back from a dog walk the other day, I caught sight of a gyrating landscape out of the corner of my eye.  We went over to check it out, Tuck and I, and there were hundreds of harvestmen covering the trunk of a juniper, plus the ground around it and filling an old armadillo hole at the base of this tree. Wow!  So this is where they have been hanging out!  Or, at least it is where they were that day.

But why they were all in such an excited state in the middle of the morning I can’t say.  Harvestmen here do a lot of bouncing up and down on their legs, usually as a way to scare away would be predators and confuse them as to which part is the yummy body and which is just a tangle of less tasty, stilt- like legs.  I had seen the mass bouncing from a distance, but maybe they had seen the dog and I and we were to blame.  Or maybe some other danger was afoot.  But it gives me a good excuse to tell you a few cool things about “daddy longlegs” for in this season you are likely to stumble upon them too.

First of all, if I had a dollar for every child who told me how incredibly venomous they were and we would all be dead except their teeth are too short to puncture our skin, I would be able to fly back to the Cape whenever I wanted.  No, they are not venomous at all.  They are not spiders either; where spiders have 2 body parts, they’re two are fused into one.  Spiders have multiple eyes, harvestmen only have two; spiders inject venom into their prey to turn them into something they can suck out through their straw-like mouthparts, harvestmen chew their food. Harvestmen neither have venom nor silk glands, no web making or flying through the air on a strand of silk, walking is their only way of getting around.

If you do watch one walking, watch how they use their second set of “legs” which are longer than the others as a blind man would use a cane, tap-tapping their way, sensing what is out there.  And if you see one “bobbing” as these do then note that it makes it a little harder to see its body.  Admire them for the fact that this particular body shape and style has served them well for over 410 million years.  Why change a good thing?  And, as this is a family friendly blog, I will simply say that, anatomically, the males are more like males than you think of in an arthropod.

And, last couple of cool facts, they can chose to voluntarily loose a leg to a predator and that leg will keep twitching for up to an hour to keep the focus on the gyrating leg while the rest of the daddy long legs makes its escape.  Think of it like having a pace maker in the leg that keeps it pumping even after the rest of the body is gone.  And, males are the ones to care for the young, and the better the caregiver; the more females are attracted to him.  How his reputation for superior childcare gets passed around I don’t know, but go “DADDY” long legs, maybe that’s how the “daddy” part of the name came to be.

So, even though if feels NOTHING like fall here in TX, I have the harvestmen to make me feel at home.  IF I can find them again, for subsequent checks of that tree and hole have turned up nothing.  Cache this under, another natural history mystery!    

Natural History Mysteries

I am always telling children in my nature programs that to be a naturalist is to be a detective.  Clues abound in the natural world for those who have eyes to see them.  Seeing them doesn’t always mean we will understand what we are seeing, but we are curious about what we have seen.  What it indicates.  Ergo, other names like Curious Naturalist, Naturally Curious etc. are descriptive of what life is like for those of us who find our joy in wondering what the scene before us might imply.

This week has tossed up some “unsolved mysteries” in rapid succession.  I had only been back from Oregon a couple of days, when my morning walk with the dog brought me by an extremely recent “crime scene”.  A fawn, probably about 4 months old, had become the main repast for, whom?  My best educated guess would be a coyote. 

This is just a half-mile from my house, and I have said before I lament the absence of coyote signs here.  I saw far more coyote scats, coyote tracks, coyote sightings in my neighborhood on Cape Cod than here in the supposedly “Wild West”.  In this part of Texas we have the highest concentration of White tailed deer of anywhere else in North America, so the loss of a fawn really isn’t something to be too sad about.  Rather I rejoice with the predator who, for once, got a decent meal. 

Now, here was the mystery, not so much a “Who done it?” for I think a coyote is highly likely, but the next morning when I walked the same area I was all set to explore it more thoroughly, but the deer was gone, completely gone!  Now, perhaps adding an exclamation mark there was uncalled for, for often a catch will be eaten where it was felled, and the rest either cached, or at least dragged to a less conspicuous spot. 

Today, with better shoes on, the dog and I set out to look for some sign, maybe drag marks, or something that might show us where it was now.  And it is amazing how there was nothing there to show it had ever existed; no fur fragments, no scats, no blood, no nothing.  I’m not sure what to attribute that to.  

 The ground here is hard and rocky so tracks are a rare thing and, was it so fresh that no fur was dislodged?  Well, these are questions you perhaps wish I would ask myself silently.  But, I followed some of the deer trails through the junipers where I was lucky not to lose an eye to the many sharp lower branches, but I did finally find it.   Clearly it had been the main course over the last couple of days, and that’s good, “Waste not Want not”.  But now, I was looking all around for a scat; surely after such good eating, nature would have taken its course, but no luck.  That would have helped cinch the notion that it was a coyote.  Mountain lions have been seen here, but that is a wilder supposition.  So, cool; a mystery to work on, and to semi-solve.

Then, lo and behold, cutting through my own front yard, I notice what looks like a patch of ground that is vibrating, and wow!  Hundreds of Harvestmen (think Daddy Long legs) were having some sort of a major “Meet and Greet”.  So, let me do a little deducing on that, and a little research and come back with my hypothesis another day.   

 But I invite you join in in this Curious Naturalist life-the “Game is Afoot”, or more precisely, under foot!

A Tale of Two Cities : Tale One - Witnessing Love

I have done this before; I stray from “natural history” and instead make “personal history” the topic.  That’s where this blog is heading.  “Tale of Two Cities” for I have planned two trips for the fall.  One just completed was to see my much-missed cousins in Portland OR and in a matter of weeks, I will go to see my much missed grandchildren in Portland ME.  How lucky is that?!

When I am traveling, I try to pay attention to what I am “witnessing”, loving the chance encounter with some local flora or fauna that may be common to the area but is uncommon to me.  Then that becomes my topic for any blog that might be about that trip.  But when I thought about my 6 days in Oregon, I thought what I witnessed most, was love. 

  Love of siblings for one another, love of parents for children, of grandparents for grandchildren and not that that is unheard of, but having it all in one place, well it was just a wonderful thing to witness. 

These four cousins were a huge part of my childhood, even though they always lived a distance away (my uncle was in the Army) we visited each other enough that is was the next best thing to having surrogate sisters and brothers.  And even though all of us are technically only ½ Italian, when together, there is so much loving, and laughing, 

 hugging and wine drinking and general bonhomie that our Italian side comes shining through.  Leo Buscaglia would be proud. 

Along with this nurture, there was also nature.  What is more beautiful to eyes that have grown accustomed to beige, than a full onslaught of GREEN?  Lush green grass  with horses standing waist deep in their favorite food.

And the ocean, all wild after a storm, huge fronds of kelp tossed ashore, Dungeness crab shells littering the beach and pelicans flying in formation.

Snow capped mountains, the Willamette Valley, rich from glacial deposits with soil ½ mile thick in places, sporting orchards of hazelnuts, fruit and vineyards touting the best Pinot Noir in the world.

A grand trip, a beautiful state, but again, the lasting impression is one of Love.  Another favorite Bible verse of mine is  “..we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…” and so I was.  I hope you are too.