A Stubborn New Englander’s Confession

OK, OK, admit it Pat, Texas IS nice in the winter, isn’t it?  Say, it, come on, say it!  All right.

Texas IS nice, is very nice, from Jan-May.  Really.  It is one long spring with short interruptions for winter, and occasionally fall, but mostly spring.  December would fit into that spring category too but that doesn’t make it “nice” in my book.  For that matter, I really struggle with that being all wrong!  I simply can’t generate a “fa la la” feeling in days that waiver from spring to summer. 

But now, I have had my snow “fix” in Maine at Christmas, I have had my vicarious blizzard experience through my daughter in Baltimore and I am ready to feel like it really could be spring.  The birds in my yard are raising the decibels of their territorial calls, especially the titmice, what amazing volume those little birds put out. It gets extremely screechy around here when one pair dares to tread on another pairs assigned branches.  Or so it seems to me. 

Whenever there is a real racket going on outside, I slip out to see what the “breaking news” in the branches is all about.  There are a lot of feral cats around and even though my yard is fenced in, I often expect to see one lurking under the jasmine near the feeders. But so far, that has never been the case. Instead, whether it is titmice or scrub jays, chickadees or wrens that are getting all worked up, the loud annoyance seems to be directed at one another.  A, “How dare you cross into my territory” sort of thing and from my experience that is a sign that nesting areas are being fought over.  I could be wrong, but there is a whole lot of excited twittering going on out there lately.

            http://www.highlandsaudubonsociety.org/Ed's%20Indigo%20Buntings,%20etc.html

I do remember hearing chickadees making their “fee-bee” territorial calls in winter on the Cape.  If I remember correctly, I would hear it in Feb, which also used to surprise me, but establishing a bit of woods to call your own is serious business.  The ones with the best nesting trees, food supply, water, and who knows, maybe even a lovely view, will probably have the most successful nesting season.

It also stands to reason then, that if you have feeders out, water available and decent nesting trees, your yard becomes primo real estate.  Be listening then for bird rumbles. Let the racket draw you out of your house to see what is going on. You may see a male titmouse on a high speed chase of another male through the branches.  Chickadee women seem to stand by their men, so watch for 4 birds to be facing off.  Impossible to tell male from female but the males are acting aggressively while the females seem to be giving them the “Go get ‘em Harry” kind of support.

Even if you live in the more northern areas that are clearly in the grip of winter it is time to start watching and listening for this.  Remember, the days ARE getting longer and that is the signal birds are looking for.  Nesting won’t start, even here in Texas for another month or more, but house hunting may be happening where you are right now. 

And, admit it Pat, it is nice to be able to pop out on the porch to see what is going on without donning layers of clothes isn’t it?  OK, OK, it is.  Are my, “We love Texas over every other place” friends satisfied now?  Not really, for they know, in just 4 short months I will be whining again that it is just toooooo hot in Texas.  But for now, it is just right, and I AM thankful!

My Birthday Blizzard

Even though the appropriate phrase for the day should be “65 and Still Alive”, I must confess there are huge swaths of my brain that never made it past 10!  For example, the part of the brain responsible for having mature responses to oncoming storms.  I never outgrew the crazy delight and anticipation of a storm, really any storm barreling it’s way toward me. 

Snow storms of course, were the most magical: the possibility of no school/no work, the captivating sight of wind-driven snow swirling under the streetlight, the world shimmering in diamonds when the storm ended and the sun came out.   I simply never outgrew the immense joy of that. 

So, today is my birthday, and what a great gift.  The only snag is, it is being delivered to the wrong zip code.  Not nature’s fault but mine for moving to a place where a blizzard would come under the category of the miraculous.

However, I can live vicariously, for one of my daughter’s lives in Baltimore, in the absolute bulls-eye of this storm and she also has that arrested development syndrome when it comes to snow.  Her sled is ready, the hot chocolate’s brewing, and with enough “Sherpa style” clothing and “Smart Wool” socks, she should be fine.

On the Cape we would be filling bath tubs with water plus as many jugs as we could muster for, when you are on a well, no electricity means no pump, ergo no water. Unlike a hurricane, blizzards cause no worries about food spoilage for the world is your refrigerator. 

I must say, part of feeling my 65 years is that I can start to say, old-person like, “when I was young” why even, “when I was middle-aged”, snowstorms weren’t named, not even bona fide blizzards.  They were simply blizzards.  There is something more menacing about a storm heading your way that has a name.  I don’t know when hurricanes decided to share that personal trait.  Perhaps when news became the hyperbole it is today.

One of our military assignments was 3 years at Ft Drum, NY.  There was a place that totally underplayed their snow. Calmly, “Lake Effect snow” would be forecast and that was it.  Wump! 4 ft of snow would arrive in the span of 12 hours or less and no one said much about it.  Our streets on base weren’t plowed in the normal manner but rather “packed down” till, leaving base meant your car had to nose dive a foot or so to the more traditionally plowed streets of the town.  My second daughter was born there in Feb and I thought I would likely be giving birth in a snow bank.  The total snow for that year was 12 ft and, once again, I don’t remember any Fox News coverage of that.  The fact that the troops from Alaska came to Ft Drum for winter training was pretty telling.

So, Happy Birthday to me, and again, I took the liberty of just prattling on rather than playing the instructor.  If you are in the path of this blizzard, I do pray you are safe so I don’t have to feel guilty about being excited about it.  And for information on how the snow is a blessing to some animals, you might want to look back at “Life in the Subnivian Zone” that was originally written on Feb 5, 2011. The salient facts remain the same. 

I can’t wait to hear from my daughter who will be my “snow boots” on the ground and see the pictures of what heights the drifts will achieve.  Stay warm everyone and may we all, in some part of our brain stay “Forever Young”.

  

A Worthy Resolution To LOOK Where You are Walking

 

Perhaps you think this is an admonition to take your eyes off your cellphone and look both ways before you cross the street.  Good advice surely, but my intention here, with what might become a series of blogs, is to encourage you, for your mental and physical sake, to take a walk in the woods, or the field, or your neighborhood park. Not a power walk but a walk where you stop and LOOK at what lies around you.  This kind of walking may not lower your weight, but I can guarantee, it will lower your stress.

When I worked at a nature center on the Cape, I started a weekly walking club with that exact intention.  I think my promo might have said something like, “This is not walking to raise your heart rate, but to lower your blood pressure”.  And it did.  We met weekly for 3 years and became the Wild Women of Wednesday, walking through the many fabulous conservation areas on the Cape.  And lower our blood pressure it did, plus it created bonds of friendship that continue to this day even though I have been in Texas these past four years.  But the whole point of our walk was to LOOK!

 As a naturalist, I am always looking for signs of animals, for to me there is something thrilling knowing, for example, that an otter was here and recently, as evidenced by the still steaming otter scat, even if I didn’t get a chance to see the otter itself.  

Now, admittedly, telling you what to look for when I don’t know your location or what flora and fauna is common to your area is a bit tricky. I have lived most of my life in a temperate zone so if you share that habitat there is a good chance that you can see what I see.  For instance, if you have oak trees in your neck of the woods, and acorns are still visible on the ground, not all sequestered away by squirrels or covered in snow, then here is an assignment for you. Pick several acorns up and look for a small but perfect hole somewhere on them.

 If you find one, you are seeing the sign of a curculio beetle, an insect that is as prevalent here in Texas as it was on the Cape.  It is in the weevil family and I love that it reminds me of Gonzo on the Muppets.  I have NEVER seen an adult curculio but their progeny in their larval state are often present in that acorn with the perfect hole. 

Remember learning the complete insect life cycle in 4^th grade -egg/larva/pupa/adult?  In this case, the egg is laid by the female curculio in summer when the acorns are developing. She uses that Gonzo-like beak to drill a perfect hole through the acorn shell and deposits one egg per hole.  Often you will find acorns with several holes and whether they are laid by the same female or multiple females, I honestly don’t know.

When the egg hatches, the larva will feed on the nutmeat until the acorn drops in the fall.  Then it may take 3-5 days to exit the acorn and burrow into the ground where it will spend the winter.  Some articles say they can remain underground for as long as 5 years before pupating and emerging as an adult to start the cycle all over again. 

Whether you are walking alone, or with a child, finding these hidden insects right at your feet can be pretty exciting.  This is not an endangered animal; feel free to crack the acorn open and look inside.  If it is fall, you may meet the larvae itself, all white and wiggly with a distinct head, just place him on the ground and no harm is done, he will continue on his way underground. 

If it has exited, stage left, you can see the tunnels where it ate the nutmeat as it grew.  If you find an acorn that has been only partially eaten, say just the top, than more than likely this was a squirrel going for the protein of a tasty grub.  I love that there is a study out there that says squirrels prefer acorns with curculio grubs in it 3-1 to plain acorns!  What Federal Grant funded that research! Birds too, love to eat the larvae, a hammered on acorn is sign of a jay or other bird getting a bit of protein.  So, how cool is that!  Honestly, there is so much to see in the world at your feet if you just LOOK, and so much to discover if you have a curious mind to boot. 

Perhaps if I can share some of these most common “finds” with you, we could all start off the New Year with a desire to look less at our cell phones or at headlines that warn of disaster at every turn, and more at beauty, wonder and the intricacies of life that are present all around you. Sound like a plan?  I think so.  Next time, “Looking for Latrines”.  Who would want to miss that?

Happy New Year everyone, may it be a year of improved “Sight”!