Daphne in the Hedge

(Also posted at Festival of the Trees at Via Negativa.)



The landscaper pulls you from your hiding place,
Offers to drag you out by the roots.
He counts the trees hidden in the holly,
Spawn smuggled in by the wind,
Overpowering the azalea, thrusting
Differently-shaped leaves past a tidy green profile.

I told him no. I know your profile:
Young nymph fleeing from place to place
With Apollo in pursuit, Cupid's arrow thrusting
In his breast, lusting after you from the roots
Of his soul. And you, terrified, calling to the wind
And to the gods to save you from his unholy

Purpose. They changed you to a laurel, your wood holy
And rendered pure. Now my hedge bears your profile
In mongrel species once hidden from the wind
By conscientious trimming to keep you in your place,
Your wildness lopped at the crown, your roots
Probing the underworld with their relentless thrusting,

Proclaiming your untamed birthright. Now, chicks thrusting
From their eggs in a nest buried in the holly
Send us both back to our roots.
I stay clear of the nest and let your profile
Splay unchecked from tidiness, taking its place
High above the hedge, waving in the wind.

Daily the chicks scream into the wind
For food. Daily their parents oblige, thrusting
Moth and worm down tiny gullets. You take your place
As world-tree, bursting limb after limb through holly
Turned to sacred ground. Hiding that tender profile
Of nest. Letting new lives take root.

Eons away from Apollo's pursuit, your route
Is not an easy one. The rainforests wind
Down to devastation. Clear-cutting turns green profile
To brown. My kind encroach in droves, thrusting
Like the besotted god into your groves. Let my holly
Be a sanctuary, and when trimmed a hiding place,

Until the thrusting of your holy leaves
Again breach tamed suburban profile, in that place
Where we continue to let our roots run wild.

[end of entry]

What's In A Name?

Taken at 9:10:17 PM (EDT) on June 28, using a 4-second exposure at f/3.2. The Moon (11% of full) is visible with Earthshine. The bright dot just to its lower left is Mars. The brighter dot further away just below middle right is Saturn.

At the time I took this photograph, Mercury was further toward the horizon, hidden behind the trees, less than an hour away from setting. Jupiter was climbing toward zenith.

Richard Ellis: "To date, scientists have identified some 450 dinosaur genera based on fossil body parts....Altogether, several thousand dinosaur genera were alive at any one time, which is entirely consistent with estimates for extant mammals, birds, and reptiles."
-- No Turning Back: The Life and Death of Animal Species

450 (let alone several thousand) genera?

That means at least as many and likely many more species.

Ellis adds, "Some dinosaurs had smooth skin and some had scales; some had bumps, horns, frills, spines, or spikes; some had feathers. Some had beaks, and some had a mouthful of huge, serrated teeeth. Some were cold-blooded, like today's reptiles, but some were warm-blooded, like today's birds and mammals."

My own Mesozoic childhood is filled with a thin hardbound picture book and dinosaurs made of forest-green plastic, to the tune of maybe a dozen different creatures. Tyrannosaurus Rex, Brontosaurus (which isn't even called a Brontosaurus any more, but Apatosaurus), Allosaurus, Triceratops (a single dinosaur in my childhood, it now boasts 15 species according to this list, courtesy of the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board in Nova Scotia), Diplodocus, Camptosaurus, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, etc. When I was a kid I thought Ankylosaurus was the coolest thing, kind of a giant armadillo with a club tail.

A limited repertoire of creatures, all looking pretty much like second cousins to Godzilla, hashing it out in a giant jungle amidst belching volcanos.

"Altogether, several thousand dinosaur genera were alive at any one time, which is entirely consistent with estimates for extant mammals, birds, and reptiles." Not a limited repertoire, but an alternate universe. Except it wasn't alternate at all....

The naming is an artificial construct, of course, though one that is (I would presume) naturally hardwired into the brain, human or otherwise. Prairie dogs have been shown to emit different calls at the approach of different individual humans, as reported in the January 6, 2006, Arizona Daily Star. And a May 7, 2006, article in the British Sunday Times presents evidence that dolphins know each other's names and call out their own.

Part of me is like a toddler now, recognizing and calling out to bugs who don't know the names we give them and likely couldn't care less: "Hello, Datana!" Earlier this week I must have seen about half a dozen Datana moths (whose species I still don't know, but at least now I know the genus), hanging out on the mall's brick columns or cement wall. Deliciously weird, tucked tightly into their little wings, looking like miniature and misshapen cigars. Mary calls them "Helmet Heads."

I've got photos now of three different species of Acrolophus moth (I keep mentally hearing it as "Acropolis moth," might do a collage of them peeking out from inside the Greek ruins) that I haven't been able to identify past the genus. Number 2 looks a bit like Acrolophus morus but not quiiiiiiite.... Finding the species name becomes something of a treasure hunt, like guessing Rumplestiltskin's name in order to break a spell.





I found #1 on the post office window and #2 at the mall across the street from the PO late Saturday night.



This third moth, which I'd photographed back in May, is likely Acrolophus plumifrontellus. For those who can see stereograms: View with your eyes crossed, relaxing your gaze as you focus on the "center" image to see this moth as 3D.

Thanks to Dennis Profant at Bugguide.Net for the ID on all three. (Profant teaches Entomology, Ornithology, and Dendrology at Hocking College and has been collecting Lepidoptera in Ohio, Florida, and Michigan for 30 years.) These are all Acrolophus (Tubeworm) moths, Family Acrolophidae (Burrowing Webworm Moths); formerly placed in the family Tineidae. Range: southwestern and eastern United States as far north as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Larvae feed on soil detritus and the roots of grasses and other plants.

"Labial palps often hairy, and when extended over the head give the moth a furry-headed appearance," according to Bugguide. This is the case with #1 and what I first thought were V-shaped head ridges.

(Insert Sound of Music soundtrack in the background, cued to "Getting to Know You.")



This little guy (gal?) was snacking on the lawn of the recently-built apartment complex we pass on our post office walks. The bunny's expression on the left makes me think of Yousuf Karsh's famous photo of Ernest Hemingway, but that's just me.

Eastern Cottontail, Sylvilagus floridanus, Family Leporidae (Hares and Rabbits). One of two species of rabbit in Florida (the Marsh Rabbit is the other), the Eastern Cottontail also "has the widest distribution of any Sylvilagus. It is found from southern Manitoba and Quebec to Central and northwestern South America. In the contiguous United States, the eastern cottontail ranges from the east to the Great Plains in the west." (University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.) Grass accounts for about 50 percent of the cottontail's diet.

Says the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, "The young are born from March through September after a gestation period of 26 to 30 days. Females may have three to four litters with from four to seven young in a single year. Rabbits nest on the ground and the young are born with eyes closed."



I had gone out to get the newspaper when I noticed Venus in the East. I took this freehand at 6:05 AM (EDT) on June 27, less than a half hour before sunrise for this location. "Through a telescope, it looks like a brilliant white, waning gibbous moon," says Observing the Sky.



Mary spotted what I believe is a Checkered White (Pontia protodice, Family Pieridae (Whites and Yellows)) by the "post office pond." It remained quite blase as I crouched nearby, moving gradually closer. Mary calls this one the "Victorian Lace Butterfly."



I got clearer shots of these male Eastern Amberwings than I had back on June 20. Perithemis tenera, Family Libellulidae (Common Skimmers). According to Bugguide.Net, "Except along the U.S.-Mexican border, this is the only tiny dragonfly with amber wings on the male." By tiny they mean about a one-inch wingspan. The range of this dragonfly is the eastern two-thirds of the United States and south into Mexico. "Primarily a summer species; active all year in the far southern U.S."



A male Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) perches on some windswept grass at the "post office pond." More detail is visible in the large view (click the magnifying glass for this and other enlargements).



Our crape myrtle trees are finally flowering in earnest. Best viewed large.



I finally got a shot with good detail of this lovely resident of our front hedge -- and confirmed her Orchard Orbweaver identity by comparing her with volcano's gorgeous shot at Bugguide.Net. Leucauge venusta, Family Tetragnathidae (Longjawed Orb Weavers). "Spins its web at an angle and hangs in the center," according to Bugguide. Our spider's web angle is particularly visible in this shot, taken almost 12 hours earlier when I was photographing Venus.

Non-compressed, as-is out of the camera. View large to greet her eye-to-eye. (A side view is here.)

This species ranges from southern Canada to Panama: "egg mass is attached to leaves and twigs near web; spiderlings disperse and spin own webs."

More to come (including a cattle egret in full breeding coloration, who was moseying around the parking lot outside our local supermarket), after I upload some video at our DSL-enabled library. In the meantime I've got 3 jobs in, which will keep me busy through the weekend. No rush, but I'll be pacing out the days.

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Parameters of Flight

Roseate skimmer. More detail is in the large view (click on the magnifying glass).

Above the pond, above the trees, in orbit....

The water in the "post office pond" slowly recedes. The spillway begins to dry, and what is left becomes thick and murky.

On the summer solstice it was thick with Odonata -- the order that includes both dragonflies and damselflies. Rainbow colors: orange Eastern Amberwings, orange and black Halloween Pennants, bright Blue Dashers and Atlantic Bluets -- and pink dragonflies that made my eyes widen.

Those were the Roseate Skimmers, Orthemis ferruginea, Family Libellulidae (Common Skimmers). According to eNature.com, "Often the male does not attain full color until a few days after emergence. The short, squat naiads, to 1 1/4" (33 mm) long, inhabit shallower, warmer waters than naiads of other families and tend to be more active, maturing more rapidly."

Before I'd seen the skimmers I came upon a quartet of White Ibises -- three adults and one still-dark-feathered juvenile. That made me revise my "kiddie pool" assumption. Prior to the solstice I'd seen young juveniles only at the "library pond."



Very slowly I made my way down the rise, toward the spillway. I averted my gaze, glancing back in the birds' direction every so often, making sure they remained unperturbed by my presence. When Mary is with me we keep closer to the road. But I figured that if I could habituate a wild hare and a moose to my presence (chronicled in "Hare's Grove" and in "The Unexpected Trails"), maybe I could do so with the ibises.

Near the water I sat on a dried lip of spillway and watched as the young bird attended to its personal hygiene.

Bird Bath (0:47)


One of the adults seems to be offering a flying lesson here, but the juvenile already knows quite well how it's done.

Flying Lesson (0:39)


Ibis in Flight (0:19)


I thought another ibis was lingering at the far end of the pond. Instead, it was a Great Egret.



Great Egret in Flight (0:41)


(Back on Monday, after recording a video of lightning (0:29) from the banks of the pond, I had followed the antics of a flock of about 20 ibises on a neighbor's lawn. They star in "Ibis Convention, Part 1" (2:46) and "Ibis Convention, Part 2" (2:59), divided into two segments due to uploading space constraints.)

Once the birds had gone I ventured to the water's edge, moving slowly among the dragonflies. The temperature was around 95 degrees, the heat index about 102. It still amazes me that the heat and humidity doesn't bother me as much as it rightfully should. The secret of living here is to embrace one's sweat.



Halloween Pennant, Celithemis eponina, Family Libellulidae (Common Skimmers). Also called a Brown-Spotted Yellow Wing. Ranges throughout eastern North America, year-round in Florida. "Predatory on other insects," says Bugguide.Net. "Males are not territorial, perch near edge of ponds, waiting for incoming females. Mating typically takes place in the morning. Oviposition is in tandem. Frequently seen perched on weeds in fields as it forages, pivoting with the wind."

Based on this one's behavior (perched on weeds by the pond) and the photo posted at Bob Moul's nature photography site, I'm guessing it's a male.



Here a male Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) faces off against a male Atlantic Bluet damselfly (Enallagma doubledayi, below and slightly to the left of the dasher).

At around 4 AM yesterday, shortly before our morning paper was delivered, Mary knocked on my studio door (I hadn't yet gone to bed) and said, "You've got to come see the Milky Way."

My first conscious memory of the Milky Way dates from 1979, though I had probably first seen it in 1972. When I graduated from my K-8 elementary school, my parents had given me a small refractor telescope. My chief memories of the telescope come from nights spent in Brooklyn, on the porch outside my grandmother's room while she wintered in Florida. But I had also brought the telescope to the Gilcrest Motel in New Hampshire's White Mountains, where my parents and I vacationed during the summer and to which I returned in "The Unexpected Trails". Up there, the scope was useless to me -- there were simply too many stars in the sky for me to find any familiar reference points. The Summer Triangle would have been up, and therefore the Milky Way slicing through it, but I have no memory of that.

Instead, my first Milky Way memory occurs on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, I think in Santa Barbara, in August of 1979. I'd been on my honeymoon (I left the marriage 3-1/2 years later) and on my first trip to California. The Milky Way hung above phosphorescent surf, bright enough for me to see its Great Rift.

It was bright enough for me to see the Great Rift here, too, yesterday morning, as Mary and I stood on our driveway. Soon a waning crescent moon three days short of New (12% of full) glowed from behind trees, then gradually rose above them.



By overexposing the crescent I was able to capture earthshine.



In earthshine, the moon reflects light from two different sources. The thin crescent is light reflected from the sun. But the larger, dimmer illumination, in which one can see some hint of the mares ("seas"), is reflected from the Earth, which itself is reflecting sunlight onto the moon. Hence the term "earthshine". That dimmer illuminated part of the moon is doubly-reflected light.

An artificial satellite was headed in the natural satellite's general direction. Based on info at Heavens Above it was probably the OAO 2 Rocket. OAO 2, the first successful orbiting astronomical observatory, was launched on December 7, 1968.

According to Wikipedia, OAO 2 "carried 11 ultraviolet telescopes. It observed successfully until January 1973, and contributed to many significant astronomical discoveries. Among these were the discovery that comets are surrounded by enormous haloes of hydrogen, several hundred thousand kilometres across, and observations of novae which found that their UV brightness often increased during the decline in their optical brightness."

Our post office walk last night had us heading home after dark. Mary and I swung past the post office pond, where barking frogs and green treefrogs (heard here) were in splendid voice. We listened to them as we stargazed.

The first artificial satellite cut right across the pincers of Scorpius, which made identification easy: the Cosmos 2237 Rocket, launched by Russia on March 26, 1993.

According to Russian Space Web, Cosmos 2237 carried a Tselina-2 electronic intelligence satellite. The Tselina program dates back to the 1970s and is ongoing: "According to reliable sources, during the visit of the Russian president Vladimir Putin to Ukraine in January 2001, two sides agreed to proceed with the plans of launching a pair of Tselina-2 satellites for Russia's Armed Forces. Both spacecraft were apparently in the state of assembly at the time of the agreement."

Shortly thereafter we tracked the Aureole 2 Rocket, launched on December 26, 1973. A joint project of France and what was then the Soviet Union, Aureole 2 (also called Oreol-2) studied energy transport from the Sun to the Earth. (Source: The Ultimax Group, Inc.)

Jupiter hung high overhead as we walked home. A shadow -- most likely a bat -- flitted across our path at eye level as we passed a small park, listening to regularly-spaced, high-pitched peeps (heard here) from high up in a tree. Whether bat or bird, we don't know, though we suspect it was a bat.

"The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there's an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth, world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking said Tuesday." Associated Press, June 14, 2006, as presented by MSNBC. "He added that if humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years, they should have space settlements that can continue without support from Earth."

Said Hawking, speaking in Hong Kong, "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."

I thought of Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 -- but where Bradbury wrote of committing books to memory, of individuals becoming the texts in essence and identity, I think of place. Not a country, or a city. Perhaps not even a square block. Nothing that falls into a tidy unit. Or into a tidy species, separated out from the rest of its environment.

How does one capture and preserve the memory of a melange of life -- so many creatures and phenomena impinging on so many senses, even within our limited, human-centered perception? As I watch and listen to today's avian dinosaurs (see "Magic Pond #2 and More") I know that, in the end, we can only guess what their Mesozoic ancestry was like from the traces left behind. Did their ancestors roar, or did they warble? Did they sound like something else entirely? Now that ancient feathered dinosaurs have entered the realm of the possible, what color might their plumage have been? What was that world really like?

No matter how close we come from studying the evidence, we have no way to tell. All we have is the barest outline. The rest is left to our imagination, extrapolating from paltry cues.

I grew up aching to travel into space. Star Trek defined not only my popular culture but my spirituality; the Trek adventures I wrote as a kid evolved into the science fiction I write now -- yet that science fiction is either Earth-based or set in an environment very similar to Earth's.

In the 1970s a NASA publication called Spinoffs detailed the thousands of patents, born of space exploration, that directly benefited life on this planet. The seismic detector technology of early lunar probes found its way into meat tenderometers used by the USDA to gauge food quality. ECHO weather balloon mylar found new application in "Magic Mirror" wallpaper designed to save on heating and cooling costs. The Golden Canopy, a special bed for burn victims, took its cue from astronaut faceplates, in which gold strands conducted heat to keep astronauts' faces from freezing in the cold of space. On Earth, the temperature-controllable canopy replaced a primitive and inefficient setup of blankets draped over hoops.

I came across that information 30 years ago -- at a time when Americans spent more money on cosmetics than on NASA's entire budget. I have no idea how the numbers compare today.

My childhood dream has transformed over time. My space travel -- "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations" -- goes forward at warp speed, all within a mile of home. Distance is replaced by depth, even as I realize that I only scratch the surface. I remain a tourist in my own back yard.

But one thing is clear. Regardless of how much Earth is at risk from cataclysm (and it wouldn't be the first time), and the potential necessity of Hawkings' message, I believe we can't ever come close to conceiving of all that we would lose by leaving it behind.

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Happy Summer Solstice!

It must be summer -- Mary and I have finally put in our order for hurricane shutters....

Four photos went into this collage, two of which I've already posted here: the "post office pond" from "Magic Pond #1" and the flower from "St. Augustine". To those I've added the statue:



I photographed her on Monday as I walked through the neighborhood, finding a position where she held her hands before her face and was looking at the camera. Actually, she's holding a bird. And clouds:



This one dates from May 25, taken from outside the art league.

Except for final cropping and conversion from Bitmap to JPEG (done in MS Photo Editor), I did all the manipulations here in MS Paint. Clicking on the collage image and scrolling down to the comment box at Flickr will access more of the "recipe" of how I put the piece together.

I couldn't resist doing this next one --



The street sign actually reads, "MELISSA DR." When I saw this mockingbird perched on it I had to take a shot and do some creative cropping.

The shot was a bit blurred, so I watercolorized it in MS Photo Editor to give it some "artistic license." Then I brought it into MS Paint, where I masked the "DR" with copied bits of green. Finally I added the speech bubble in MS PowerPoint.

I found a (for me) new denizen of the "post office pond" -- several of these little guys were zipping around, just above the water. I was finally able to get a shot of one holding still.



Male Eastern Amberwing, Perithemis tenera, Family Libellulidae (Common Skimmers). According to Bugguide.Net, "Except along the U.S.-Mexican border, this is the only tiny dragonfly with amber wings on the male." By tiny they mean about a one-inch wingspan. The range of this dragonfly is the eastern two-thirds of the United States and south into Mexico. "Primarily a summer species; active all year in the far southern U.S."

Two days after I'd gotten a rear-view shot of the Blue Dasher (also shown in "Magic Pond #1"), I was afforded a front view.


More detail is in the large view (click the magnifying glass).

I also spotted my first Orange Bluet Damselfly, but haven't yet gotten a clear shot of it.

Tomorrow I'll be e-mailing the printer my first issue of the art league's newsletter, the Palette. The summer issue is my apprenticeship, as the task passes from its outgoing editor to me. I'll be taking over the editorship fully in the fall. Meanwhile, sets of tapes from two clients are headed this way.

The hurricane shutters won't get here for at least another 8 weeks, which is to be expected. Mary's been insulating the house and our thermostat's been reflecting the difference. Cool. (Literally.)

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Magic Pond #2 and More: Sunday, June 18

Juvenile ibises at the "library pond." More detail can be seen in the large view. (Click the magnifying glass for this and subsequent large views.)

I usually drive to our local library, but yesterday Mary and I walked there as part of a six-mile jaunt. The library pond is down the road from our oft-visited post office pond.

The ibises we've seen at the post office pond have been adults and older juveniles, which have mostly white feathers with some gray mottling here and there. This was the first time I'd seen younger juveniles in town. I wonder if the library pond might be the ibises' equivalent of the "kiddie pool" -- and, if so, what qualifies it as such.

Richard Ellis: "Most paleontologists today believe that living birds are directly descended from dinosaurs, and that 'avian' dinosaurs are thus not extinct at all."
-- No Turning Back: The Life and Death of Animal Species

I tend not to think of dinosaurs when I watch sparrows or spot a dove on a wire. But between the ibises and other denizens of these subtropics, sometimes I feel I'm Livin' La Vida Flintstone....


Click here for the large view.

Mary and I had watched a program in which paleontologists researched the closest habitat they could find to what had existed at the time of the dinosaurs. The location they chose was in southern Florida. Even where I am in central Florida, it takes only a few steps off the asphalt for me to feel as though I stand in the middle of something ancient.

Or no steps off the asphalt at all. This morning, as I crossed the county road, I saw an ibis glide past the facade of our local CVS, before I had time to capture that ancient/modern juxtaposition on pixel.


Click here for the large view.

Today a flock of around 20 ibises -- the largest gathering I've seen thus far -- poked around a neighbor's yard. A mockingbird sang in counterpoint to thunder rumbling in the distance. As I focused the camera I caught flashes of lightning out the corner of my eye. That video is forthcoming after I upload it at the library.


Click here for the large view.

A juvenile is joined by a snowy egret at right.

Originally Mary and I had planned to walk just to the library and back on Sunday, for a total of four miles. Once we reached the library we decided to continue on.



Ahead lies the forest. Behind lies a major, four-lane boulevard that winds down to the local elementary school and then to a large strip mall and county road. We stopped at the strip mall for a meal before heading back home.

The space between these two sets of palms looks almost like an entranceway, but it is not. So far as I know, this forest (or this part of it) contains no trails. As I said to Mary, "If the forest isn't already private property, then it belongs to the animals." Which it does, anyway. To enter would be to trespass, regardless of whether or not a property deed is involved.

Above us, two birds of prey circled, calling to each other. Every so often one would take a nosedive and then spring up in the air again. They were too far away for me to identify and I could photograph only a silhouette of one (resembling a kestrel or a nighthawk). But I recorded their calls (click here for the recording), and will see if I can identify the birds from that.

Also between the left and right palms is a barely-visible patch of moss. By the time we reached this spot, I had already photographed a different patch:


Click here for the large view.

What looks like wires is actually plant material. Clicking on the large-view link below will reveal even more.


Click here for the large view.


Click here for the large view.

I had photographed this Virgin Palm (Dioon edule, Family Zamiaceae) last month, but it is yet another example of our Livin' La Vida Flintstone. According to Floridata.com, this is not really a palm but a cycad, "belonging to a group of cone bearing plants which trace their origins back to the ancient flora of the early Mesozoic era." In other words, 248 to 65 million years ago: the time of the dinosaurs.

On my way home today I had my recorder at the ready, capturing contemporary avian dinosaur song* amidst rolling thunder.

* mockingbird, with a touch of mourning dove

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Magic Pond #1: Saturday, June 17

The "post office pond" on Saturday had looked deceptively empty. Only while I was filming a video of Atlantic Bluet damselflies did I hear Mary suddenly shout, "Look up!" -- as a flock of eight white ibises glided in for a landing.

Before then, assuming there was no wildlife around to be disturbed by my presence, I had made my way down to the water's edge....

Unlike the retention pond around the corner from our home, the post office pond keeps its water except in times of drought. Tropical Storm Alberto had filled it almost to overflowing, water backing up spillways.



I saw the Bluets first.


More detail is in the large view. (Click the magnifying glass for this and subsequent large views.)

Enallagma doubledayi, Family Coenagrionidae (Narrow-winged Damselflies). According to Bugguide.Net, these damsels range along southeast and northeast coastal areas and fly from mid-May to late October.

The University of Florida adds, "This damselfly species is one of several where the male holds the female above the water so she will not fall in (and die) while laying eggs. The male holds her by the neck with his pincers while she inserts eggs into the tissues of submerged plants. Once she has finished laying her eggs, the male helps her out of the water."


More detail is in the large view.

The female at left is laying eggs while the male at right holds her out of the water -- though she seems to have found purchase on the plant. At first I didn't realize what was happening here. It seemed the pair was mating, but for that to happen the tips of their abdomens should touch. I subsequently read that pincers occur at the tip of the abdomen as well.

Mary was bent over by the spillway, looking for minnows. Instead, she saw tadpoles and called me over.



I have no idea what species (singular or plural) they are. The video Polliwog's Cakewalk takes its name from "Golliwog's Cakewalk," from Claude Debussy's Children's Corner Suite.



A male Blue Dasher dragonfly perched not far off. At first I'd thought it was a Dragonhunter (which, as the name implies, preys on other dragonflies), owing to its green eyes and the color and shape of its thorax. But the blue abdomen places this one squarely in the Blue Dasher camp. Thanks to Elizabeth Moon for the ID.


More detail is in the large view.

Pachydiplax longipennis, Family Libellulidae (Common Skimmers). According to Bugguide.Net, these dragonflies range across "much of the United States, and just edging into Canada. In the United States, absent from the Dakotas and the Rocky Mountain region. Range continues into Mexico." I'd photographed a female Blue Dasher back in March.

The video Dragon and Damsels opens with the Blue Dasher flying off.



Mary's call of "Look up!" at the end of this video heralded the ibises' arrival.



We backed up from the pond, edging toward the road. I stopped at the sight of swallow-tailed kites overhead.



Elanoides forficatus, Family Accipitridae (hawks, eagles, etc.). According to eNature.com, "The Swallow-tailed Kite is the most aerial of our birds of prey. It catches much of its insect food on the wing, snatches lizards from the trunks of trees, eats what it has caught while flying, drinks by skimming the surface of ponds and marshes, and even gathers nesting material by breaking dead twigs from the tops of trees as it flies past. Formerly more abundant, this distinctive bird nested as far north as Minnesota and Illinois, but habitat destruction and indiscriminate shooting reduced it to its present range."

Writes John E. Cely at the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, "Currently, the kite occupies a remnant breeding range of seven, possibly eight, southern states that historically included at least 21 states.... It is state-listed by South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) as an endangered species and a high priority species of concern by Partners in Flight (PIF)."

I'd photographed the kite above three days earlier, on June 14. This time I took a video of it in flight. (Note: This video has some loud wind noise.)



On Sunday the 18th we took a six-mile jaunt that included the "library pond," along a route I usually drive rather than walk. I now suspect that the library pond is known among the birds as the "ibis kiddie pool." More to come.

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Datana Speedway!

Photo credits other than mine: The racetrack and cheering crowd can be seen here. That image belongs to The Mural Shoppe at BerlinWallpaper.com: "Luxurious Hand Painted Murals, Digitally Reproduced At Affordable Prices." They're in West Berlin, New Jersey. The image is actually a hand-painted mural of Daytona International Speedway. The signs and background rising above the seats can be seen here. That image belongs to Superbike Store: "Your USA Mail Order European Parts Specialists." Those folks are located in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Florida, the location of Daytona International Speedway and the prestigious Daytona 500, also hosts 8 species of Datana Moths. The ones shown here just happen to be turbo-charged.

Datana velociptera* (veloci, Latin for "fast" + ptera, Greek for "wing"). Datana, coined by someone named Walker in 1855, is presumed to be an anagram of Nadata, another genus Walker discovered. Bugguide.Net's explanation for "Nadata" is that it's presumed to be an anagram of Datana.** Sounds like pretty circular logic if you ask me.

The kind of circle a racetrack would make. It all starts to make sense....

Upon hatching, larvae of Datana velociptera gravitate immediately toward petroleum products, skeletonizing air intake filters in their migration toward warm engine parts. Early caterpillar molts are a dull, metallic gray, often mistaken for lead wheel weights. Later molts combine specialized spot patterns and short, fine cilii to make the larvae virtually indistinguishable from fuzzy dice.

Body shops consider them to be automotive pests, particularly during metamorphosis, when Datana velociptera pupate in chrysalids woven in the shape of five-point harnesses cemented to transmission shafts. Adult moths do not feed, though may sip the nectar of power steering oil. Mating occurs between the pages of NASCAR romance novels.

* There really is no such critter.
** On the other hand, this part really is true.

Made using MS Paint and MS Photo Editor. I've removed the race cars and other items extraneous to my je ne sais quoi. And I've changed the spelling of the race track to reflect the nature of its new competitors.

I can lay claim to the moth images:


Front view


Side view

This one was on a column at the post office mall. I knew I was looking at a moth, but I didn't know if I was looking at a chrysalid or at a moth tucked more snugly inside its wings than I'd ever seen before (the latter is the case). Thanks to Patrick Coin at Bugguide.Net for identifying it as being in the genus Datana, Family Notodontidae. Bugguide: "Distinctive as a genus, difficult as to species."

Except for the ones at the track.

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