Watching the World Unfold

So much has happened this month! The babies turned 16 and 16 and 20, which is...like...I don't even know what to think about having a 20-year-old child. I need more time to process it, like another 20 years. In the meantime, outside, the grass has grown and the trees have made leaves. Flowers have come and gone on the alders and aspens and apples. We already have buttercups and blue-eyed grass in the meadow. Does it seem like spring is happening faster than it's supposed to? Does it seem like everything is happening faster than it's supposed to? (See: babies, above.)

Right now the whole world (or at least my tiny corner of it) is that perfect shade of new green where every leaf and blade is fresh and unmarked by drought or caterpillar nibble, and I want it to stay like this forever, except that I'm as much in love with the caterpillars that nibble the leaves (excluding the brown-tailed moth caterpillars; I don't love those at all) and the warblers that nibble the caterpillars as I am with the green. The other day I was watching a dragonfly whir around my yard and I saw a Phoebe dart after it and I didn't even know which one to root for. This is why I can't watch sports; I want everyone to win--the leaves, the bugs, the birds.

In other news, a painted turtle crossed our driveway the other day, heading away from a patch of soil Curry just rototilled. I'm hoping it laid eggs (and that raccoons don't find the eggs; okay, I'll root for turtle eggs over raccoons). We have tree swallows nesting in at least three birdhouses, bluebirds (for the first time) in another, chickadees in another, and a family of phoebes under the deck. Someone is building a nest foundation of moss in yet another house, and I'm hoping it's tufted titmice. We had a nestful last year and they were the most attentive parents, bringing bugs and clearing out the fecal pellets (unlike the swallows who live in insect-infested filth), and the babies chirped so sweetly from inside the box. I came very close to seeing them fledged but missed it due to impatience. I'm hoping for a second chance.

And this week so many butterflies appeared: tiger swallowtails, azures, American coppers, common ringlets, and a possible sighting of a harvester (the only carnivorous butterfly; if that doesn't give you nightmares I don't know what will). There's simply too much going on to waste time on things like work. I'm working on a plan to reconfigure my life. It's not fleshed out yet, but whatever it eventually entails, I know I need to leave May wide open so that I have time to watch the world unfold and contemplate how old my children have become.

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The Sun Rose Red

Yesterday the sun rose red in a smudgy sky, a result of the wildfires burning 2,500 miles away. The meteorology nerd inside of me is fascinated by the workings of the jetstream, but the former air quality regulator in me is distressed about the health of those experiencing the brunt of the smoke. And the naturalist in me is in agony over the effects on wild places--rare and endangered plants and animals, invertebrates, like butterflies, that spend a part of their lifecycle immobile in eggs or pupae that cannot escape or survive fire. Fire is a natural part of the ecosystems of western North America, but the fires burning now are anything but natural, the results of a century of forest mismanagement and an even longer period of fossil fuel abuse.

As the West burns, hurricanes launch themselves at the Gulf Coast and, of course, the pandemic looms as dangerous as ever, despite the magical thinking that is our national policy. All these problems result from humanity's irresponsible use of natural resources and the continued disregard for human life on the part of those who benefit with profit or power from that disregard. It's almost too depressing to get out of bed every day.

Later in the day, as I was walking up my road, I saw a dragonfly fall out of the sky and land on its back. I went over and held my finger to its upturned legs. It grabbed on, letting me pick it up.

I walked on, new friend perched on my fingertip, facing forward as I walked. I wondered what it was thinking as it traveled through the air without moving its wings. I know that dragonflies don't have consciousness in the way we do, but it's hard to not think of them as sentient beings with their big eyes and oddly anthropomorphic faces. They surely have some way of processing stimuli, and it was interesting to put myself inside its tiny brain as it tried to comprehend this new experience.

There were no obvious signs of injury on either its body or wings, but it clung to my finger for most of a mile, occasionally shivering its thorax. When we reached the beaver pond, I held it (or, more properly, her; she had a ovipositor) so she could see out over the water, hoping the sight would inspire in her a will to live. And it did. She lifted off my finger, but instead of darting out over the pond, she rose up high, high above the trees until I could see her now longer.

My dragonfly friend--a Canada darner--reminded me of the resilience of life. Her ancestors, big as kites, flew around the swamps of the Carboniferous period 300 or so million years ago. The earth has seen many changes, some of them catastrophic, many more remarkable. We happen to be in a stage of catastrophe. That doesn't mean the remarkable can't also happen. 

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The Most Fragrant Flowers

I've been working on two writing projects this summer—both of which involve deep dives into research, one in my own personal records, journals, and photographs, the other into two centuries of other women's writing. It's hard to feel productive while doing research, at least in that dogged American protestant work ethic way we're stuck with, when all you have to show at the end of the day is a few scribbled notes or pages marked with sticky notes. Still, it's usually engrossing work and I might not come up for air at all if it weren't for the wants and needs of my family. Apparently I'm still required to cook dinner.

Other things keeping me from turning into a dusty book mite are a couple of more community-minded projects I'm involved in. One of these is co-coordinating the 2020 training course for the Maine Master Naturalist Program, which has, like everything, gone online. This weekend we'll have our first in-person field day since February—in small groups, properly distanced, masked, and sanitized—and everyone's thrilled to finally be teaching and learning in real life. Perhaps that's the lesson of this trying year—appreciate the small things, like a walk with fellow naturalists at the arboretum, or breathing.

Another of my ongoing volunteer activities is editing at the online journal Literary Mama, where a couple of weeks ago we launched our brand-new, beautiful website. I had the honor of writing the editor's letter for the issue and of working with writer Nadia Colburn on the issue's Literary Reflections essay.

And nature, of course, continues to pull me outsdoors and outside of my researching/ writing/ editing/ zooming cocoon. Since my butterfly class ended, and most of the butterflies drifted away in the midsummer lull, I've rekindled an interest in dragonflies that I'd let wane over the last few years. The best part about them—other than their colors, variety, acrobatics, big eyes, and insect predation—is that I can watch them from my kayak.

One morning, while paddling slowly along the edge of a lake in search of dragons, I came across a flotilla of fuchsia water lilies. I immediately assumed they were invasive (a symptom of our "we can't have anything nice" society), but my field guide insists that native fragrant water-lily can sometimes come in pink. And fragrant they are, like the smell Johnson's Baby Powder aspires to be: soft, delicate, ephemeral. If you paddle through a dense enough cluster of them, the perfume will drift up at you as your boat glides over their petals.

C and I were paddling through just such a garden earlier this summer, along the edge of a bog, the sweet smell of the flowers competing with the stink of the bog mud our paddles dug up in the shallow water. My friend B tells me there's a metaphor in there—the most fragrant flowers growing from the stinkingest mud. I think I'll wait until 2020 is done having its way with us before I weigh in on whether it's true.

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Wild Wednesday ~ Damsels and Dragons

Naturalists are, by definition, generalists, but many, if not most, have a particular area of interest about which they are most knowledgeable—birds or flowers or rocks or moss or trees. Et cetera.

Powdered dancer (Agria moesta) and Variable dancer (Agria fumipennis)

Me? I know a little about a lot of things, nothing about some things, and a lot about nothing. Birds, I'm decent at, wildflowers, trees. But I don't really have that one thing. That one area of expertise. That passion.

Pond damsel spp?

As a result, since becoming a Maine Master Naturalist, a requirement of which is to share naturalist knowledge with others, I've taught classes in nature writing and nature journaling, my area of "expertise" and a naturalist skill that can be applied to whatever interest a person has.

Ebony jewelwing (Calopteryx maculata)

That being said, one realm I've been dabbling in for many years, and which is the thing that will be my "thing" once I take the time to really get to know it, is the Odonata—dragonfly and damselfly family.

Dragonhunter (Hagenius brevistylus)

Because they're just so darn cool.

There are 158 species of odonates in Maine alone, and some can only be identified under the so it might take me a while, but half the fun is in the chase.

Weekend Things ~ Water

We had a quiet weekend, the last one with nothing scheduled for the foreseeable future. E and Z had a friend over Friday night and, after we'd finished the morning housecleaning (which I very meanly made them do, despite their friend's presence) I asked them what they wanted to do and the unanimous vote was to go swimming. Which I'm always happy to do.



We made our first trip of the summer to our friends' camp on a lake where we had the beach all to ourselves. I enjoyed sitting in the shade reading as much as they enjoyed swimming and dunking and being wet and the obligatory ice cream stop on the way home.



Sunday afternoon, we headed down to wade in the river, for the first time all summer.



C took underwater video.



E and Z chased fish and crawdads.

And I stalked dragonflies and damselflies (more on that tomorrow).



On the way home, C and E visited one of the garden beds and discovered two monarch caterpillars on a nearby milkweed plant—the first monarchs we've found in years! We brought them in raise in our butterfly jar (they have a better chance of survival inside, away from predators). And I'm thrilled.



Three more reasons summer is the best season of all—water, dragonflies, and butterflies!

Wild Wednesday ~ Small Wonders

There is so much going on in the natural world this time of year it's hard to take it all in. Birds! Flowers! Frogs! Bugs! I don't even know where to begin. Here's a smattering of small phenomena I came across the other morning. I stepped out on the front step and saw the dismembered remains of a June bug. Who perched on my porch and snacked on this beetle? My extensive research (googling "what eats june bugs?") turned up a lot of critters that dine on the grubs, but no mention of beetle-eaters. Any ideas?

The bluets (Houstonia caerulea) are still flowering here and there on the lawn. These are one of the first wildflowers to come out in spring and it's nice to see them still going strong (reigns in that "summer's going by too fast" sensation a bit).

E left his flip-flops in the driveway after we got home from camping and this nursery web spider (Pisaurina mira) thought the bottom of one was a dandy place to sun itself.

I've seen a few dragonflies here and there (more every day), but I've been stuck in bird mode—not yet in odonata mode. Time to dig out the net and the field guides and refresh my id skills. A few very cooperative specimens stopped to pose for a picture. This one I think is a stream cruiser (Didymops transversa).

I'm thinking this one is a lancet clubtail (Gomphus exilis).

And this one I'm pretty sure is delta-spotted spiketail (Cordulegaster diastatops).

And finally, Z discovered a robin's nest tucked in the kiwi vine that grows over our deck rail. Mama robin wasn't home when I poked my camera in to snap a shot, and I hope she returned soon after. It will be fun to witness little robins grow up right outside our back door.

What small wonders have you been noticing lately?

Fliers ~ And One Crawler

The butterflies loved the summery weekend as much as we did.

One of our black swallowtails (Papilio polixenes) emerged. 

We collected the caterpillars from our carrot beds last fall and I hung the chrysalises under the playhouse (I was worried that if they were in the garage they might get hot and emerge early, or I might forget about them). A couple of weeks ago, I moved them to outside our front door so we wouldn't miss the appearance of the butterflies, and C saw this one not long after it came out. I'm afraid the other one is dead, though. 

This seems to be a bumper crop for Harris's checkerspots (Chlosyne harrisii). I saw tons of the caterpillars a few weeks ago in our fields and over the weekend, there were dozens and dozens of them "puddling" on the driveway.

We've collected these caterpillars every June for the last three years or so (I thought they were early, but they were just on time with last year's butterflies). I brought home three caterpillars this year, but they escaped the jar (I didn't put the net on very well). One built a chrysalis on a nearby piece of wood, but when I went to check it, it had already emerged, but no sign of it (it has been postulated that the ducks ate it). One disappeared altogether. And one I returned to the jar where it built its chrysalis.

The gap in the netting at the top of the jar, through which the caterpillars had escaped, must have been big enough for a butterfly to slip through, too, because I found this guy on the window Sunday afternoon.

 Hanging out with the puddling checkerspots was this white admiral (Limenitis arthemis arthermis).

This is one of the most striking--and thus easy to identify--butterflies we see around here.

This tiger swallowtail (I think Canadian--Papilio canadensis) led me on a merry chase through the puckerbrush. I can see from its tattered wings (Z calls these "bird strikes") that it has good reason to be wary.

When the boys and I waded in the river, we saw two species of broad-winged damselflies: the river jewelwing (Calopteryx aequabilis) 

and the ebony jewelwing (Calopeteryx maculate). Seeing these metallic-green beauties flutter in the forest and you can't help but believe in fairies. 

 On one of my strolls up the driveway, I got a good look at this dragonfly, which I'm pretty sure is a basket-tailed emerald (Dorocordulia libera).

I spent some time Sunday afternoon, while the boys were at baseball practice, sitting by the pond, watching dragonflies. There were mostly dot-tailed whitefaces (Leucorrhinia intacta), which are members of the skimmer family,

and the four-spotted skimmer (Libellula quadrimaculata), a new one to me this year (here it is hanging out with a dot-tailed whiteface). Dragonflies in the skimmer family tend to perch on vegetation near water and fly low over the surface, patrolling the banks of the pond and chasing away interlopers. They're fascinating to watch.

Finally, I saw this little damselfly perching like a spreadwing, but it looks nothing like any of the spreadwings in my books. Is it just a pond damsel with its wings in an odd position? I don't know. I find damselflies even harder to puzzle out than dragonflies.

Finally, the crawler. C found this baby painted turtle in our garage on Sunday and I took him to what's left of a vernal pool near our pond (figuring it was safer than the pond with its giant snapping turtle inhabitant).

Once I let him out he skittered a short ways and then just sat there.

And sat there. He wasn't going anywhere while I was sitting nearby.

The next day, C found a turtle next that had been raided by a raccoon (we assume) during the night, right outside the garage, but what was left of the eggs looked way too small for even this tiny guy to have come out of them. So where he came from and what he was doing in the garage will remain a mystery.

 What's going on in your neck of the woods?

Insect Love

I found myself home alone for a short while Sunday afternoon. It was too cool out to read in the hammock, and when I tried to work on a writing project in the sunroom, I kept getting distracted by dragonflies whizzing by the windows. I had just been to an all-day insect class, and I couldn't just sit there without going out to try to catch them.

Darners fly fast and high, and after chasing them for a time, catching only one Canada darner, I wandered around the yard to see what else was about. I caught a small orange and black butterfly, but didn't think of taking its picture before I let it go. And then this white admiral posed for a some pictures.

As I walked through the grass, I saw a pair of little blues mating, but when I crouched down to take their picture, they fluttered away. When I looked around to see where they had gone, I discovered they had landed on my pants leg.

I was able to take several pictures, and got a good look at the orange spots on their hind wings, the dark charcoal shade of the female's upper wing surface and the iridescent purple-blue of the male's. I even saw the faint hair-thin "tail" that gives them their name--Eastern Tailed Blue.

And still they kept at it. After a while I got a little bored and moved them to a nearby clover plant and went in to get my journal. I sketched them and wrote about them and finally, finally, they began wiggling around, grasping leaves, trying to uncouple, which took several more minutes.

And then I caught one more dragon, this Black-Tipped Darner, before getting back to work.

Lady's Slippers

It's important to go to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in June, because Lady's Slippers.

More grow there than anywhere I've ever seen. Even along the parking lots (let's not think about how many were in the places the parking lots now are, okay?). And even more along the coast trail. But first, the Children's Garden.

I am madly in love with the book house. If I could do my house all over again...

Z loves the drying house.

Which right now is filled with little fairy houses. Maybe we could do this in our playhouse (but how do they keep out the bugs?)

The boys even spent a few, fleeting minutes cooking in the play kitchen.

Which also happens to be my dream writing studio (I think I take this picture every time we go, as if I could make it mine by taking enough pictures of it!).

I busied myself taking pictures of bees

and dragonflies

while they caught frogs and polliwogs. I think if I didn't have an agenda (lady's slippers and rhododendrons and a hike on the trails), they could spend an entire day at the frog pond. Next time, perhaps.

But this time, there were rhododendrons to see.

And lady's slippers.

(I crouched in a nest of biting ants while I was trying to draw this one).

The boys built fairy houses

and climbed through the giant pinecone

and "meditated" (I'm not quite sure the designers had this in mind for the reflecting pool in the meditation garden).

Then we hiked the longest trail in record time, the boys running ahead the whole way, like puppies, leaving arrows scratched in the pine needle duff so I'd know which way they went. Which I think means they're officially Big Kids, because they didn't whine or complain or require lollipops to bribe them along the trail.

E found some feathers

Along the way, we saw a number of flowers like this plant, perhaps some kind of lily? I should probably look it up in Newcomb's guide, or at least ask C what it is.

and, of course, more lady's slippers.