I'm baaaaack!

The Cool at the Pool

Reentry was always predictable—
compose a one-page piece entitled How I Spent My Summer Vacation.

And as the expected assignment was handed out to an audience of less-than-enthusiastic students upon their return to school each fall, part of me wondered if the intent in giving it was greater than its simply being an exercise in the retrieval of rusty writing skills.
The stories that must have been told…
the secrets shared…
the places traveled to, or not.
In truth, there was no better way for the teacher to acquaint herself with the students in her new classroom than to discover how each had chosen to spend that precious time away.

The Cool at the Pool

Not surprisingly, mine somewhat resembled an upstate New York version of Tom Sawyer, sprinkled with liberal amounts of Little Women, as the neighborhood matured and real-life replaced real children’s dreams. There were frogs and kickball, frogs and fireflies, frogs in the cool, clear Adirondack lakes and tents full of giggling Girl Scouts. There were fishing trips at dawn with my dad, days of building forts, after-dinner bike rides, nights of cartwheels on the lawn.


My time away may be from things which are different now.
But I find that I still have filled it with the very same--
play, friends and family.
And, yes, even now….frogs.

American bullfrog, female

American bullfrog, male

This photo is slightly fuzzy, but it shows how the size of the tympana (external eardrums, flat disk behind each eye) differ in male/female frogs. The tympanum of the male (photo left) is larger than the eye; whereas in the female (photo right) it is equal in size or smaller. This quick visual can be used with several species of frogs, including American bullfrog and northern green frog.

Relatively similar in appearance, green frogs can be distinguished from bullfrogs by the presence of a dorsolateral fold, a lengthwise ridge of skin on the back extending from the tympanum 2/3 the distance to the hind leg. In the above photo, the male is clearly a green frog. But what about the female?
Frogs will readily clasp just about anything that comes into contact with them, if in the mood. I've even held hands with many frogs that don't understand that, although I love them, it wouldn't work--we're just too different.


Coming soon...more of How I Spent my Blogging Vacation...
West Virginia New River Birding and Nature Festival
More of Michigan
Killdeer Plains OCVN Workshop, look here and here

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The Birds

I arrived at the beach mid-afternoon, in a desperate attempt to hold onto the dwindling hours of a weekend—their passing even faster, now, as the time change steals an hour of light from the end each day’s due.
The night has suddenly grown long.

American Lotus seed head

At the water’s edge, a withered leaf and seed head of the Lotus remind me of their great fields in the distance. The tall, creamy blossoms and broad, flat leaves of late summer, now faded and furled, have turned to sunlit gold.



I dabbled here with the camera as each minute of daylight escaped me, taking image after image of summer’s remnants as they rolled in the water, forward and back. The rocking of one small piece, a walnut or osage orange, sending ring after ring of ripples to dissolve into the glassy lake.

fruit of Osage Orange

Then I drove further on to the lotus fields, parked and walked to the edge.
A small dock at the bottom of a narrow, steep stair nuzzled into the bank beneath a thick stand of pine, the ground beneath them soft with needles and littered with long, pitch-spattered cones. The slant of evening sun was gentle and warm and had filled the air with the sweet and spicy piney smell. The lotus fields were brightly shining, reaching to the very shore. Oak and sycamore branches extended bright and blurry reflections across the dark water.






Several very large, brown birds lifted from the trees across the lake and, as I looked more closely, I could see hundreds still there, standing as black spots perched upon every branch, tucked into the warm wall of trees facing the strongest light. As each rose and cleared the treetops, its shape became visible—they were vultures. In great waves, they lifted and crossed the lake directly above my head, their long wings stroking strongly, the only sound, as they settled in great groups in the tall pines all around me. With each new wave to arrive, the previous would rise and resettle—the wings of the first bird to lift, noisily crashing and becoming a crescendo as another and another joined the group and swirled in a tangle of great wings overhead.

vultures across the lake

and rising to the sky

In all, over 200, both turkey vultures and black, emptied the wall of trees as I sat there, to settle at dusk in their roost around me.
Then the sun dropped into what had become an orange horizon.
A full moon rose in the fading blue sky.
I shook the chill of a clear autumn night from my shoulders.
And the lake fell into quiet stillness.

See more Skywatch here.

Perfect Place (SWF)

Cowan Lake
Backwater, August 2009

We found ourselves in this same spot, barely 2 months ago, crossing the lake from the public launch.
Tracing a path that took us past the boats and beaches, curves and coves, to the quiet water beyond, where spring had gathered them all—
to raise the young of this season.

Young Canada Geese

Female Red-winged Blackbird feeding young

Male Red-winged Blackbird over backwater, June 2009

And I wondered what it was I felt there—
in the dark and dense and still.
More than taste or touch, sight or sound, the sense of perfect place.

The water black, the shaded air cool,
young wood ducks scuttered through the cattails,
downy goslings cuddled in a lump,
never far from their mother’s eye.

That this place would be chosen over all others,
by these, whose lives have but one purpose.
In that space, was the collective wisdom greater than human.

American Lotus, Nelumbo lutea, in bloom,
Cowan Lake, August 2009

And, you can even visit YouTube for the movie, here.

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See more Skywatch here.

Under Cover

A little too close, and the thick, cool mud quickly creeps past the lip of my sandal, painting my big toe boldly brown, revealing the truth I had hoped to keep secret—
I’ve been straying just a bit from the trail.
But from beneath this brush, the view is quite different. Where, stepping carefully past the tangle of vines and squatting low on the bank, I can look out across the surface of this little pond—quietly watch with the others…and disappear.

American Bullfrog, male (large tympanic membrane)
Rana catesbeiana

Beside me at the edge, sits a very large Bullfrog, chin deep in cool water, not moving a muscle. And as footsteps approach from the trail behind us, I hope he has not chosen this moment to launch himself noisily into the basin, announcing to all our perfect location--this cozy corner from which we wait, hidden.

Damselflies on American Lotus leaf

Dragonfly wings clatter loudly overhead. This water has unleashed them by the hundreds into the sunshine—skimmers and dashers, clubtails and darners--hungry and seeking mates in the open space carved from the woods by this small pond.



The tall sedges stretching up through the constant green of the water in front of me are covered in damselflies, linked in tandem, male and female pairs, almost silhouetted against the reflective surface, broken only by the circles of waxy blue, floating shoulder to shoulder.

And, as others pass, giving warnings of the poison ivy to one who might consider stepping close, I’m glad that, having carried a camera here, I have reason to inch yet a bit further.

This front row seat is worth muddy feet.

Damselfly pair on sedges (above)
and in mating wheel (below)

Northern Green Frog,
Rana clamitans melanota

Birds on Ice

American Lotus summer bloom,
Cowan Lake

Days that warm to the forties and nights that dip to the twenties have left a thin layer of ice on the surface of Cowan Lake. The magnificent Lotus that reached and swayed above our heads last summer as we drifted past in our canoe, covering the water from shore to shore in this sheltered cove with broad, green rounds, now stand as brown stubble, fallen. Their recognizable faces peering at us through the sheerest of layers.

American Lotus leaf beneath ice

A large flock of small brown birds lands and wanders through the wasted brown tops which pierce the icy surface. With fine bills and buff-colored breasts, heavily streaked, they step and bob-- searching between the stems.
And skate easily along.
American Pipits, hidden well in this quiet, brown edge.

Where small boats dotted the open water with cheerful sails outstretched under the warm breezes of summer, a ring of gulls now stands—the ice extending from the edge, creating a new shoreline from which to watch and wait.

Sailboats on Cowan Lake,
summer 2008

Even the herons, with their long and lanky forms, stand easily upon it, snatching fish that carelessly slip out from under its protection.

In the chill of winter--
the waters, still,
the birds, busy.

Great Blue Heron fishing from ice,
Cowan Lake, January 2009

First Ice,
winter 2009

American Lotus blossom,
Nelumbo lutea