Connecting the Dots: A Mystery Egg

And now for connecting the dots. I love a good mystery, and am all about connecting dots. 

I found an eggshell fragment down Dean's Fork.  It was pale, unmarked blue, and it was BIG. 

It was too big and pale for a robin, and too big for a cuckoo, though cuckoos lay amazingly large eggs. It was too small for a duck, but entirely too big for a songbird. There is a limited complement of birds who lay unmarked blue eggs, and I quickly ran through them in my mental catalogue. 

The only candidate left was one I'd seen in an Instagram post by my dear friend Donna Quinn.

Donna watches the nesting green herons in the lakeside development where she lives. She listens to their calls and watches as they raise their young. These are her photos of newly pipped eggshells. You can see the fresh blood vessels still inside the shells. The neat margins mean the chick cut the shell, not some random predator.

I thought we had a match, but I wanted to be sure. So, being the Science Chimp, I adjusted my photo to actual size on my computer screen, by comparing it to my actual hand. 

Then, I traced the photo, fingers and all. Working from the natural curves of the shell, I "completed" the eggshell fragment with pencil lines, restoring the outline of the (imagined) entire egg as the curves of the shell fragment guided me.

My reconstructed egg worked out to 27 x 37 mm. 

Measurements in my nest and egg identification guide were 29 x 38 mm. 

Close enough for me. There are green herons nesting down the Fork, and I'd found and identified their pipped eggshell. Oh, what a feeling! I've seen them so very seldom down there, but this is incontrovertible evidence that not only are they present, they are nesting!

Maybe someday I'll see a young one. Maybe someday I'll see an otter down there. 

The pond is ever more precious with each passing day. We made a pilgrimage on the evening of July 4, knowing we'd see something good.

The waters are clearing as rain holds off. When it's dry, the beavers no longer have to disturb the bottom for mud with which to build the dam higher. 

We watched a red bat, big and just as red as a cinnamon stick, making figure 8's over the dam. We briefly glimpsed that otter I've been tracking as it struck terror into the hearts of bull and green frogs in the cattails. We could trace its progress by the frantic flops of frogs. Phoebe made out its chocolate back and grayish-tan chin and under-neck. (It's not in the photo, and neither is the bat. Both too fast for me!)

 And as we drew near, we saw this big doe pop up over the dam rim, having walked up the dam from below. Now that was cool! Just look at her reflection in the clearing water!

As you know, the real world is where I love to be. But there's another livestreaming event coming up at 8pm on Thursday, July 9. 

It's a lively but relaxed conversation, an interview of me by my friend, the wildly talented singer/songwriter Todd Burge. We'll talk about art, life, creativity, Sugarbean the skunk, and Dustin, the song sparrow the kids and I raised this summer. Afterward, there will be time for live questions from you! I'll answer them as best I can on camera, live. 

The link to the show is here: 

www.facebook.com/peoplesbanktheatre/live 

and it's happening Thursday July 9 at 8 pm.

Dustin is big on social media, but he hasn't hit my blog yet. 

What Killed My Frog?

I hadn't gotten too attached to this frog; we'd just made friends, and it had just connected me with good things like mealworms. But it still was a punch to the gut when I saw it suspended, little fingers splayed, eyes hooded, halfway down in the 3' deep pond. I knew right away it was dead. I've seen that float before.

I didn't have my phone with me, and it seemed disrespectful to shoot a photo of the frog like that anyway, when it couldn't say no. Besides, I had to fish it out quickly and see if there was any life in it at all, because helping creatures is what I always try to do first.

Nope, it was stiff and still. Ahhh how sad. I noted immediately that it was very fresh. No bloating, no odor; eyes still perfectly clear. But why and how had it died? I'd fed it two Superworms on July 29. And this was August 4. Could they have chewed a hole somewhere in its gut and killed it slowly, by  infection of peritonitis? Seemed unlikely. But then again...maybe the timing was right for a death that. Being the Science Chimp, and easily consumed by guilt, I had to know if I'd had an inadvertent hand in the frog's death.

I'm gonna ease you into this now with a little dissertation on the frog's tongue. From here, it gets more graphic, but it isn't gross. It's interesting. The more sensitive among you might want to stop here. You've been alerted. 

I opened the frog's mouth, to see if it might have choked on something, and was arrested by its amazing tongue. I'd seen that tongue deployed as it swiftly unfurled and blapped onto the mealworms I'd tossed. But I never realized that it is actually turned back on itself, and its side flaps are folded under, as it rests in the frog's mouth.

Freaking fabulous!! I thought about the extra velocity that sticky tongue would have as it snapped out and simultaneously unfolded. Fwab-adap!

It's like the distal half of a heron's neck, which, when it strikes, whips out from a sort of hinge halfway up the neck. That hinge is the "kink" in the neck that we notice when the bird is at rest.

 

 Shot this fledgling green heron as it hunted dragonflies in a floating mat of vegetation in St. Mary's WV. You know how fast you have to be to grab a dragonfly? 

 The one that got away.

Throwing the neck (or the tongue) out from a short distance is the difference between a roundhouse punch from the shoulder and a quick jab thrown from the elbow.  The jab isn't as powerful, but it's much quicker, and quick is what you have to be to catch insects (or fish). Already, I was enjoying my foray into this frog's secrets.

But I knew it wasn't going to be all fun and games, playing with a frog tongue.

There was only one way to really determine whether a Superworm had killed this poor creature.
 It was time to open the frog. The skin was like the finest thin latex, and the whitish abdominal muscles had to be cut with a scissors, as did the breastbone, so I could completely retract the abdominal walls. And there were its organs, pretty much just like a person's, with less intestine.

 

I saw two blackish granular structures that looked like caviar, one on each side, and knew I'd found the frog's ovaries. Ahhh, damn. It had been a female.

Kinda surprised me, because the tympanum (round external ear membrane) was pretty large.  Males have larger tympanae than females. 

Gotta listen for those spring choruses, you know, to get in on the action.

 

OK. Time to haul out the stomach and intestines, and see if there was a giant mealworm in there, or at least a hole somewhere. The stomach was fine, pink, unperforated (to the left of the pliers). The duodenum looked discolored right below the stomach. I thought I might have found something incriminating.
But when I opened it up, there were no holes, and it appeared that what I was seeing was the color of recently digested food, through the translucent wall of the duodenum (small intestine). It was an orange-red paste that for all I know might once have been a baby comet. So much for that.

Everything else inside the frog looked fine. I opened the stomach and examined its contents. Not a trace of a Superworm. Duodenum had checked out fine. Opened the caecum and examined its contents. Just normal looking frog poo, loaded up to launch. Small insect bits discernible in the fecal material. No hard chitin from a Superworm, at all. That had already passed through. This animal had been eating and digesting normally right up to its death. Nothing was bloated, nothing perforated, no internal bleeding and nothing amiss that I could see.  I had to conclude that perforation by Superworm was not the cause of its death. Not to say it can't ever happen, but I'm confident it didn't happen to this frog.

But there was something amiss on the frog, and I wanted to think about that.

The animal's left leg was bruised, with a hemorrhage running down the calf. Its foot was pretty swollen and discolored, too.

On the dorsal side, there were two very fresh wounds. One, a jagged tear in the skin. It would have taken something quite sharp, dragging across the frog's thigh, to make that.

There was also a puncture wound, from which some muscle protruded. See the tip of the pliers here, pointing at it.  Hmmmm. I couldn't see how either of those wounds, though, would kill the frog. But they were so fresh, they had to have something to do with her death. 

I have to thank Liam for taking these photos. I couldn't take any shots while doing the dissection. It was worse than trying to make movies while feeding bats (something I got pretty good at, thanks to a small gift tripod and a nimble tongue).

This isn't a flattering shot, but it is 100% Science Chimp Zick. Completely absorbed in the pursuit of knowledge. And for that, I love it. It's me, and I like who I am, because being normal is boring, and glamor ceased to be part of my world a long time ago.

 As Liam commented when I asked him if I should publish this photo:  "Of all the photos of me tearing apart a dead animal, this is the worst!" Which sent me into gales of laughter. This kid. He's made me laugh all summer long. God, I'll miss him when he goes back to school.

 Nah, it's not a glamour shot, and I look like a gnome, like something that lives in a tower. Oh, wait...

Hi Bacon! Thanks for stopping into this post. I love you.

I was left stumped. I decided to wrap up the autopsy and mull on it for awhile. I'd found out what I could find out from this poor frog, so I wrapped her in wet newspaper and set her in a cool place until nightfall, when I could put her body out for the possum who visits our compost. What a nice surprise it would be for him! Nothing gets wasted around here. And everybody eats.

I excavated the rider mower from its tangle of lawn chairs and bikes, replaced the front wheel whose tire I'd flattened and given to Marcy to get fixed (thanks, Marcy!!) Started it up, and began the hypnotic round and round the house and plantings. I was about five rounds into the mow when it hit me. A cut and a puncture wound wouldn't kill a frog...would it...

unless there was venom in what cut and punctured it.

Which explains the swelling and discoloration very nicely. That's what my finger looked like once upon a time, when I reached under a lavender bush for a weed and felt a hot lance to my hand. THAT good, old story is here: Committed to the Country

Durn copperheads. I build you a nice patio to live in, and you thank me by killing my frog. You struck; she jumped; you raked her with one fang, but you hit pay dirt, and punctured her leg with the other. Still, she got away, and plopped into the pond, already dying, a foot down, where you couldn't recover her. Wasted. Unless you consider that it was all a nice mental workout for a curious Science Chimp, and some fairly graphic entertainment for a few thousand people. 

And maybe a nice solid bit of debunking on a factoid that ain't necessarily true. That said, I'm not feeding any more Superworms to frogs. Better safe than sorry.

This year's fine brace of copperheads. Mr. and Mrs. Fak. I'm sure their banded babes will turn up very soon. I just hope none are in the basement.

Still, I suspect one of you Faks also killed the two bullfrogs who moved in this spring. The hummingbirds and warblers and chipping sparrows and I thank you for that. 

Circle of life, baby. Like my John Deere and my mind, it goes around and around.

Before the crape myrtle got killed back to the ground. When Chet, my tractor,  the crape myrtle and I were newer, and still shiny.

All the Beautiful Creatures

Floating around North Bend, taking in the sights. Imagine having been born and raised on a chunk of basalt in the middle of the Atlantic. What you know is the sea, the forest in the highlands; how to pick up and carry a lost shearwater back to the ocean--these are just some of the things Oscar knows. And here he is, plunked down in the middle of a large freshwater lake in Ohio, with all the wildlife that goes with that--turtles and dragonflies and deer and woodpeckers (what are those?!) and herons and hawks. Oscar got very excited when he spotted a juvenile redtail, keening for its parents.

Aguila! Well, not quite. But pretty impressive, if a bit whiney.

A northern water snake made its leisurely way along the shore. There's a glint in the eye of those snakes that tells you not to mess with them. You do, they'll come after ya. Got a vengeful streak.

A green heron, looking like a Balinesian god, teed up on a stump.

 

I thought back to the July day in 2014 I had an audience with a little family at North Bend. Oh, what a day that was. Here's a freshly fledged babe peeking out at me, all toes and curiosity.

Today would be more for people shots.

The eastern pondhawk posed nicely.

As did the eastern amberwing. Halloween pennants are common here as well, but I didn't catch one on this trip.

 There isn't much that's fast enough to grab a dragonfly, but flycatchers like the eastern kingbird specialize in it.

 

I was thrilled to see this kingbird return with one for her orange-mawed babies.

 Kind of a scratchy crackly mouthful, I'd wager, but the nestling was up for it. Mmmrf!

After lunch, she settled down to shade her panting children from the midday sun. Thanks, Mama.

 Eastern kingbirds are so tuff they sometimes build their nests right out in the open, as here, relying on their watchful ferocity to protect their young from any aerial predator that might try something. Tyrannus tyrannus is well named. A kingbird will ride a crow or hawk, punching holes in it, for just crossing the airspace near their nest.

A tangle of monofilament provided inspiration and perhaps a base for these kingbirds to place their low-hanging nest. It was at eye level for me in a kayak!

 Like it or not, he's there, and he's going to make it work. (You can tell he's a male by the white, not grayish, chest. Both male and female incubate).

Go ahead. Take my picture. 

 

 

We drifted past whitetails just resting and feeding. The deer at North Bend have an understanding with boaters, and can be freely observed from cars, as well. It's really nice to be able to see them unconcerned and behaving as they would were you not watching.

I hate to use a tired word like "magical" on this, one of my spirit places, but it is. There's always something special going on on its waters, in the skyspace, or in the surrounding forest. North Bend heals me. 

And the little town of Harrisville is such a treat. Here's a tiny cottage with a Gothic touch. I so wished I could go inside and see if the kitchen was as unchanged as the exterior!

We looked for the post office, a nice early 60's box of metal, brick and glass (probably mint green inside, too)

and found the courthouse, quite a fancy one. We were tourists in this quiet little town.

We got noseprints all over the glass at Berdine's Five and Dime. It's chock-full of little stuff you can't find anywhere else. How we wished we'd come by when it was open.

But the greater treasure was up in the porch eave as Shila indicates in this photo. Musta been Sadie Hawkins day, because here's a male mourning dove tending a nest.  I suspect this to be a robin nest that the doves took over, to which they added some flimsy plant material. Wise move, doves. It's not a typical mourning dove location, but they're flexible birds.

Pretty sweet, to see him there with us just below, and the old sign and some forgotten Christmas lights hanging.  

It had been a beautiful day. We'd shown Oscar some of the best of West Virginia, thanks to North Bend Outfitters and lovely little Harrisville. It had been a stress-free getaway into quiet waters.

 Dinner in Marietta (House of Wines, outdoors, of course!) capped a perfect day. Here's to good days, and love, and breathtaking beauty in the ordinary. You just have to watch for those moments.