Looking Back on Fall

Man, it was such a beautiful fall. In the midst of all the mishegas going on in this country, we here in Ohio had that, at least, and it was a lot. I look at these photos and can't believe the meadow ever looked like this. 

But it did, it did, and I was out there every morning I could be, photographing it and reveling in the million little cigarette lighters the goldenrods held up, saying Thank You Fall, We Loved It! Play One More!

I had an absolute blast with monarchs, watching them chomp six potted Asclepias, bringing them in so I could be there for their special moments. And there are so many special moments with monarchs. I have reams of them on video, and I must get to them. So when winter finally arrives, I will have a busy studio, humming with industry. I don't intend to twiddle my thumbs.

I wanted to show you a few of the birds who came across my little bit of Appalachian ridgetop this fall. There were so many bay-breasted warblers! You can tell them by their lead-colored legs and sweet open faces. Blackpolls have orangey feet and a more severe look about the eye.  

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Same baybreast, preparing to go. 

Here's a blackpoll for comparison. If you click on the photo, you can see its orangey (not cool lead gray) feet. See the facial expression? Sort of calculating. Not as innocent as the baybreast, whose eyes are framed in pale crescents.

And there was a late flush of blue-headed vireos, and I don't think a BHVI is ever more beautiful than in fresh fall plumage. Look at that snowy white throat and breast! The shading of olive at the sides of its chest are just delicious. And those shining white spectacles. Hard to miss this bird, and it's quite vocal in fall as well, voicing a squeaky, chirrupy, slow, Cheree! Cheerio? Squee? 

They love willows, even our beat up old weeping willow. This one sidled down a willow whip almost to the ground.

Blackburnian warblers have the mostest eye stripes! This is a superciliary (over the eye) line. Look how long and pronounced it is--and orangey. Also note the pronounced back striping. The central pair down the middle of its back will be whitish on a Blackburnian.

It's pretty easy to identify the diminutive black-throated green warbler. Males keep a good bit of their coloration in fall. The stark black throat is overlain by white scaling, which is just fresh feather fringes. Those will wear off by spring.  The big golden head sides are a good tipoff for ths species.

The sycamores are almost done dropping their tremendous leaves now. Each one falls with a kind of slishy thud, which is pretty freaky to listen to in the dark. The sycamores, of course, don't care whether they drop them in daylight or dark. I like thinking of the leaves falling all night long. Some of these leaves are a good 10" across, making our sycamore a frustrating tree to bird in, until you see one calmly perched atop a leaf. Don't try that with a maple or a birch!

One of the most common fall migrants here is the Tennessee warbler, notable for its plainness. There are almost always traces of wingbars. Tennesses have short, sharp bills and a short-tailed cobby shape. They make constant lisping notes as they forage together, and when they take off they invariably drop a sweet shower of tsit notes as they go. Over the years and the annual waves of fall migrants, these little cues tell me what I have--I don't even need to see them to know they're around. 

White undertail coverts help separate the Tennessee from the similar looking orange-crowned warbler. Tennessees are whiter below than orange-crowned, and only rarely have any streaking on the breast. This is a Tennessee, taking off from a bath in the Bird Spa.

Finally, the waves of warblers and vireos were replaced by the hardier migrants. We had gobs of eastern Phoebes this fall, as well as a tolerable number of eastern wood-peewees. Listen for the phoebe's soft Chip! note and watch for its bobbing tail. Pewees are more elegant, keep their clothes cleaner, sit up straighter--phoebes who have been to charm school. 

Above: sludgy lil phoebe; below, natty lil peewee.

I love to see the field sparrows coming through. I know the juncos can't be far behind. 

Yellow-bellied sapsuckers had a good showing. Most of them are immatures, which makes for some very nondescript woodpeckers. But note the big longitudinal white wing panel. This is surprisingly easy to pick up at a distance, and when coupled with their swoopy flight style, usually ending as they stick a vertical landing on a tree trunk, you can amaze your friends with your long reach woodpecker ID's. I hope I get a peanut/suet freeloader again this winter. I love sapsuckers. They pound my birches to pieces, but that's OK with me!

So I passed an agreeable and lovely fall, walking the paths and watching the birds. Watching the meadow change every day was a thrill--waiting for them to throw the main power switch that would light up all the goldenrod at once. 

And the Maximilian sunflower glowed.

 

A Flower for November

 

 I woke to another dull, dark, gray November morning today. Well, they're all dark, because I wake up so blinkin' early, but then I wait, knowing better than to even look out the window hoping for stars here in the mid-Ohio valley in November.

I got suited up to take a hike and somewhere in between thinking about persimmons and cottage cheese for breakfast and filling the feeders with raw trembling hands, I lost heart. I looked at the weather forecast and decided to write a blogpost instead, and hope that the sun might show its Garboey face sometime later on this afternoon. Hope's fading, it's noon, but you never know.

November forces me to wait for better weather. And when I don't feel like waiting, it makes me go anyway, and appreciate what I'm given. I decided to write up my last hike on November 14, down my beloved Dean's Fork. It's the best example of a November hike you could come up with. It had lessons on flexibility, going with the flow, and watching for miracles.

First lesson of November hikes: Go anyway. You might be surprised. The light was awful, but this witch hazel in full bloom glowed through the darkness. As frustrating as it was to try to get a photo that conveyed its beauty, I tried, and failed.

 

OK. So we'll go for the close-up. Its lobed leaves still clung the the twigs. Its gentle, fresh mimeo-ink scent tickled my nostalgia centers, sending me back to test day in elementary school, when we all huffed the still-wet sheets of purple-blue ink that our teachers had just run off on the enormous crank-powered machine in the lounge. 

 

 

 

  This contemplation of witch hazel gave me to wonder why on earth a plant would flower at a time of year when its petals can be frozen solid, as these were. What pollinators could it be trying to attract? Clearly, with its strong, sweet, strange scent, it's after something.

It was Vermont naturalist/writer Bernd Heinrich, who as usual is walking well ahead of me down the wooded trail, who wondered the same thing. Heinrich figured out that the pollinators of witch hazel are doing their work under cover of night. They're owlet or winter moths, of the family Noctuidae, who are able to generate heat by shivering, and doing so, they get the job done. And being Bernd, he wrote it up for a scientific journal, for those of us who wonder later to find and cite.
Heinrich, Bernd. 1987a. “Thermoregulation by Winter-Flying Endothermic Moths.” Journal of Experimental Biology 127 (1): 313–32. 
My thanks to Venerable Trees blog for answering a question that popped into my head on the hike. Blogging isn't dead. It's just screaming, deep under all the Facebook water. Thanks to those of you who can still hear bloggers.

From there, I went on to visit a sycamore I've been admiring for many years. The tree, to me, is an eloquent standing metaphor.

The left side was clearly once a huge hollow tree, most of which rotted out and died. But a living sheath of bark remained. For years, the trunk it sent up put out leaves and appeared to be prospering.

 

It's the trunk to the right in this shot. It died last year, and has dropped its twigs. But never fear. The trunk to the left, which takes off from the right-hand base of the hollow part, is going for broke, even as the hollow old sheath breaks and rots.

 

 This keyhole window in the original trunk reminds me of the terrified little character in The Scream by Edvard Munch. 

And the old hollow trunk isn't dead yet. It's sending sprouts out from the base of the "dead" trunk. Which clearly isn't dead just yet. I know, it gets confusing. There are so many little deaths and rebirths in this one tree.

 

 

I love the whole thing, the whole complex mess of it--hollow sheath of old tree; dead trunk; live trunk; shoots off the "dead" half. So I keep watching. That tree just won't throw up the white flag. It keeps going, keeps living the best life it can.

To me it speaks of re-invention and rebirth after trial and tribulation. If that sycamore can keep sending up fresh shoots, what's stopping me?

Well, there's quite a bit that can stop me. I forded two rather deep crossings after all the recent rain, laughing at myself the whole time,  and shivering as water splashed through the fine filigree of my shoes, but I finally met my Dean's Fork Waterloo here at Bobcat Crossing.

No way across it without going in over my shoe tops. Even if you do it really fast you get to enjoy wet freezing feet all the way back. This happens to me every year when I try to "run" with "running shoes" down this muddy, stream-crossed road. Dang it, Zick, give up. Just put on your waterproof hiking boots and walk fast.  You'll see just as much, and you can bring the big camera, too. Duh! Kick it into winter mode already.

Forced to turn around before reaching the Ironweed Festival Grounds, I was delighted by perhaps two minutes of weak lemony November sun. Please click on this to see the creek traveling along the right side. It's one of my favorite vistas.

The trot back home was beautiful, with the light coming up at last. It wasn't going to be a sunny day, but it was brighter, and that was enough. 

I was nearing my car when I saw what I thought (please forgive me) was an expanded tampon in the leaves. Chuckling as I write. I did. I thought it was a tampon, and I didn't want to touch it, but logic and curiosity conquered my initial 21st century response to this novelty. 

Internal Science Chimp conversation: It's a tampon. No it's not. Yes it is. It's just expanded. No, you idiot, it's snow-white. Well, it got rained on. Who drops a tampon on Dean's Fork in November? And if it's a tampon, why is it attached to a plant stalk? Touch it. Ugh. No. Oh! It's brittle! It's made of ICE! Wait. So what's going on here?

With the two little Science Chimps sitting on my shoulder, one adventuresome and one not, I went from Eeew to What the Heck is That Thing? in about 2.5 seconds.

And I realized that it was a flower. A frost flower. The little green leaves are part of a recently deceased aster top. The stem has been broken and shattered, but the plant's roots keep pushing out water to a top that's no longer there.

And that water comes out the broken stem and hits the freezing air, and makes a flower for November.

The more I looked at it the more delighted I became. Would there be other frost flowers waiting for me?

Yes. But only if I looked for them.

That's November for you. She's not the nicest teacher, and she can sometimes be dull, old and gray, but if you listen to her, she'll give you the best secrets.

Speaking of flowers of November, Liam is home, and still asleep, as far as I know, in his own bed. Having my boy back for a nice WVU Thanksgiving break is divine, even though I'm already chewing on him for strewing his things around and having altogether too much hair on top. It's all I can do not to go jump on him and wake him up so I can feed him Eggos and sausage.

And Phoebe is living her best life, maybe ever, on La Gomera. She cracks me up daily, and only WhatsApp and Facetime stand between all of us and death from terminal Phoeblessness. Catch up with her at her sparkly blog,  Canary Current
 

It is, my darling. On you, it is.

A Ten-Point Messenger

I'm back from 12 days away, 10 of them in Ecuador's Andes. It was the most excellent adventure!!

 And all is well at home; both Liam and Jemima survived without me; both boys pitched in to make sure she got fed every day; and I've done nothing since I got back but study and photograph blue jays. It feels great to be back in the saddle again. My suitcase exploded in the living room, and there it still lies, because there are jays to be watched. All my Ecuador birds are jammed into one 128-gig memory card that is glowering at me from a corner of the drawing table. Let us out!! they cheep.

I have stuff to do. I'll get to you. Here's the rest of my magical Dean's Fork walk, from a post I prepared before I left.

Keep them on the memory card, says the winter wren. I'm the star of this show.

Alone, and yet not alone. The animals were coming to me this fine late November day, and each one lifted my spirits and made me feel accompanied. You could ask who might be sending them. You could pick now from any number of spirits who've passed on, but are walking beside me every day.

I came up to the Miracle Sycamore, a tree I've enjoyed for years. Sadly, the Miracle half of it finally died this summer. I'd marveled each time we met at the fact that the blasted-out shell of bark that was once such a fine, huge tree had managed to send up a living, vital trunk to the heavens. And that trunk subsisted off what that hollow shell could give it, through the remaining bark layers. You'd have thought it was dead, but no. It still grew.

And now that trunk has died. But there's another trunk. It took off from the base of the tree, and it's running off the roots it's made for itself. Yay for that!  It's all part of the same tree, so the Miracle Sycamore isn't dead. It's just taking another direction.

 

Being a writer, I've seen nothing but metaphors in this valiant tree. I gather them up and tuck them close to my heart for safekeeping. 

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned,

so as to have the life that is waiting for us.--Joseph Campbell 

For me, Campbell's mantra is embodied in this tree. That sycamore had a life all planned out. She had a  big strong supporting trunk. She was headed to the sun. For whatever reason--lightning strike, disease, flood--who can say--her great wide trunk failed her, became hollow and weak. You could see right through it.

 It was time for plan B.  Every trunk for itself! She sank down some more roots and sent up another trunk. Years from now you might look at her and never know she'd had another life, for the hollow part will have fallen away.

I feel my heart lift as I look up at her sending out new twigs and branches, lit by the last rays of sun. Let the old part go. Life is what you make of it.

 

The light was fading fast. I headed home, enjoying the feel of chill descending in the shadows. I decided to take the low road back, because it has thick briary tangles and often gives me deer. 

Sure enough, as I walked, I sensed their presence all around me. I even heard two antlers clack together. I became very still and walked slowly and softly. 

A small buck burst out of the briars to my left and bounded up the trail. I didn't have time to raise the camera. I stopped and waited. I was pretty sure I wasn't the reason he was running. 

There was another buck on his trail. Shall we count the points? Click on the photos and you'll see them all. He's got a double brow tine on his left antler, and three points on the beam of his right, for a total of ten. Wow-eee. How I love shooting bucks this way, leaving them to run and walk and fight and scuffle another day. I get all the thrill of the hunt with no blood other than that which pounds in my ears.

 

This is the first ten-point buck I've had in my sights in years. Oh glory, hallelujah. I love my does, and I think I've proven that, but what a thrill it is to see their elusive mates!

 

I don't mean to hurt his dignity, but I loved this pose, and I can't help noticing the white stockings down the front of his legs. Hmmm. Another thing to watch for, another thing to notice.

 

And then, in the ultimate gift of the wild, he stopped and looked back down the trail and saw me. I checked the time signatures on my photos and we locked gaze for 11 glorious seconds before he put his head down and charged into the brush. Thank you, Buck; thank you, Animals; thank you, Dean's Fork, and thank you, whatever great spirits are sending me these gifts. It was a walk for the record books, one to remember forever.

I came back up the hill and found the rusty gate, portal to all my favorite places and things, waiting open for me. Might as well walk through.

Marietta, Ohio-My Beautiful Town

Sometimes it feels to me that my life is nothing more than an unending search for beauty. I don't know anyone else who spends more time at it. It's really too bad my aesthetic quest doesn't pay, because I could be a billionaire. But then I probably wouldn't keep roaming around, searching for beauty. 

A semi-pro aesthetician like me does very well living near Marietta, Ohio. This little-sung brick-streeted town has a lot going for it. More and more I hear people literally go into raptures about Marietta. That didn't used to happen, but a lot of good things have taken place here since I came here in 1992.

I spent a gorgeous golden November afternoon gabbing with friends at the Local Artists' Show and Sale at the Lafayette Hotel. Then I walked down the levee to visit Mr. Lonely. After that, I crossed the Harmar railroad bridge. 

The new railing smelled sweetly of pine, shone in the late low sun, and lured me onward.

I always stop to consider this amazing sycamore limb. It just goes on and on. I take its picture, and always fail to capture its beauty.

I stood, dumbstruck. 

The river was like glass. Our beautiful "new" Putnam Street bridge sent a graceful reflection across the Muskingum.

Looking downriver, the Williamstown bridge crossed into West Virginia, across the mighty

 O-hi-o-se-pe. 

I crossed into Harmar Village and looked back toward town. Man. Beauty everywhere.

There was an InstaMeet last Friday, a tour of historic Marietta for people who like to post photos of Marietta on Instagram. I should have gone. I need to meet some more people in the area. Most of my friends live in my laptop, and I'm alone too much, I know that.

It would be nice to share this magnificent specimen of Magnolia grandiflora, for instance.

 

How it's survived our northern winters, how it throws dapples on that white house with its huge hard evergreen leaves. All those things. A miracle. It's so old its bark is shaggy and strippy, like a hickory's. And I love the homeowners for putting up with its terrible clattery drifts of fallen leaves, year round, for it has a tropical tree's habit of shedding leaves pretty much all the time. Clack, clack, clack. And they don't rot. I know, because I lived with a southern magnolia as a kid in Richmond, Virginia, and I hated raking those leaves. So much. But far more than that, I adored its huge white blossoms, the soft-winged orange soldier beetles that clambered around and coupled inside them, and I can still reconstruct every molecule of magnolia perfume in the back of memory's throat. Aesthetician from an early age. 

All these things came back to me as I gazed at the magnolia, rara avis among trees.

I walked a bit and came to Found Antiques, now home of Passiflora Studios. Quiet now, because wedding days are past. But soon enough they will start again. Phoebe worked here from time to time, and I loved to visit her. My, that's a nice blue farm table. But I don't need a table.

As I drove slowly home, I stopped at some favorite trees.

A gingko, throwing off her dress, setting the place on fire.

Throwing perfect little fans like gold coins to the ground below. How soon they lose their lustre!

The mighty twin sycamores of Second Street never fail to stop me in my tracks.

I get out to worship and record them here, most every time I pass. 

I wish there weren't a car in this shot, but it does give you some sense of scale. They are mighty, mighty trees. And people drive by them all the time. See, I can't. Stopped by the aesthetics of it all, footloose and frozen, too. Must say it's good of that sugar maple to kick in with the flamethrower, a meet backdrop for such a titanic tree. 

I headed home on the backest back road I could find, a new one for me, but already beloved for its cattle, its colors, its farmsteads.

The initial rollout, so tantalizing. Come along. I have something to show you...

Cattle set afire by the low sun.

The way that cherry-red pickup sits like a ruby in all the weathered wood; the maple dumping its color everywhere; the last sun stroking the gravel ridges.

A silo, such a rare thing anymore. Who has livestock, who needs to store feed? They are all dying out, the small farmers. You have to hit the dirt roads to find them.

Foxtail grass and a landscape straight from Grant Wood, gumdrop trees and perfect valleys.

My father would have slowed down to eye this tractor, that Chevy pickup, that barn. I, his daughter and made more of him than anyone, do it for him. 

A redtail crosses, of course. 

And the Graces stand naked in a row.