Cedar Bog with Science Chimp

On our field trip to Cedar Bog outside Springfield, Ohio, most of us were kneeling and snapping away and oohing and aahing on the boardwalk

led by Jim McCormac, one of the finest naturalists I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.

If you don't read his blog, Ohio Birds and Biodiversity, you must. He's a sparkly writer, good photographer, and best of all he knows what's interesting. He's always got a little wrinkle in the story, something I never knew. In short: Silverback Science Chimp.

There were some much rarer things yet at Cedar Bog's lovely visitor center. For one, I would really, really love to see a giant beaver. Alas, I would be seeing wooly mammoths, too, were that in the cards.


Here's a tooth. Imagine finding a tooth from a beaver the size of a black bear. The tooth was about 9" long. Eeeee-gad.

The cicadas were singing, and Jim taught us the difference between the Lyric Cicada's song (virtually no oscillation, just a steady buzzing trill) and the Lens Cicada (a gentle oscillation) and the Swamp Cicada (a heavy oscillation, all zizzy and snappy), and the Scissor-Grinder Cicada, the classic summer evening in-town species that goes ZWEOOO ZWEEEOO ZWEEOO.

Don't you love knowing that?
Again, no idea which one this is, but I was glad to spot him resting in a sumac. Speaking of spotting things, here's a young ruby-throated hummingbird hiding out in a tall umbellifer:


It was tending a patch of jewelweed. Always such a treat for me to see hummingbirds feeding from something other than red plastic.

A Snout butterfly, Libytheana bachmanii, only the second I've seen in Ohio. Jim says this is a "big invasion year" for this southern butterfly with the Jimmy Durante rostrum. They are very cute, if you can catch them sitting long enough. That's not actually a snout, but elongated labial palpae. I'm not sure what the snout does with its elephantine projection, but it is fond of fermenting fruit and nectar, so perhaps there's a food-gathering advantage. Or maybe it's a weevil with big dreams.


A net-winged beetle, Calopteron terminale. It was moving slowly about the leaf surfaces, raising its soft wing covers over its back in a semaphore display. I owe this ID to Eric Eaton and Kenn Kaufman's wonderful Kaufman Field Guide to the Insects of North America. Get it, and figger out the bugs in your world.


As I neared the end of my allotted time at Cedar Bog, Jim casually pointed out "that thing that looks like a human brain lying on the forest floor."

The Science Chimp was not fooled for an instant. This softball-sized object was the fruiting body of a skunk cabbage, from which the leaves had nearly melted away. She considered it for a moment, then asked aloud,

"And what would be the dispersal agent for the human brain fruit?"

To which, without missing a beat, my new friend Rich quipped,

"Zombies?"

Out of focus because I was laughing.

Rich and I bonded good, making jokes about prickly ash and such.

I love a plantsman. He works as a horticulturist by day, but clearly his avocation is Resident Stinkpot. We were trouble when combined.

Alas, all too soon it was time for me to bolt. I had an hour's drive to Columbus, where via the magic of cellaphones I was to connect for a torrid 20 minutes with my bestest Oklahoma buddy Timothy Ryan, he of the peerless photographic eye and the glorious blog From the Faraway, Nearby.

On my way I saw the most auspicious of automobiles, a Hot Rod Lincoln,
boding well for our quick reunion.


Is that not the baddest car you have ever seen? Nice color, too.

Tim was literally passing through Columbus on work, shepherding a platoon of mini Coopers from party to party. Tim has the most interesting life, which makes him great company. He is full of beans and ready for anything.

Seeing Timmers, however briefly (he had to leave within the hour) was the cherry on top of a perfect Zick weekend! We were both steamin' sweaty but we didn't care. My brutha from anotha mutha.


Why does he have to live in Oklahoma? Doesn't he know that he should move to Southern Ohio? I have amassed quite a list of people who should do that.

A Raven Comes to Call

We live in Appalachian Ohio, but just in the foothills. What we have are hills, not mountains. The common raven nests at high elevations in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, but there may be but one pair nesting in all of Ohio, as we are short of mountains. Nevertheless, in the last five years, we've had four records of common ravens flying over our yard. As our eloquent friend and Ohio Rare Bird Records Committee poobah Jim McCormac put it, that makes us "the only Ohio backyard with multiple records of this jumbo croaker."
This is Liam's willow, planted the summer of his birth. Just to show you that it's indeed in our backyard.

The first record came on March 15, 2003, when my artist friend Cindy House and I were standing in our backyard. Bill was inside playing the guitar. Groop groop groop groop! croaked a raven. Cindy heard it and didn't give it a second thought, since she was visiting from Vermont where common raven was a yard bird for her. I heard it and started jumping up and down and flapping my arms and hollering for Bill. We saw the bird flying over the orchard, croaking all the way, but by the time I got Bill out, it was gone. Arrrgh. Anyway, it was #180 for our yard list. It was headed southwest.

On September 29, 2005, our friend Wezil Walraven, a professional bird guide, contender for Funniest Man on the Planet and all around sharpie, was lying out in a chaise in our front yard, skywatching, when a common raven flew over, croaking, and disappeared headed north. He figured it might be a good record, even though he was visiting from Arizona, so he mentioned it at lunch. I jumped up and down and flapped my arms again.

On April 7, 2008, while I was in Ithaca, Bill heard what sounded like a common raven flying over, but then a bunch of crows started cawing and he wondered if perhaps it was just an odd vocalization from a crow.

On April 9, 2008, Bill and I were preparing to take a birdwalk around the yard. "I'm going to leave my camera inside," he said, and I said, "OK, I'll take my long lens, in case we see something good that needs its picture taken." We had just rounded the corner of the house when we heard the unmistakable groop groop groop of a honking common raven. Our eyes bugged out and we shouted, "RAVEN!" at the same moment. The bird was huge, coming low over our driveway and the roof of our house, hollering all the way. It landed on our roof and croaked some more. This may have had something to do with the fact that Bill and I were croaking like ravens for all we were worth, trying to get the bird to linger long enough to be immortalized by my Canon. While flipping out that a raven was sitting on our roof, I was frantically trying to get my autofocus to listen to me. "Get it, Zick! Get it!" Bill urged, which helped a lot. My autofocus ground away fruitlessly, focusing on everything but the bird, so I switched to manual focus and managed to fire a couple of shots, to document common raven in our backyard at long last. Like the March '03 raven, it was headed southwest. A phalanx of crows came out to harrass it. I felt sorry for the raven, just croaking away, looking for one of its own kind. Bill realized that his bird two days earlier was probably being harrassed by crows as well.
The tail was a bit molty as you can see. The heavy bill and eagle-like wings are typical of common ravens. Man, it's nice to have a picture, however dull.

I've had a bit of friendly static from people who want to hear all about Ithaca and the Lab of Ornithology. The problem is that there is too much going on right now to carve out the time to write it up and edit all the photos. I've been working like a mule, reclaiming the yard from the grip of winter, tilling and planting, mowing (thanks Bill!) and weeding. I cleaned the pond, bleccch. Sucked up about ten billion toad eggs and then they laid ten billion more. Beats sucking up tadpoles, I figure. The peas and lettuce I planted April 9 are coming up! Meanwhile, both kids have softball practices two nights a week, which means I have to magically produce dinner by 5 pm and drive them to different fields for a four-hour block of time. Whee! While rehearsing for a Swinging Orangs gig tomorrow night. Here's the poster that Andy Hall, our awesome drummer/designer made.

Something about it makes me belly laugh. We are very much looking forward to playing for other parents from the school, and to making lots of tips which we'll donate to Phoebe's class trip to Pittsburgh. I have no idea what to wear, but it will not be cropped pants, nor will it be hula pants, nor a purple squall jacket. It will be something in between, or perhaps beyond. Purple cropped hula pants?

Have a wonderful weekend. We will!