the little bird

henslow's sparrow (photo by dave patton)

say, if any of u blogspot bloggers out there have advice on how i can get this thing out of "centered" and onto "left margin" i'd appreciate it............i mean, there's a drop-down thingy for it; but i cannot seem to get it to work.

     back to business:  thanx for all the nice comments re: 'there goes the neighborhood' (previous blog post).......exactly what is it about nature that heals? and even transforms? check out the following (by a dude named john pulsford):

     "I was in the act of kneeling down before the Lord my God, when a little bird came and perched near my window, and thus preached to me: 'O thou grave man, look on me, and learn something, if not the deepest lesson, then a true one. Thy God made me, and the like of me; and if thou canst conceive it, loves me and cares for me. Thou studiest Him in great problems, which oppress and confound thee: thou losest sight of one half of His ways. Learn to see thy God not in great mysteries only, but in me also. His burden on me is light, His yoke on me is easy; but thou makest burdens and yokes for thyself which are very grievous to be borne. Things deep as Hell and high as Heaven thou considerest overmuch; but thou dost not 'consider the lilies' sufficiently. If thou couldst be as lily before God, for at least one hour in the twenty-four, it would do thee good: I mean, if thou couldst cease to will and to think, and be only. Consider, the lily is as really from God as thou art, and is a figure of something in Him -- the like of which should also be in thee. Thou longest to grow, but the lily grows without longing; yes, without even thinking or willing, it grows and is beautiful to both God and man."

     that sort of sums it up, you know? with all our large-brained technology, sophistication, culture, cleverness, etc etc etc..........why/how is it that we become increasingly angst-ridden and neurotic with each new invention?? why/how is it that there is a new mess to clean up behind each new invention? why/how does it seem like we're just digging ourselves deeper and deeper as we get smarter and smarter?

     folks tell me that it is God who gave us the big brains; and by God, we're supposed to put them to good use! i don't want to argue about that..........i've got the big-brain blues as much as anyone else......i don't want to sound even more hypocritical than i already do, y'understand..................................still, there's no denying human crises we see unfolding before us with each passing day............we can rationalize and intellectualize until the cows come home....................................bottom line though, is that we'll continue to unwittingly create personal and world-wide catastrophes until we drop our pride and arrogance, get down on our knees, and acknowledge Something bigger than us.............Something far beyond our capacities -- yet at the same time within us.............desiring to flow out, if we could only suspend our strategizing, dealmaking, and internal love affairs with self long enough -- and effectively enough -- for It to do so...............

it seems like such a great mystery............and to our outrageously large brains, it is! but somewhere within each of us humans, way down deep, it ain't no mystery.......it's Reality......any lil' bird can tell you that.

there goes the neighborhood

prothonotary warblers; top, da baby; bottom, da baby daddy

for reasons unknown, this dam thing is stuck on "centered" rather than "left margin" and i cannot get it to work right.................sigh..................sorry................hope you'll bear with me for this post.....

     everywhere i go, all the friends i meet up with are all sick about the oil catastrophe.....me too.....it's like having a loved one in intensive care.........it's a day-by-day thing; and in this case, each day is getting worse. thus far, there have been no "good days" to hang on to. personally, i try to remember to just pray whenever the fear pangs in my gut gets too intense......pray for all those out there trying to make it right; pray for all those who live and work down there, and pray for the innocent ones who have no concept of what's going on with their world.......................

     as always, my obsession/fascination with Nature has been a godsend.....and if it ain't healing, it's definitely soothing..........because we live in a bottomland hardwood setting within close proximity to permanent water (bayou vermilion), we've been fortunate enough to host nesting prothonotary warblers over the past 5-10 years........after i took a cue from a friend, and constructed recycled plastic water bottle "nest boxes" for them, attached predator guards, and stuck them on poles in the soft bottom of the coulee that lines the east side of our yard........as soon as i put those up, they immediately began nesting in them.

     for being so.....uh.....wild & all, prothonotary warblers seem to tolerate proximity to human habitation just fine..........as with other species such as carolina wren, carolina chickadee, house finch, etc., i wonder just how long ago they took that step, y'know? it's interesting how some animals can put up with us, whereas others couldn't live anywhere near us....................................

     in any case, we've sure enjoyed the prothonotaries..........so colorful......so exuberantly loud (the males, of course)...........backyard blessings................................like most u.s./canadian warblers, prothonotaries migrate  back & forth between the tropics and temperate north america..........when the males arrive at our place each april, they immediately reassess their respective territories and nest bottles, and wasting no time, they launch into incessant song: a loud, ringing, penetrating, "sweet sweet sweet sweet SWEET!" all the livelong day..................hormone-ridden, they attack their reflected images cast from our windows, at first mistaking them for rivals; then, once they gain a sort of understanding, admiring themselves........so loud do they bang against the windows that they wake us up (right, always at about daybreak.....sigh again.....).

     as of this week, a new fledgling (see "da baby" above) has taken to the window thing, flying from window to window, room to room, pecking and hollering.........it's driving the (indoor) cats nuts......us too. nevertheless, we're grateful.....and yes, are blessed with an abiding feeling of goodness.....maybe righteousness..........the good kind of righteousness that comes not from the self, but from the Other.

by these sorts of up-close-&-personal interactions with Nature, we are comforted....assured....that life will indeed go on here on this planet...........beautiful, inspiring life..................................we humans may or may not continue........that, unfortunately, is strictly up to us and our inventions..........but life will abide.....all will be right with this world..........................eventually...............................we humans just need to evolve (or possibly, devolve....that could be what 2012 is all about, ya'll....) into a less toxic, less brutal (for other creatures) way to live....................we used to be cool about it; but now we've grown too smart..............................too clever.........................to coniving...................................

water for backyard wildlife

left photo foreground, neal walker's bird house; behind it, gail barton's mississippi sandstone waterer

right photo: a watering bowl discreetly located in quiet shady spot

     before i go any further, the carolina wren photo in my previous post was most likely taken by longtime friend & professional naturalist, beth erwin, from kalorama nature preserve up on the macon ridge in morehouse parish. 

     water is a super-important commodity -- necessity -- for backyard birds, lizards, etc.........depending on where you live, your backyard water source(s) may well be the only easy/decent/dependable source for blocks or miles around. for birds, water is almost as important for plumage maintenance as it is for drinking. for efficient aerodynamics, birds must maintain plumage in dust-free condition. their high metabolic rate demands lots of drinking water as well, particularly in hot, dry weather....................

     smaller songbirds (chickadees, titmice, etc.) need shallow water sources from which to drink and bathe. shallow bowls & baths, placed in quiet, shady spots will do nicely. larger birds, like blue jays, can handle the deeper, more traditional bird baths. you can adapt deeper sources to accomodate smaller birds by placing one or more stout twigs half in and half out of the water, so that they can creep in and out of the water via the twig.

     note: if you've got outdoor cats roaming around your place in the daylight hours, do not use ground-level water sources. i'd even be hesitant to put out elevated bird baths in that circumstance. you don't want to attract birds to your backyard just so cats can prey upon them. we keep 3 cats. we keep them indoors during daylight hours, and let them (those that want to go out) out at night.

     over the years, lydia and i have collected many watering devices.....at least 3 bird baths, six watering bowls (mostly thrown clay beauties), a wall "bracket" bath, etc.........the above left photo features our latest addition: a 200lb native mississippi sandstone waterer, given to us by our longtime pal, mississippi horticulturist, lecturer/writer/designer, gail barton.......a friend of hers hews them out of solid sandstone up in n. mississippi.....................................

     lydia keeps all these watering devices fresh on a daily basis......which brings up another important point: if you don't feel you can maintain one or more watering devices at least on an every-other-day basis, you should not put them out..........at least not a number of them.........understand that once a bird or lizard or toad or whatever comes to a watering device, they will develop a reliance/dependency on the device.....unlike us humans, if a faucet or spigot goes out, we just go to another one and/or fix the old one....that's not a possibility in the animal world........secondly, once they find a dependable water source, animals base an entire routine around that source......they develop safe times and safe routes in order to access that water source.......they know that one slip-up can cost them their lives, and the lives of the young that depend upon them in the spring/summer months...........so it's a "life & death" situation for them, y'understand.

view from the back

carolina wren (photo, i think, by dave patton)

springtime stumbles

into summer

songbirds mumble

'we're done, we're done'

thru the haze and smoke

nobody gets the joke.

     ecologically, insects are the straw that stirs the drink.......at least in terrestrial systems (marine systems are different)........and in order for the straws to appear, they themselves must be stirred by moisture -- precipitation............after a 3-month dry spell, it began to rain around here in south-central louisiana maybe 10 days ago.......presently, we've got insects lagore.

     from the back porch/deck i've watched 'em appear........and have watched their predators appear. tiny mosquitoes (probably from the genus Culisetta) made their debut this past week......they bite hard.....and they're quick as flies...........happily, near-emaciated anole lizards & skinks (both broad-head and southeastern five-lined) have found them..................they're also hunted by at least two species of dragonflies brave enough to hunt the deck........one's a big blue one (a blue dasher, i think it's called) that makes regular rounds, quickly circling the inside of the deck like a helicopter........and then there's that common green one (carolina pond-hawk, i think), which more timidly hangs out around the edges of the deck.

     4 species of wasps are now on the scene: red paper, mud-dauber, and two species of potter wasp, one "regular wasp size," and the other very tiny -- about the size of a deer-fly.........those potter wasps are awesome.........they make a little clay pot, a finely crafted thing that looks exactly like a wheel-thrown pot, replete with short neck and perfectly-fashioned funnel-shaped opening....all no more than 2/3" in size.......they secrete these larva houses in quiet, shaded spots -- beneath the deck rail is a popular choice..........

     we've also got lots of bumble bees (primary pollinator of our louisiana irises) working whatever's blooming around the deck (currently, elderberry, swamp cyrilla, oriental buttonbush, and double-blush althea) and of course the dag-nabbed carpenter bees, which are slowly turning our exterior rafters into swiss-cheese........sadly, i haven't noted any overt predation on these bad boys......on the adults, anyway......after careful observation, however, i'm guessing that one or both of the potter wasps might be entering the tunnels of the carpenter bees and working over their larvae..............................one can only hope..............otherwise, i personally war with them via a titanium badmitton racquet..........dickie landry says he uses a tennis racquet.........i guess sax players have stronger arms.................

     a primary source of interest is the 'king of the deck,' a big ol' green anole lizard......for years now, there's been a 'king of the deck' to rule over us each warm season...............oh yes, there are other anoles around; but only one king.............it's his deck.........being no idiot, he does allow a female or two around the perimeter -- if they stay out of his way................he does a lot of parading.....stopping frequently to do his throat thingy.........and he really likes mounting the rain guage, crawling up as high as he can, and flexing this cartilaginous throat-rod up there. over the years, i guess there has actually been a succession of 'kings of the deck'...........i'm not sure how long anole lizards live; probably not more than a coupla years................

     i'll finish this post with a recent post from my friend trond nilson..........he's from norway.........he comes to louisiana pretty regularly during the winter months to check out the birds...........but he's in all his glory during norway summers: songbirds lagore, plus, dusk comes at 11:30pm, dawn at about 2:30am! anyway, here's trond:

Didn`t get to bed until 2.30 am last night, when it began to turn light outside again (feel asleep during Brazils match against North Korea in the soccer championship earlier in the evening - it was that boring...) and got to see an owl family (Eurasian Tawny Owl - Strix aluco) - mother with five chicks - flying around my house, perching on the tv antenna, chimney and my pine and sweet cherry trees, the young ones squeeking for food - first time expierience so up close, I felt blessed by that commotion. They`re probably from a holow old beech tree in our nearby beech forrest - owls been nesting there for ages, uses old hols from the big black woodpecker, probably the only woodpecker that`s able to drill in that hard wood...Anyway - I fell asleep with the squeeking in my ears and the dawn outside my - lovely...!




take care bro

caps n' turbans

   
  a couple of posts ago, i wrote about the fabulous althaea bush....the carefree, long-blooming (asian)hibiscus family shrub that has been grown here in louisiana for the past coupla centuries.....i'd just like to add 1) that althaeas need as much sun as possible in order to thrive, 2) that hummingbirds nectar off of them, and 3) the pure-white, single flowered form -- as well as any of the pale-blooming forms (double-white, double-blush) -- are perfect shrub selections for 'moonlight gardens,' gardens or portions thereof which we use/enjoy at night.

     so now let's move on to Malvaviscus, another genus from the hibiscus family. this is the genus which contains two very useful plants for louisiana....................

                 (top, M. drummondii (Turk's Cap), bottom, M. pendulaflorus (Sultan's Turban)

     Malvaviscus is strictly a sub-tropical/tropical american genus containing only 20 or so species. here in the u.s., we have only 2 native species. the first -- and best-distributed -- is turk's cap, Malvaviscus drummondii (some references classify it as a sub-species: M. arboreus drummondii), also known (in texas) as "Drummond's Wax-mallow." this stoloniferous shrub will run like a banshee in full sun, where it forms large, dense, 4' colonies. make sure you have a lot of space -- or just plan on weeding a lot of it out -- should you decide to site it in full sun. personally, i like it better in the shade, where it lays down a bit into a 2.5' tall groundcover. it still runs, but not nearly so hard as in the sun. planted around the roots of shade trees (a notorious zone of high competition for nutrients and moisture), it performs beautifully, expanding to an 8-10' diameter, long-lived colony which will easily withstand drought, flood, whatever.

     the downside re: shade siting is that the plant does not bloom near so much as in the sun. that's ok by me, for it blooms plenty enough to be pretty. bloom season duration varies from year to year. in years following warm winters, it begins blooming in april and continues through august or september. but following cold winters, like this past one for example, it hasn't begun blooming yet.

     note from the photos that the blooms of both Malvaviscus species are twisted shut! kinda weird, but ultimately quite effective from both architectural and wildlife perspectives. these bright red, twisted forms off excellent structural contrast against the wide open blooms of other companion plants in the garden. also, because the blooms are virtually shut, they hold far more nectar than regular hibiscus flowers, rendering them most attractive to hummingbirds and butterflies.

     turk's cap natively ranges along the northern gulf coast from florida west to texas; and also southward into mexico and cuba. here in louisiana, we find it in the wild in chenieres -- live oak-dominated forests right on the coast. gardenwise, it is said to be winter/root-hardy all the way up through shreveport.

     the second native-american species is called sultan's turban (Malvaviscus pendulaflorus; referred to as a sub-species, M. arboreus penduliflorus, in some references). Unlike turk's cap, sultan's turban is a clumping (non-running) shrub, usually growing to about 6-7' in height and width. unlike turk's cap, the blooms of sultan's turban hang down (= penduliflorus) rather than stand erect. they're also about 3X larger than those of turk's cap.

     distributionwise, sultan's turban occurs natively only in south texas in the u.s.; but then continues southward throughout all of mexico and into south america. so it's a bona fide tropical plant as opposed to turk's cap, which has managed to adapt northward into the sub-tropical zone of the u.s.

     nevertheless, in the garden sultan's turban has proven winter/root-hardy throughout the entire gulf rim of the u.s. .......... goody for us gulf-rimmers.............unfortunately -- like most flowering tropicals -- it does not begin blooming until the fall months...........the particular strain in our garden does not commence blooming until mid-october........awfully late as far as i'm concerned........on the other hand, i've seen other genetic strains in other gardens/cities begin as early as late-august..........much, much better.........in the future it'd be a good idea for some horticulturist to select the earliest blooming strain and clone it via cuttings........they could name it 'early girl' or whatever.

     pink, and even white-flowered forms have been found and cultivated in both of these species/subspecies. texas horticulturist greg grant has developed/hybirdized his own pink-blooming form of turk's cap -- and what a winner it is..............he's also developed a hybrid cross  between turk's cap and sultan's turban -- an incredible thing he named 'big mamma'.............it's got the clumping-shrub habit and pendulous flowers of sultan's turban, and the long-bloom season of turk's cap........ what a plant!
    

nightmare

     for various reasons i haven't been able to sleep very well over the past month or so.............so last night i finally resorted to taking a sleeping pill.................that did the job.............apparently i slept hard, because i dreamed; and i've heard that you've gotta be in rem sleep (the deepest kind) in order to dream...........the down side, however, was that the dream was a nightmare.

     i dreamed that i, along with a few others, had been invited to do some sort of fieldtrip and some sort of lecture at a coastal la. national wildlife refuge.........it was for kids & adults.......................the nature trail was in a bottomland hardwood forest along some coastal bayou........the tide must have been coming in, for the bayou was flowing south-to-north, carrying with it an endless line of foamy BP sludge.............everytime i started to speak, i started crying instead.............i tried to get ahold of myself, but could not........even the friends i had come with tried to console me ("it's mostly dispersent, bill.......it'll be ok......"), but to no avail.

     later, when it was time to do some lecturing and listening in the facility's auditorium, i again could not speak, but only cry........the site manager became flabbergasted with me..........................kids were invited up to speak their piece about the spill........something caused me to move over to the bottom of the stairs at the stage and ask each kid, "But what are you doing about it? Don't you feel like we're all part of the problem?" as they walked away from the speaker's podium and  off the stage........ again, friends came over and said, "bill, get ahold of yourself; you're scaring the kids........."

     needless to say, i woke up in a less-than-jovial mood, with those words: "what am i going to do about it? am i not part of the problem?" running over and over through my mind.

     of course should such a scenario have occurred in real life, my sophisticated, oh-so-clever-and-resourceful humanity would have come to the rescue, and i would have indeed pulled myself together, masking my pain with all manner of eco-babble.

     i haven't read any carl jung, but a friend who has says that dreams represent our unfillfilled wishes, desires, hopes.........and in the case of nightmares, unresolved/repressed fears, and memories of bad bad times.

double-blush

Hibiscus syricacus, with one day's worth of bloom drop (15)

     being (kinda) retired allows one to do all sorts of stuff that he/she didn't have the time to do before. it's so cool, you know? now, for example, i can take my time when there's household stuff to be fixed/maintained, which goes a long way toward stress-free living..........

     a week ago, the 'double-blush' althaea (Hibisucs syriacus, aka "Rose of Sharon") over the back deck started throwing its blooms.....which of course it does every year at this time............yeah, literally throwing blooms -- spent blooms -- onto the deck...... ..in times past, it never even occurred to me to pick them off of the deck and toss them into the garden below..........spent althaea blooms, you see, quickly morph into slime balls, finally melting onto the decking and drying as if they were painted onto it............in such condition, they can't swept off, or even brushed off..........they'd have to be scraped off -- not with a mere butter knife, but more like a paint scraper..............................ugh.........well, in days past, i'd just let 'em melt.....and so thickly did they cover the northeastern corner of the deck that they melted en masse into one giant, gooey glob that gradually mildewed into one giant blackish stain, much of which still persists today......................

     this 2010 althaea bloom season has gone differently..........now, i have the time to actually pluck each fallen/spent bloom off of the deck, and toss it down as mulch for both the althaea and the adjacent camelia.......................... i've been at it daily for a week now, and guess what? althaeas put out a lot of blooms, ya'll..............i've picked up an average of 15 spent blooms per day...................and only half of the althaea hangs over the deck!  think on this, children: 15 blooms per day = 105 blooms per week..........but that's only from half the tree; so multiply by 2 and you get 210 spent blooms per week.................whoa...................and our althaea blooms at a heavy rare for at least 10 weeks per year........

     picking up a spent althaea bloom is like picking up a tuft of cotton candy.........lighter than a feather, and tacky to the touch.........makes you wanna eat 'em.

     lydia and i call this particular althaea cultivar, which i haven't found a  "real" name for yet, 'double-blush' because it makes carnation-like, double-petaled blooms that are very pale pink in color. we got it from my mom, who had planted it as a "passalong" many many years ago in ville platte............we planted ours probably 15 years ago...................................

     althaeas are 8-12' shrubs imported to the u.s. many years ago. in her fine, thoroughly researched book, The New Orleans Garden (1990), charlotte seidenberg mentions the first actual documentation that althaeas were being grown in new orleans came in 1820; but she believes that they've been grown there for much longer than that; way back in the colonial period (1720-1803). in his equally outstanding 1987 book, Southern Plants, neil odenwald writes, "Because of easy culture and few pests, many old plants [althaeas] exist." and this is certainly true..........................i can remember seeing althaeas growing around farm houses and old "ma-ma" houses from the 1950s thru present here in acadiana.

     i guess the one most commonly grown around here is the white, single-flowered one.............another common one sports blue flowers with dark maroonish centers.................less commonly, you see purple ones, rose-pink ones, purple ones............and then there's the double pink-blush one.....the creme de la creme.............................................................................

     did ya'll know that the entire hibiscus family is a slimy lot? yep, pretty much all of 'em............muscilangenous blood............most evident in okra, a favorite hibiscus species here in the south......well, my favorite, anyway.

     all of this reminds me of a favorite 'gardening for wildlife story'...........a real lesson, actually. back when we were selling native plants, we began growing native/wild hibiscus in our ditch..........to our dismay, we soon realized that some kind of small worm was completely skelatonizing the leaves of these plants....whoa.....why sell a plant species destined for ugliness in the garden, you know? then, one fine day i'm talking to old friend and bird ecologist wylie barrow, and he mentioned that they were doing bird counts over in the atchafalaya basin and that he had noted parent prothonotary warblers plucking tiny moth larvae off of wild hibiscus leaves and feeding them to their young...................double-whoa. that really drove home the point that, in wildlife gardening what looks unappealing to the gardener may not be unappealing to local wildlife; and in fact -- probably more often than not -- might actually be more appealing to wildlife.................................................with the hibiscus/worm incident, this truism became overwhelmingly apparent to me, as we had prothonotary warblers nesting in our backyard (they still are) as wylie was relaying this information to me..............................................

      

sweet rain

     i guess it's true what they say about the retired life -- that it's busier than the worker bee life......actually i'm just semi-retired, and man i stay way busier than in the nature station days...........looking back, the nature station was like an idyllic respite..................................anyway, it's all good.............wonderful projects, wonderful people, wonderful times; despite the ominous signs of ecological collapse or at the very least, massive reformation.

     today is the first weekday that i've had totally to myself in the past 100+................and it's raining. yay! looking back at daily rain records, last night's half-incher was only the 3rd episode of a half-inch or better since mid-march.........and the other two were only 0.50 and 0.60".................

     here at 9:30am or so a steady, gentle drizzle has moved in, so i've turned everything off and just let the sound of the rain sink in.........and refresh......and restore.....and renew.

     earlier i stepped outside to listen to nature & all.............a favorite past-time for sure............heard a male chickadee still singing his "see-see see-saw" breeding song. like the other year round resident birds (think red-bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, mockingbird, brown thrasher......), these species breed and nest early -- most often in march -- and by mid-april they're fledging young from the nest......which is precisely when our neotropical migrant species (think prothonotary warbler, northern parula, red-eyed vireo, summer tanager, painted bunting........) are arriving...........so it's a time-share sort of arrangement: the year round locals take care of their reproduction before the neotrops arrive, thus maximizing breeding space/niche availability for both the locals & the neotrops....... in ecospeak, this is known as 'resource partitioning' and is evident amongst most plant and animal species......... somewhat rare, however, amongst Homo sapiens .................(sigh)................and i guess that's why they call it 'the blues'..........................

                                       
                                         (in the above photo -- taken thru our back porch rail --
                                          a carolina chickadee has swooped in for to snatch a
                                         tuft of recently-groomed dog-fur, for to utilize in its nest)
     ANYWAY...........................................it was cool to hear the chickadee singing...........he's obviously still got the raging hormones; so he's either just letting it all hang out, or he and his mate are double-clutching -- that is, bringing off a second brood; which many plants and animals do when ecological conditions dictate. those ecological conditions usually translate to abundant food, shelter, and water resources during any given period.....................if/when that happens during breeding season, then additonal young are duly produced...................................plants & animals don't miss a lick, ya'll..................they're always ready for what comes..............they are intimately connected to God on a moment-by-moment basis.............something few humans recognize, much less strive for....................................now, THAT'S inspirational.............

     i remember when don van vliet(sic) -- the poet of the mojave desert (aka 'captain beefheart') -- interview in which he was asked to comment on what inspired his songwriting.............."inspiration?!?" he barked, "now you take a gander-goose, neck outstretched, head only a coupla inches above the ground, marching proudly...........now THAT'S inspiration........"............. meaning, hey, the whole animal/plant kingdom is indeed inspired; but humans? we're so out of touch that we've got to manufacture our own versions of inspiration............................................