Like a blue thread loosened from the sky
Jun. 28th, 2014 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanI'm sorry that I haven't been posting much at all. I have really no idea why. I write posts in my head all the time, but they never make it to the screen. Since one must begin somewhere, I'll begin with Raphael's and my latest hike.
We went out to find dragonflies last Wednesday. It was a cloudy day until late afternoon, but the only day of the week without major chances of thunderstorms all over it. We went first to a park on the Mississippi in Wright County. There's a picnic area with the world's most cramped porta-potty ever, and there's a boat launch area with a parking lot, a mown area right on the river with a couple of benches for people to admire the view, and a surround of mixed woods and shrubbery and a little bit of meadow. We went specifically to see American rubyspots, a kind of damselfly. I've also had good luck seeing birds in this area while Raphael is photographing the odonates.
The river was very high and fast. It's usually ten feet or so down from the banks, and there's a place where an outfall pipe drains water into the river where we have been able, in the past, to walk on the mud and sand of the shore amongst the roots of enormous cottonwoods. That area was flooded well up the tree trunks, and the muddy bank down which we've scrambled was under water. I seldom go there with Raphael without at some point planting myself on a bench and watching the Mississippi go by. It's usually slow and quiet. That day, it was racing along and gurgling and rustling in all the trees and plants it usually can't get at. It was visibly wider and full of rills and ripples.
The boat launch area was just a shallow half-circle of gravel, its usual gradually-descending length completely covered with river. The park people had had to take out their rolling dock and leave it in the mown area by the parking lot. Dragonflies were landing on it when the light brightened, but they weren't very cooperative. There were clubtails, female common whitetails that I disgracefully misidentified as four-spotted skimmers, and an actual four-spotted skimmer. On the emergent vegetation and shrubbery next to the river were numerous bluets (another kind of damselfly), stone flies, a single glittering tortoise beetle; and, yes, a handful of American rubyspots, fluttering around and flashing their vivid red spots, sitting with wings folded on grass blades or dead sticks, and delighting the eye whatever they did. We also saw some twelve-spotted skimmers, mostly on the wing; and some Eastern forktails, an undersized damselfly with a bright green, black-lined body and two blue segments near the end, without which I never really believe summer has begun.
At some point I went over to the picnic area to use the horrible porta-potty, and coming back flushed what looked like a female widow skimmer.
We heard more birds than we saw: American redstarts, eastern bluejays, gray catbirds both mimicking other birds and wailing like Siamese cats, song sparrows, goldfinches, and yellow warblers. I actually saw a catbird warbling away, mixing up song sparrow and robin and bluejay notes with wild abandon. I saw a single yellow warbler from a distance. But the best bird we did not hear at all. We were coming back to the car, which we had parked by a fallen tree. We used to park under it before it fell down. A tiny blue-gray bird with a white eye-ring and a black stripe on the top of its tail flew down to the fallen trunk and started poking around. We walked slowly to within six feet of it. It really didn't mind us at all; whatever might be in the log was too interesting. It was as insouciant as a chickadee. Raphael stealthily removed the lens cap that had just been put on in preparation for leaving, and ended up dropping it. This was a terrible affront, and the bird left. I dug out the Sibley at once, however. I looked under chickadees, but there was nothing like it. It had also reminded me of a kinglet, so I checked that family next, and there it was -- the blue-gray gnatcatcher.
Then we went to Lake Maria State Park. This is another Big Woods remnant, like Nerstrand, though I believe less extensive. The drive to the boat launch and picnic area by the lake goes through a gently rolling landscape of basswood, oak, and maple, with a gorgeous green-lit part that is all maple and has no understory, just fallen mossy maple branches and previous years' leaves. We started to see dragonflies swooping past, and flying up from the road, in fairly large numbers. We stopped at the Rare Turtle Crossing; the turtle in question is the Blandings turtle. We didn't see any turtles. The dragonflies were mostly chalk-fronted corporals, with a smattering of dot-tailed whitefaces. There were white-faced meadowhawks, too. I tried to encourage the chalk-fronted corporals to land on my shirt, which they have been known to do by the dozen; but I think the sun wasn't strong enough to tempt them. They did dart under my hat for mosquitoes several times.
The turtle crossing is a low section of the gravel road with a large pond on one side and a smaller one on the other. As I walked to where the concentration of dragonflies was greatest, I noticed a number of shallow scoopings in the sand under the gravel of the road, as well as several deeper ones. When I passed them again in pursuit of a corporal, I saw that the deeper scoopings were littered with rolled-up bits of white, leathery-looking material. I think those were the shells of turtle eggs, and the scraped-out places must have been turtle nests, and I just hoped the turtles had hatched and made it to the water rather than the eggs' having been eaten.
We went on to Lake Maria. There were corporals basking on the concrete parking markers, seven or eight to a piece of concrete sometimes; and on the picnic tables; and on the trees. We went around to the lake shore. The picnic tables there were all sitting in pools of water, looking forlorn. There's a path through the higher ground between parking lot and lake shore, with short paths leading at intervals down to the lake. We saw that the park had put thick boards held together with two-by-fours down in two places so that people could get out to the fishing dock. We went out and admired the lake and its fringe of rushes. The sun had been in and out a lot, as clouds moved in and away again. Right now it was cloudy but the light was fairly strong. Raphael pointed out the effect of the light on the lake water, which looked like molten metal, and we watched it lap past for a while.
There were a lot of mosquitoes and we were getting tired, so we used the palatial state-park vault toilet and drove out of the park, through the green undertree light, speculating about what spring wildflowers might be here, before the mosquitoes.
Pamela
We went out to find dragonflies last Wednesday. It was a cloudy day until late afternoon, but the only day of the week without major chances of thunderstorms all over it. We went first to a park on the Mississippi in Wright County. There's a picnic area with the world's most cramped porta-potty ever, and there's a boat launch area with a parking lot, a mown area right on the river with a couple of benches for people to admire the view, and a surround of mixed woods and shrubbery and a little bit of meadow. We went specifically to see American rubyspots, a kind of damselfly. I've also had good luck seeing birds in this area while Raphael is photographing the odonates.
The river was very high and fast. It's usually ten feet or so down from the banks, and there's a place where an outfall pipe drains water into the river where we have been able, in the past, to walk on the mud and sand of the shore amongst the roots of enormous cottonwoods. That area was flooded well up the tree trunks, and the muddy bank down which we've scrambled was under water. I seldom go there with Raphael without at some point planting myself on a bench and watching the Mississippi go by. It's usually slow and quiet. That day, it was racing along and gurgling and rustling in all the trees and plants it usually can't get at. It was visibly wider and full of rills and ripples.
The boat launch area was just a shallow half-circle of gravel, its usual gradually-descending length completely covered with river. The park people had had to take out their rolling dock and leave it in the mown area by the parking lot. Dragonflies were landing on it when the light brightened, but they weren't very cooperative. There were clubtails, female common whitetails that I disgracefully misidentified as four-spotted skimmers, and an actual four-spotted skimmer. On the emergent vegetation and shrubbery next to the river were numerous bluets (another kind of damselfly), stone flies, a single glittering tortoise beetle; and, yes, a handful of American rubyspots, fluttering around and flashing their vivid red spots, sitting with wings folded on grass blades or dead sticks, and delighting the eye whatever they did. We also saw some twelve-spotted skimmers, mostly on the wing; and some Eastern forktails, an undersized damselfly with a bright green, black-lined body and two blue segments near the end, without which I never really believe summer has begun.
At some point I went over to the picnic area to use the horrible porta-potty, and coming back flushed what looked like a female widow skimmer.
We heard more birds than we saw: American redstarts, eastern bluejays, gray catbirds both mimicking other birds and wailing like Siamese cats, song sparrows, goldfinches, and yellow warblers. I actually saw a catbird warbling away, mixing up song sparrow and robin and bluejay notes with wild abandon. I saw a single yellow warbler from a distance. But the best bird we did not hear at all. We were coming back to the car, which we had parked by a fallen tree. We used to park under it before it fell down. A tiny blue-gray bird with a white eye-ring and a black stripe on the top of its tail flew down to the fallen trunk and started poking around. We walked slowly to within six feet of it. It really didn't mind us at all; whatever might be in the log was too interesting. It was as insouciant as a chickadee. Raphael stealthily removed the lens cap that had just been put on in preparation for leaving, and ended up dropping it. This was a terrible affront, and the bird left. I dug out the Sibley at once, however. I looked under chickadees, but there was nothing like it. It had also reminded me of a kinglet, so I checked that family next, and there it was -- the blue-gray gnatcatcher.
Then we went to Lake Maria State Park. This is another Big Woods remnant, like Nerstrand, though I believe less extensive. The drive to the boat launch and picnic area by the lake goes through a gently rolling landscape of basswood, oak, and maple, with a gorgeous green-lit part that is all maple and has no understory, just fallen mossy maple branches and previous years' leaves. We started to see dragonflies swooping past, and flying up from the road, in fairly large numbers. We stopped at the Rare Turtle Crossing; the turtle in question is the Blandings turtle. We didn't see any turtles. The dragonflies were mostly chalk-fronted corporals, with a smattering of dot-tailed whitefaces. There were white-faced meadowhawks, too. I tried to encourage the chalk-fronted corporals to land on my shirt, which they have been known to do by the dozen; but I think the sun wasn't strong enough to tempt them. They did dart under my hat for mosquitoes several times.
The turtle crossing is a low section of the gravel road with a large pond on one side and a smaller one on the other. As I walked to where the concentration of dragonflies was greatest, I noticed a number of shallow scoopings in the sand under the gravel of the road, as well as several deeper ones. When I passed them again in pursuit of a corporal, I saw that the deeper scoopings were littered with rolled-up bits of white, leathery-looking material. I think those were the shells of turtle eggs, and the scraped-out places must have been turtle nests, and I just hoped the turtles had hatched and made it to the water rather than the eggs' having been eaten.
We went on to Lake Maria. There were corporals basking on the concrete parking markers, seven or eight to a piece of concrete sometimes; and on the picnic tables; and on the trees. We went around to the lake shore. The picnic tables there were all sitting in pools of water, looking forlorn. There's a path through the higher ground between parking lot and lake shore, with short paths leading at intervals down to the lake. We saw that the park had put thick boards held together with two-by-fours down in two places so that people could get out to the fishing dock. We went out and admired the lake and its fringe of rushes. The sun had been in and out a lot, as clouds moved in and away again. Right now it was cloudy but the light was fairly strong. Raphael pointed out the effect of the light on the lake water, which looked like molten metal, and we watched it lap past for a while.
There were a lot of mosquitoes and we were getting tired, so we used the palatial state-park vault toilet and drove out of the park, through the green undertree light, speculating about what spring wildflowers might be here, before the mosquitoes.
Pamela
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no subject
Date: 2014-06-29 12:32 am (UTC)You know so much more about dragonflies than I do. Birdsong, too. I now need to look more closely at the dragonflies right outside my mudroom door to determine if they are male common whitetails or chalk-fronted corporals...or both. The white has been so startling I haven't yet looked closer to see if it extends all the way down the body or not.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-30 01:02 am (UTC)The real expert is Raphael. I just hang around and half-absorb information. Well, I do look up bird songs on the Cornell Laboratory site, but still.
P.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-29 03:09 am (UTC)(As entirely miserable photographic subjects go, they're not as bad as cerulean warblers and that's about all I can say for them; grey jay is easier.)
Thank you for the entirely lovely hike description; it conveys a really tremendous sense of place.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-30 01:03 am (UTC)My pleasure. We've been going to these parks for several years now and I always return to them with great anticipation and enjoyment.
P.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-30 10:34 am (UTC)Cerulean warbler is in a higher canopy, mature oak trees for preference, where gnatcatchers are much less fussy about the tree, but they;'re still tough. A little less of the "I can't even see this without magnification, where do I point the camera?" problem, but only a little.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-29 11:55 am (UTC)Wow, I now need to go research dragonflies - we have a ton here and I honestly didn't realize that there were so many varieties! I just went w/ "Oh! There's a blue one! Look! A red!" :)
no subject
Date: 2014-06-30 01:04 am (UTC)You may have more where you are than we do, though the state with the largest number of different species is, I think, Texas.
P.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-30 11:53 am (UTC)I'm just in MA so I'm not sure we're a dragonfly hotspot, but we do get a ton!
no subject
Date: 2014-06-29 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-30 01:38 am (UTC)I don't have a life list -- I really should.
P.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-29 01:09 pm (UTC)Re: the lens cap drop. I invested small monies in one of those lens cap leashes. I thought I'd hate it but I got used to it VERY quickly.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-04 03:47 pm (UTC)I could use lens cap leashes for my binoculars. I don't just drop caps, I lose them.
P.
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Date: 2014-06-29 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-04 03:47 pm (UTC)I'm glad you liked it.
P.
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Date: 2014-07-02 10:47 pm (UTC)-- kore on DW
no subject
Date: 2014-07-03 12:34 am (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-03 02:58 pm (UTC)It's always good to see your posts. :-)
no subject
Date: 2014-07-04 03:43 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-07 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 09:28 pm (UTC)P.