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| Urban wildlife sighting in Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Click to enlarge. |
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| Squirrel evolution has reached the Age of Picnic Tables. |
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| Around the corner. The cat wants to come in. |
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| Out all night. Still looking fabulous. |
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| Nearby, a horse-head hitching post for your horse. |
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| While meanwhile in South Jersey... |
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| I took a short walk along a favorite dirt road in the New Jersey Pine Barrens this week. It turned out to be a remarkable experience. I saw more clusters of Indian pipes that day than I have seen during the rest of my life combined. There were scads of them! It was an Indian pipe extravaganza! And their odd little bell-shaped flowers were blooming. And the flowers were full of seed pods. Click to enlarge. Note the lovely pink accents. |
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| Indian pipes are curious flowering plants. They don't make their own food through photosynthesis. They don't even have chlorophyll, so they are not green. |
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| They look a bit like mushrooms, right? They are also called ghost plants. |
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| We find them near trees, where they intrude on existing associations between the trees and underground fungi. The fungi are “mycorrhizal,” that is, they grow around roots. The relationship between the trees and the fungi is mutually beneficial. Mycorrhizal fungi enhance the root zone of the trees and provide access to more water and nutrients. In return, they obtain sugars produced by the trees through photosynthesis. Good for both. |
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| Along comes the Indian pipes. Their roots parasitically take water, sugars, and nutrients from the fungi and give nothing in return. Bold strategy, Indian pipes! |
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| The large round structures in the flowers are seed capsules. Inside them are dust-small seeds that will be released on the air when the time is right. |
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| Some Sundays, I have no plan for what to write a blog about. I pick up my camera and go outside, and I always find something interesting. Today was such a day. But I was not even all the way out when I spotted this squirrel on my back porch. I took its picture through the back door. The squirrel is stretched out, flattened, and sitting absolutely still. That's attention-getting, if only in contrast to the normal hurried movements of its kind. Is it resting? Sunbathing? |
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| It barely moved for the long minutes I watched. I wondered what might be going through its mind. In that, I am in good company. |
Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal: “I saw a squirrel this morning, sitting motionless on a limb, as if meditating.”
John Muir’s nature writings capture a similar moment: “Even the squirrel, with his busy ways, pauses to listen to the wind in the pines.”
The poet James Wright guessed at a squirrel's inner life:“Curled in the crook of a branch, He dreams of acorns, wind, and chance.”
As did Gene Stratton-Porter, writing in Moths of the Limberlost: “The squirrel, nestled on a rail, is not asleep but dreaming—of leaves, of wind, of time.”
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| As Gary Snyder once said: “Observing a squirrel can take your mind away from worries and into the wonder of nature.” It's absolutely true. Looking closer, I see that the squirrel is holding an acorn in its mouth. Maybe it is just taking a rest on its way home for lunch? |
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| Every year in mid-September, I go to my special place in the New Jersey Pine Barrens to look for an autumn blooming flower -- the pine barrens gentian. I was there this week. Behold! |
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| Click to enlarge. |
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| The buds in various stages are also quite beautiful. |
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| And searching for them involves a pleasant journey... |
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| down sandy paths, |
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| past peat-dark ponds. |
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| The flowers were thought to have disappeared locally, but were rediscovered. Rest assured they are still there and as pretty as ever. |
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| We are heading into the last full week of summer. Soon there will be beautiful leaves. It is that time, described by Sarah Helen Whitman, "when summer gathers up her robes of glory, and, like a dream, glides away." |
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| An autumn preview with mockingbird and persimmons. Click to enlarge. |
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| This week I planted this little clustered mountain mint bush in the sunniest spot in my yard. I often hover over mountain mint plants in parks because insects love them. While they collect pollen and nectar, I have a chance to photograph them up close. |
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| Like this male Ammophila, a thread-waisted wasp, who seems to give new meaning to the name. Note the little patch of orange on his abdomen. |
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| Or the lovely great golden digger wasp, so called for the golden hairs on its head and body. Click to enlarge. |
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| Here's hoping that my little plant will look like this in the future and attract many interesting wasps and other insects. |
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| Laughing gulls, Larus atricilla, started flying south in August. They will be gone from the northeast soon. See you next summer! Click to enlarge. |
