Indian Pipes

I found these Indian Pipes growing in a shady spot under some stately old beech trees. They are white and waxy with black flecks. And rare. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I've found them growing in the wild. They are also called Ghost Plant.

According to the Morgan Library and Museum, this was the favorite flower of the poet Emily Dickinson. She wrote a poem that begins: 'Tis whiter than an Indian Pipe, 'Tis paler than a lace.

Look like mushrooms, don't they? They are not. They're flowering plants, but they don't have chlorophyll. Instead of making their food photosynthetically, they take it parasitically from fungi that grow around tree roots. (Those fungi essentially exchange minerals and moisture from the soil for sugars produced by the tree.)

Each pipe stem has one downward facing flower. They are pollinated by flies and bees, and they make tiny seeds that are dispersed by the wind.

How to Photograph Six-spotted Green Tiger Beetles

Here's a pair of six-spotted green tiger beetles.

They are mating. Click to enlarge,

I usually notice these beetles in areas that are clear of brush, like dirt paths, roads, and even sidewalks. They run along very quickly, glittering like little Christmas ornaments, while they search for their arthropod prey. My typical encounter with a green tiger beetle consists of seeing one, following for a moment while I try to focus on it, then snapping a blurry picture just before it flies away. Is the secret to photographing them becoming obvious? Find a pair that are distracted while mating and snap away.

Bumblebee on Buttonbush

 

A bumblebee on a "honeyball" of tiny flowers of the native North American buttonbush.

Bees, hummingbirds, moths, and butterflies visit the shrub, which is also a host plant for several kinds of moths. This bumblebee is collecting nectar while spreading pollen among the blossoms, a good deal for both the bee and the bush. Click to enlarge.

I recently heard this African proverb: "When the bee comes to your house, let her have beer; you may want to visit the bee's house some day."

Squirrel Cookies!

 

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about white squirrels in the city park in Olney, Indiana. Click on this sentence to see that post.

When I was in Olney, I visited the souvenir shop and bought this squirrel-shaped cookie cutter. I promised to show off any future cookies.

Here they are. This is a group of pink-eyed albinos.

And here are some with pigmented eyes. Their white fur is the result of a non-albino genetic pathway, which is equally delicious in cookie form.

White Fringed Bog Orchid

 

The lovely white fringed bog orchid is blooming in the New Jersey pine barrens now.

I found a little group of them last Thursday. They were just as the poet, Joseph Pullman Porter, said they would be in his poem Wild Orchids: "Under the pines near a murmuring brook..." Click to enlarge.

To celebrate the sighting, a poem by Wendell Berry, from Given Poems, Sabbath II:

"I dream of a quiet man

who explains nothing and defends 

nothing, but only knows 

where the rarest wildflowers 

are blooming, and who goes, 

and finds that he is smiling 

not of his own will."

Sunday Morning Walk in the Pine Barrens

 

I took a walk in the pine barrens near Chatsworth, NJ, this morning. It was hot but lovely.

Some of the old cranberry bogs were full of fragrant white water lilies. Thousands of them. Click to enlarge.

Some of the bogs were full of clouds.

 The sky is twice as pretty that way, but it feels a little topsy-turvy. Like going through the pine barrens looking glass. 

Dead trees loom from some bogs, like the masts of sunken ships.

The working cranberry farms have red pumping stations and wide open spaces.

This gnarly old tree was up to its knees in a blue bog. Like an Ent on vacation.

Fabulous scenery.

More fabulous scenery.

And a tiny toad. I think it's a fowler's toad, one of many that were hopping along the paths today. This one is so small that it could sit on a dime and not hang over the edges!

Here's a picture with a ballpoint pen for scale. The cutest tiny toad ever, right?

And here's an eastern painted turtle. Check out its pretty orange trim. 

The New Jersey pine barrens. Close. Free. Full of beautiful and interesting things.

Harvester Butterfly

 

Behold the Harvester butterfly! Click to enlarge. Its wingspan is just over an inch. It has black and white ringed antennae and white-ringed eyes. It sits with its wings closed over its back, so we see the underside, which is orange-brown with darker spots edged in faint white. This is the first Harvester I've ever seen, although I have been looking for years. The small, uncommon butterfly is famous for being the only strictly carnivorous butterfly we know of. In its caterpillar stage it eats aphids, scale insects, and treehoppers. Female Harvesters lay eggs in colonies of these insects, so when a little Harvester caterpillar hatches, it is surrounded by tasty prey. 

The Harvester was sitting on a low branch overhanging this pretty pond. Nice place he's got there, eh?