In the Yard – Rae Spencer

Dekay’s Brownsnake (ophidiophobia alert!)

March 30, 2024Rae Spencer2 Comments

A snake by any other name

A cold and drowsy snake visited in January. The yard had experienced floods, in days before, so I expect the snake fled some drenched winter hideaway. Moving slowly in the chill, our visitor spent a half-hour or more searching for dry accommodations in leaves that had settled against our house’s concrete foundation.

Photo of a Dekay's Brownsnake peeking from under a dry brown leaf. The scales on top of the snake's head are mottled brown with pale tan coloration between scales. Its large brown eye has a round pupil. — Photo of a Dekay’s Brownsnake peeking from under a dry brown leaf. The scales on top of the snake’s head are mottled brown with pale tan coloration between scales. Its large brown eye has a round pupil.

Over the past decades, I’ve caught rare glimpses of these snakes in the yard. Each time, I filed them in the generic “garter snake” folder of my internal memory bank. My flawed and over-capacity garter snake folder, in my flawed and over-capacity memory, holds all of the small, striped (or not), yard-sized snakes I’ve ever encountered. As long as the small, striped (or not), yard-sized snakes weren’t green, I called them garter snakes. (Green snakes are, obviously, “green snakes” in my flawed internal memory bank.)

Many of my “garter snakes” were, most likely, garter snakes.

Photo of a strongly marked snake with tan stripes and checkerboard patterns of dark brown and pale tan. I believe this is, indeed, an Eastern garter snake. The dapper little snake didn't want to cede its sunny spot beside the paved walking trail and assumed the defensive posture shown in this photo--head raised, neck in an s-curve, body slightly flattened and puffed. Everything about this posture says "if you don't leave me alone I'll bite you". (The snake attempted a strike shortly after this photo. I didn't get bitten, because I was wary enough to stay out of strike's reach, but I'm ashamed that I didn't heed the snake's clear request to be left in warm contentment. Instead, in my zeal for photos, I intruded so thoughtlessly that I made the little creature anxious enough to strike. I apologized, before leaving, but couldn't restore the snake's sun-soaked relaxation.) — Photo of a strongly marked snake with tan stripes and checkerboard patterns of dark brown and pale tan–an Eastern garter snake. This dapper little snake didn’t want to give up its sunny spot beside the paved walking trail and assumed the defensive posture shown in this photo–head raised, neck in an s-curve, body tense. Everything about this posture says “if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll bite you”. The snake attempted a strike shortly after this photo. I didn’t get bitten, because I was wary enough to stay out of strike’s reach, but I’m ashamed that I didn’t heed the snake’s clear request to be left in warm contentment. Instead, in my zeal for photos, I intruded so thoughtlessly that I made the little creature anxious enough to strike. I apologized, before leaving, but couldn’t restore the snake’s sun-soaked relaxation.

Many of my “garter snakes” were, most definitely, not garter snakes.

Garter snake. Not garter snake. Other snake. Each time I get a chance to patch my flawed and over-capacity internal memory bank, I’m relieved. Especially here, in my middle years.

As it’s been too cold for snakes to emerge, except in emergencies, I haven’t tested my brownsnake memory patch against snakes found in the wild. Or in the yard. So I’ve been testing it against my photo archive. At the moment, I’m still mid-correction, my internal dialogue still chirping “garter snake” when I come across photos of small, not-green, striped (or not striped), yard-sized snakes, still needing the gestalt-shift between first impression and new information. Still needing the pause and closer look. Not always garter snake. Sometimes, Dekay’s Brownsnake.

This little Dekay's Brownsnake, no more than 10 inches long, retreated over a tree root as I mowed the back yard. At the time, my internal dialogue tagged the photo "garter snake" and rambled off toward a more interesting (at the time) topic. Now, captivated by the newness of "Dekay's Brownsnake" in my internal dialogue, I clearly see the identifying keeled scales and parallel lines of dark spots down its back. — Photo of a Dekay’s Brownsnake, no more than 10 inches long, retreating over a tree root as I mowed the back yard. At the time, my internal dialogue tagged the photo “garter snake” and rambled off toward a more interesting (at the time) topic. Now, captivated by the newness of “Dekay’s Brownsnake” in my vocabulary, I clearly see the identifying keeled scales and parallel lines of dark spots down its back.

Is the image a vase or a pair of silhouettes? Is the snake a generic “garter snake” or a Dekay’s Brownsnake? The gestalt-shift between recognitions feels like wonder to me.

As for snakes in vases, or other yard art, maybe they are neither garter snake nor Dekay’s Brownsnake?

Photo of a snake's tail dangling out of the bottom opening of a hollow piece of ceramic yard art. The tiny snake, smaller in diameter than a pencil, was reddish-brown with a pale belly. I labeled these photos "garter snake", though I now wonder if they show a reddish variant of Dekay's Brownsnake. Or maybe some other species, still unnamed in my memory? — Photo of a snake’s tail dangling out of the bottom opening of a hollow piece of ceramic yard art. The tiny snake, smaller in diameter than a pencil, was reddish-brown with a pale belly. I labeled these photos “garter snake”, though I now wonder if they show a reddish variant of Dekay’s Brownsnake. Or maybe some other species, still unnamed in my vocabulary?

Another photo of the reddish snake that overwintered in a hollow piece of ceramic yard art. In this photo, keeled scales are clearly visible along the snake's sides, but I can't see enough of the snake's back to know if there are keels on its dorsal scales, as well. I tried following the identification key-map provided by the Virginia Herpetological Society, to no avail. (Please comment if you can help with the ID!) — Another photo of the reddish snake that overwintered in a hollow piece of ceramic yard art. I tried following the identification key-map provided by the Virginia Herpetological Society, to no avail. Keels are readily visible on the snake’s side scales, but no dorsal scales are visible in the photos, which is where my attempts at identification break down. (Please comment if you can help with the ID!)

I’ve seldom had the luxury of hovering here, at the pivot point of internal correction. But my time, this winter, has slowed with the chill. Long nights and short days trigger depression and anxiety, steering me toward torpor. And this winter’s torpor has been more meditative than some years. I’ve lingered over these photos of our little reptile visitor. I want to call this moment learning, except that overused word feels both too small and too large. As do other words, like knowledge and discovery.

Photo of a very small Dekay's Brownsnake emerging between dry brown leaves. In this side view, the snake's overlarge eye and round pupil are fully visible, along with a row of dark spots along its upper lip. Its pale lower lip curves up in an anthropomorphic smile. — Photo of a very small Dekay’s Brownsnake emerging between dry brown leaves. In this side view, the snake’s overlarge eye and round pupil are fully visible, along with a row of dark spots along its upper lip. Its pale lower lip curves up in an anthropomorphic smile.

Such words, and the ideas they attempt to convey, have been claimed and reclaimed, used and abused, lauded and cursed for centuries. Well before I began grappling with my own understandings and misunderstandings, philosophers and critics set their pens to the task of recording, preserving, and passing on observations that make reality a little bit safer, a little bit more predictable, for future generations of humanity. So many men (yes, mostly men) writing letters to a future with so much more to observe.

Macro photograph of the face and eye of a Dekay's Brownsnake, taken in January of 2024. The small snake's large eye shows a round pupil and an iris of iridescent brown and bronze. Its facial scales are mottled brown. — *Macro photograph of the face and eye of a Dekay’s Brownsnake. The small snake’s large eye shows a round pupil and an iris of iridescent brown and bronze. Its facial scales are mottled brown.*

What goes into a name? Constructing (or deconstructing) Dekay’s Brownsnake

Dekay’s Brownsnake has the dubious honor of being named after two 19th century (male) naturalists. Its taxonomic genus-species name is Storeria dekayi. This caught me by surprise. An entire genus of snakes named for David Humphreys Storer (1804-1891), an American physician and naturalist.

Species names have long been used to preserve and honor the names of explorers, scientists, and/or celebrities (a dusty old practice, also evident in common names such as Dekay’s Brownsnake, that is under discussion and overdue for a change) but genus names tend to be more functional. Genus names often highlight one of the traits (or missing traits) that identify the included species as similar enough to be grouped together while simultaneously dissimilar from other groups. Granted, the genus Storeria remains a small genus (only four species, according to the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology/Animal Diversity Web), but still….

I couldn’t resist a stroll through the search engine. I never can. Literature search is my favorite phase of projects, and archives are my happy place.

According to his obituary, David Humphreys Storer (1804-1891) was the dean of Obstetrics and Medical Jurisprudence for Harvard Medical School. He also had a great fondness for collecting. His collections encompassed everything from coins to birds eggs, and he cultivated connections with toll takers and sailors to bolster his coin, shell, and fish collections. His work with the Boston Society for Natural History led to a position with the Natural History Survey of the Commonwealth, where Storer managed the fishes and reptiles portion of the survey, resulting in the eventual publication of A History of the Fishes of Massachusetts.

Storer’s internet presence also includes an 1831 pamphlet, noted on page two to be the “Report of a Trial: Miles Farmer, versus Dr. David Humphreys Storer; commenced in the Court of Common Pleas, April Term, 1830, from which it was appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court, and by consent of parties, referred to Referees, relative to the transactions between Miss Eliza Dolph and George Washington Adams, Esq., son of the late President of the United States. It is impossible but that offences will come; but woe unto him through whom they come! It were better for him that a mill stone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea. —Luke, xvii. 1, 2. Reported by the Plaintiff.” (!?)

I must admit that my interest in Storer dissipated before I read the entire pamphlet. Historical gossip aside (“…the transactions between Miss Eliza Dolph and George Washington Adams…”? Might this have been a scandal worthy of Lady Whistledown?), the pamphlet doesn’t contribute to my relationship with the little snakes in my yard.

Neither the obituary nor the pamphlet help me understand the man, David Humphreys Storer, who was so admired as to have a small genus of small snakes carrying his name to this day. And here lies part of the trouble with eponymous taxonomy. No matter how admired, in collecting circles, nor how despised, in other circles, Storer’s name cannot help me understand the habits and habitats of the little snakes I’m currently obsessed with.

James Ellsworth Dekays’ name doesn’t help, either. Another American physician and naturalist, Dekay (1792-1851) participated in a different state sponsored natural survey, for the state of New York. Dekay eventually published his findings in Zoology of New-York: Or the New-York Fauna: Comprising Detailed Descriptions of all the Animals Hitherto Observed within the State of New-York, with brief Notices of Those Occasionally Found Near Its Borders, and Accompanied by Appropriate Illustrations. In Part III (Reptiles and Amphibia), Dekay described a small brown snake collected by “…John Crumby, Esq., a zealous sportsman and acute observer, who captured [the snake] as it was swimming across a large bay on the northern coast of Long Island” (pp. 46-47).

Dekay’s three-paragraph note about the little brown snake is widely attributed as the first description. (A formality often conflated with discovery.) Dekay first used the genus name Tropidonotus but later corrected it to the genus name Coluber. Today the genus Storeria is classified within the family Colubridae.

A quick search engine query leads to a slightly more interesting article about Dekay–“Between the First Blind Cavefish and the Last of the Mohicans: The Scientific Romanticism of James E. Dekay” by Aldemaro Romero. But again, this article doesn’t help me understand or appreciate the yard’s snakes.

So my stroll through the binomial etymology of Storeria dekayi found my first example of an eponymous genus, two 19th century (male) physician-naturalists, a sex scandal with political connections, an article that tethers blind cavefish to James Fenimore Cooper, and one unfortunate little brown snake that fell prey to a sportsman while the snake was (likely) minding its own snake-business, swimming across a large bay on the coast of Long Island.

Reconstructing my memory, brown snakes included

But why do I crave a relationship, a learning or knowing, with the small, shy, nocturnal, snail-and-slug eating snakes in my yard?

Macro photo of a Dekay's Brownsnake. The snake was approaching the lens, so its head and eye are in focus while the rest of its body is out of focus. Its facial scales are mottled brown, with darker spots under its eye. The scales of its lower lip are very pale tan. — Macro photo of a Dekay’s Brownsnake. The snake was approaching the lens, so its head and eye are in focus while the rest of its body is out of focus. Its facial scales are mottled brown, with darker spots under its eye. The scales of its lower lip are very pale tan.

Why, after so many years of being content to see these snakes as “garter snakes”, do I care so much now? I suppose part of my previous contentment is rooted in a youthful mis-hearing and mispronunciation. Garter snakes were garden snakes, most often encountered during gardening. Small, not-green, striped (or not), yard-sized snakes. As long as they weren’t venomous, they were simply garden snakes.

Venomous-or-not was my earliest snake knowledge, my first lessons in the garden. Some snakes were, and are, venomous. Avoid. Don’t get bitten. Be afraid, if you must. If that’s what keeps you safe, be afraid of snakes. (Of course, all of this gets mixed in with Genesis, with Adam and Eve and a serpent that spoke of temptation. The lesson, again, was fear.)

Our father was a snake killer. Every snake he saw, he slaughtered with whatever tool was closest at hand. His histrionics over snakes were the stuff of family lore, which added a dose of realism to the lesson. My older siblings, and sometimes our mother, ridiculed our father’s snake phobia. I absorbed an adjacent lesson, that the reflex killing of snakes was an action worthy of ridicule.

I developed a fascination with these animals that were so terrifying to our father. I wanted to be not-afraid of what our father feared. (And I wanted to avoid being another target of family ridicule.) Rat snakes, king snakes, corn snakes, green snakes, garden/garter snakes. All the hen-house thieves and barn guardians. All the camouflaged brush and grass dwellers. I watched for them with a cautious kind of hope, longing to catch a glimpse. To see them glide across a rafter or ripple into the next row of okra or bask, egg-sated, near the hen house.

And then, during my years in the boggy woods, the fear-laced lessons of my past peeled away like the hull of a seed.

Photo taken in “the woods”, sometime during winter (bare trees, no underbrush, a thick blanket of fallen leaves) in the early 1990s. Shown here is a portion of the spring-fed creek that was the center of all activity in the woods. It was a shallow creek with shallow banks, flat gravel in places and woody in places, the wooded banks supported by exposed tree roots and moss. I visited the creek and woods as often as, and for as long as, time would allow. I was always escorted by a pack of dogs (and sometimes a cat or two, if the cats chose to follow). In this photo are my Boston Terrier (Simon) and Mother’s corgi mix (Bonnie). This photo smells like petrichor, sounds like water and wind and dry leaves and excited dogs, and looks like nostalgia. It feels like silence and loss, and it tastes like I’ve swallowed a memory because I was hungry for time.

In my boggy woods, hidden from the lessons of my parents and their religion, I sprouted. I developed an observational habit of naming and knowing the cottonmouths and the water snakes around the creek, the copperheads and the corn snakes near the edges, the rattlesnakes and the rat snakes under and in the trees. I knew where the gravid females basked and where the hungry youngsters hunted. I knew the woods and the creek because they were my favorite place to be myself. Should a snake have spoken to me, there, I would have eaten without hesitation whatever it offered.

Photo of a non-venomous water snake. The photo is cropped to concentrate on the snake's face, showing the round pupil and lack of a heat sensing pit between eye and nostril. The snake is striped in various shades of brown with vertical stripes on both upper and lower lip. — Photo of a non-venomous water snake. The photo is cropped to concentrate on the snake’s face, showing the round pupil and lack of a heat sensing pit between eye and nostril. The snake is banded in various shades of brown with vertical stripes on both upper and lower lip.

Photo of a cottonmouth (or water moccasin), zoomed in to show the snake's face and head. The cats-eye shaped, vertical pupil is clearly visible, as is the opening of its heat-sensing pit between eye and nostril. These two traits are common to the venomous pit viper family of snakes. — Photo of a cottonmouth (or water moccasin), zoomed in to show the snake’s face and head. The cat-eye shaped, vertical pupil is clearly visible, as is the opening of its heat-sensing pit between eye and nostril. These two traits are common to the venomous pit viper family of snakes.

But the garden snakes, as long as they weren’t venomous, were simply garden snakes. The garden wasn’t my habitat, so I didn’t need to know its snakes. I tended the garden, and ate its tame offerings, with impatient distraction, always longing for the woods.

Here in my middle years, the garden and yard have become my habitat. I no longer visit the woods, except as a tourist. Now I need to name and know the garden snakes.

Other than the practicality and predictability of recognizing our Dekay’s Brownsnake as not-venomous, I can’t put my finger on the reason for my need. It’s not learning, knowledge, or discovery. It’s simply there. As are the garter snakes. The not garter snakes. The Dekay’s Brownsnakes, who, I’m happy to note, are drawn to the yard and garden because they like to eat slugs and snails. Perhaps this is reason enough to name them and to know them?

Photo of the Dekay's Brownsnake, focused on the snake's body scales. Each reddish-brown scale has a raised central keel, like a line drawn the length of the scale. These body scales overlap more tightly than the facial scales. A row of pinpoint black dots is just visible along the snake's back. — Photo of the Dekay’s Brownsnake, focused on the snake’s body scales. Each reddish-brown scale has a raised central keel, like a line drawn the length of the scale. These body scales overlap more tightly than the facial scales. A row of pinpoint black dots is just visible along the snake’s back.

Perhaps it’s all simply my personal gestalt-shift. The vase is Tennessee and the silhouettes are Virginia. The vase is the woods, the silhouettes our yard. The vase is youth, the silhouettes are now. The vase is water snakes, the silhouettes are garden/garter snakes.

Gestalt-shift. (Dare I say paradigm shift? I dare, but shouldn’t. It’s a rabbit hole.) At any rate, it’s another moment of wonder.

Photo of a juvenile snake exploring a mossy corner of the yard. The snake is gray-brown with a pale ring around its neck. Its overlarge eye has a round pupil. I initially leapt to the conclusion that this might be a ring-necked snake, but now suspect it's a young Dekay's Brownsnake. — Photo of a juvenile snake exploring a mossy corner of the yard. The snake is gray-brown with a pale ring around its neck. Its overlarge eye has a round pupil. I initially leapt to the conclusion that this might be a ring-necked snake, but now suspect it’s a young Dekay’s Brownsnake.

Here are links to three reviews of my poetry collection, Watershed:

“The collection focuses on the natural world and the human relationship with nature. …” by Crafty Green Poet (read the full review here)

“The poems have both a logical and mystical aura that keep the reader in place while the poems flow forward. …” by Lynette G. Esposito at North of Oxford (read the full review here)

“Watershed from Kelsay Books is an antidote to compulsion, to insistence, to the headlong rush into the next thing and the next. …” by GriffinPoetry at Verse Image (read the full review here)

I’m grateful for the time that readers, editors, and reviewers have spent with my writing, and with my book. I’ve loved every minute of my writing journey.

Here are a few articles and essays that are more interesting, and more important, than my musings:

Discovered in Collections, Many New Species are Already Gone by Katarina Zimmer at Undark

When Scientists “Discover” What Indigenous People Have Known for Centuries by George Nicholas at Smithsonian Magazine

The history of natural history and race: Decolonizing human dimensions of ecology by Maria N. Miriti, Ariel J. Rawson, and Becky Mansfield at esa journals (Ecological Society of America)

Feds announce plans to begin rescuing sick sawfish amid mysterious die-off by Jenny Staletovich at WLRN 91.3FM

People more often are origin of infectious diseases in animals than vice versa, data suggest by Mary Van Beusekom, MS, at CIDRAP

Ecological countermeasures to prevent pathogen spillover and subsequent pandemics by Raina K. Plowright, Aliyu N. Ahmed, Tim Coulson, Thomas W. Crowther, Imran Ejotre, Christina L. Faust, Winifred F. Frick, Peter J. Hudson, Tigga Kingston, P. O. Nameer, M. Teague O’Mara, Alison J. Peel, Hugh Possingham, Orly Razgour, DeeAnn M. Reeder, Manuel Ruiz-Aravena, Nancy B. Simmons, Prashanth N. Srinivas, Gary M. Tabor, Iroro Tanshi, Ian G. Thompson, Abi T. Vanak, Neil M. Vora, Charley E. Willison, & Annika T. H. Keeley at Nature Communications

living shadows: aesthetics of moral worldbuilding by Brandon at sweater weather (hat tip to Science for Everyone)

Fear and Loathing in Tennessee: Librarians Face Anxiety, Burnout, Job Threats, and Hate Speech Due to Book Challenges and Legislation by Alex Sharp, Jessica McClure, and Cassandra Taylor at Tennessee Library Association

Why flying insects gather at artifical light by Samuel T. Fabian, Yash Sondhi, Pablo E. Allen, Jamie C. Theobald, & Huai-Ti Lin at Nature Communications

Biology Is Not Binary by Kate Clancy, Agustin Fuentes, Caroline M Vansickle, & Catherine Clune-Taylor at American Scientist (another hat tip to Science for Everyone)

‘Brain fog’ is one of Covid-19’s most daunting symptoms. A new study measures its impact by Elizabeth Cooney at STAT

When Horror Is the Truth-teller: It is hard, in the era of the AR-15, to fear a vampire. by Alexander Chee at Guernica

Finding What I Wasn’t Looking For

August 18, 2023August 18, 2023Rae Spencer17 Comments

(Originally published April 30, 2012)

Weed April 30 — *Macro photograph of a small plant with pointed leaves and three light-purple flowers. Each flower has four petals and four prominent stamens.*

In trying to capture this weed (which I believe might be field madder), I’ve committed every possible photography blunder. Over the past few weeks, I’ve discarded images that were blurry, poorly lit, overwhelmed by background clutter, too distant, too close, blocked by a sleeve or the camera strap… the list goes on. I almost gave up.

Since today began as a failure day, marred by oversleep, bookkeeping errors, and lost office supplies, I decided to try again. What harm could come from adding one more frustration?

Instead of frustration, I found a moment of complete peace. This four-leaf clover, growing beside a patch of madder, felt like a visit from my mother.

One of Mother’s many talents was an affinity for four-leaf clovers. From her chair on the porch, glass of iced tea in hand, she’d point to a spot across the driveway. My siblings and I would follow her directions and retrieve the prize. Walking into the pediatrician’s office, she’d pause near the sidewalk, then laugh as we groaned over her obsession. Getting out of her car at school, she’d drop a book, reach to pick it up, and find a four-leaf clover growing through a crack in the pavement

I did not inherit this particular skill. Four-leaf clovers are vanishingly rare for me, so today’s find felt as if Mother must have been looking over my shoulder. The sensation doubled when I found a second one.

In August of last year, Mother was involved in a serious car accident. She died in October. As we emptied her house, day after day of sorting memories and treasures and curious little mysteries, we found four-leaf clovers everywhere. Saved in envelopes, filed with old bills, stuffed in drawers and cabinets, sprinkled across shelves. Even pressed in the pages of her Bible.

One of Mother's Four-Leaf Clovers — *Photograph of a dried four-leaf clover, pressed between the pages of one of Mother’s Bibles.*

The house cried four-leaf clovers, orphaned keepsakes sifting from every crevice. A lifetime’s worth and more. So many that I felt no urge to pick today’s pair, though I was very grateful to have found them. I hovered a while, happy as I’ve been in months. Then I took my pictures, said another goodbye, and left Mother’s four-leaf clovers in the yard.

The Unwild Mallards

May 19, 2023May 20, 2023Rae SpencerLeave a comment

Each spring, our semi-wild population of suburb mallards leave their lakes, ponds, and canals in search of private nesting habitats. This local migration often brings pairs of mallards to the yard, though none have stayed to nest. Until this year.

In this photo, taken April 29, five baby mallards huddle under their mother as she stands on a rock beside our pond. A sixth baby sits on the next rock over. These mallard ducklings were less than 18 hours out of the egg and are only half of the clutch. Six more babies were waiting in the nest behind their siblings.

Less than a week after I posted about the dragonfly pond, a pair of mallards arrived and began redecorating the pond. They shoved rocks from the border, collapsed minnow caves, uprooted plants, stirred sediment into columns of mud, and added enough nutrient (in the form of duck poop) to start a massive algae bloom.

In this photo, taken March 3, a pair of semi-wild mallards visit the pond. The male mallard floats near the center of the pond, preening his wings, while the female searches for underwater food. *The water is still relatively clear and the pond*‘s rocks and plants are still somewhat in place.

This photo, taken March 7, shows the view from our kitchen window as the mallards nap in the pond. Both ducks have their heads resting along their backs, beaks tucked into the feathers between their wings. The water is turbid and dark, with scattered remnants of uprooted plants. The rocks are still mostly in place, though that didn’t last.

Photo of the pond, taken March 14, showing filthy greenish-brown water. The po nd heater is still deployed, though I removed it shortly after. A board shaped like a fish floats in the far end of the pond.¹

The dragonfly pond soon looked and smelled like a cattle pond.

The ducks ate everything they could catch in the water. Minnows and dragonfly larvae, damselfly larvae and snails. Anything that swam or wriggled.²

We shooed and herded the pond-wrecking mallards, who returned day after day for further wreckage. I complained to family and friends about the mallards’ destructive invasion, but I also hoped for a nest. Truth be told, I always hope for nests. Plus, I have nostalgic affection for ducks.

This photo³ shows me at some early elementary school age, complete with crooked bangs, ill-fitting shorts and halter top, knobby knees, and a welter of mosquito bites. I’m holding our pet duck Fred, who was very spoiled.

*This photo, dated 1975, shows a group of mature white ducks in our Tennessee back yard.*

*In this later photo, probably late 1980s, three white geese and two black-and-white ducks amble past a newly delivered cord of winter wood in our Tennessee yard.*⁴

*This photo, dating to the late 1980s or early 1990s, shows three white geese, two black-and-white ducks, and three white ducks visiting their blue plastic wading pool in our Tennessee back yard.*⁵

Hoping to lure the mallards away from the pond for at least a few hours each day, I purchased a blue plastic wading pool (definitely a theme in my lifelong efforts to keep waterfowl happy) and an extra bag of wild bird feed. Pool and feed in hand, I set up a duck station near the fence in our Virginia back yard, including steps for easy entry into the pool. Then I herded the mallards out of the pond and toward the pool.

In this photo from March 12, a blue plastic wading pool is wedged into the back seat of my car. Many thanks to the very patient Target employee who brought the wading pool out for curbside pickup and helped load it while we both fought off fits of the giggles because who buys a wading pool in March? For ducks? While masking and social distancing because COVID is not over? (I’ll add that COVID is still not over. Especially for families, like mine, who have immunocompromised households.)

Not surprisingly, the mallards saw peril in the duck station and refused to try the wading pool. At that point, the pair were still semi-wild, after all. They retreated into the pollinator beds and rummaged through duff when I was in the yard, then circled back to the pond when I went inside.

And the pond grew more and more fetid. (I had almost forgotten the smell of our chicken house in Tennessee, and sometimes the yard when our flocks grew too populous, but now I’ve been reminded.)

In this photo from March 14, the male mallard watches warily from behind the irises that shore up one end of the pond. Neither of the mallards tried the wading pool until after I quit trying to convince them to try the wading pool.

When the female mallard built her nest in the irises and began laying, we stopped all efforts to shoo or herd or otherwise interfere. Almost immediately, the mallards took to the wading pool for luxurious sessions of bathing and splashing.

*Photo from March 21, showing the female mallard bathing in the wading pool as the male mallard stands guard.*

*Photo, dated April 14, showing the female mallard bathing in the wading pool as the male mallard stands guard.*

*Photo, dated April 18, showing both mallards in the wading pool.*

Resigned to a lengthy mallard residency, we invested in a pump and filter for the pond. For the next month, I cleaned the pond filter daily, dumped and refilled the wading pool every other day, put out feed each morning and evening, and lingered in the kitchen window for hours on end, watching. The mallards hunted in the pond (and further rearranged the rocks), bathed and basked in the wading pool, ate their feed and grazed through the yard, and generally unwilded until they were as comfortable in the yard as our domestic flocks had been in the yard of my childhood home.

And while the mallards unwilded, the nest grew.

*Photo, dated March 20, of the nest with a single egg.*

*Photo, dated March 28, of the nest with five eggs.*

*Photo, dated April 1, of the nest with nine eggs.*

On April 1, with nine eggs in the nest, the female mallard settled to incubating. Giving up all pretense of productivity, I sat in the kitchen window, day after day. While she sat on her nest. Day after day.

*Photo, dated April 14, of the female mallard on her nest.*

*Photo, dated April 18, of the eggs nestled in layers of down.*

*Photo, dated April 18, of the female mallard on her nest.*

And then, on April 28, the hatching commenced. All afternoon the mallard fidgeted and turned and tended, eating some of the discarded shells and membranes, tucking the rest under the nest’s foundation of dried grasses. By nightfall the nest was filled with ducklings instead of eggs.

In this photo, taken April 28, a freshly hatched mallard is nestled deep into the downy feathers lining the nest. The female mallard is half-standing in the nest, with two still-unhatched eggs visible beneath her.

*Here a duckling, still damp from hatching, is just visible under the female mallard as she stands in her nest.*

*Here the ducklings are getting their first views of the world from inside their nest, still guarded by their mother.*

I set my alarm for sunrise the next morning, certain that the female mallard would lead her brood away as soon as the hatchlings were mobile enough. I didn’t want to miss a moment of their brief stay in the yard.

*April 29. The now-fluffy-and-dry baby mallards peer out from around their mother as the little family begins to stir in their nest.*

*The baby mallards follow their mother from the nest for their first outing. In this photo, two babies hover under their mother as she stands on the rocks just in front of the nest.*

All twelve eggs hatched seemingly healthy babies. Their first clamber down the rocks was eager for some and timid for others. In this photo, one of the eager ducklings takes an awkwardly long step down from the first rock.

*The eager duckling from the previous photo experiences a bit of a rough landing in the water. The impromptu dive didn’t phase the duckling, which swam busily away.*

The more timid ducklings took more care climbing down from the nest. In this photo, a group of three ducklings linger on the first rock as one of their siblings stretches a careful foot down toward the next step.

*The ducklings tasted everything they found. Here, a baby mallard floats on the pond and nibbles at a long plant stem.*

The fish-shaped board proved a popular resting spot for the ducklings as they practiced swimming and diving and eating. Here, two ducklings perch on the board while their siblings swim around them. The female mallard is just visible in frame, keeping an eye on her brood.

*The ducklings also rested on the pond’s bordering rocks, which were warm from the sun. Here, four ducklings sit on the warm rocks.*

*A baby mallard, less than 24 hours out of the egg, perches on one of the warm rocks bordering our small dragonfly pond.*

Exhausted after their first few swim lessons, the mallard family returned to their nest between adventures. Here, two of the babies have tipped over into awkward sleeping positions on the rocks while their siblings gather in the nest beneath the female mallard.

And, of course, they didn’t stay.

I followed the mallards as their mother led them out of the yard and down our street and through a playground and up the next street over to a house on a canal without a fenced back yard. The homeowner was working in his yard when our odd parade arrived, and he nodded and shrugged when I waved from the sidewalk across the street. He told me that mallard mothers lead their brood through his yard, the only unfenced yard along the canal, all spring long. They head for the canal despite its dangerous populations of snapping turtles, snakes, and bullfrogs large enough to eat a baby duck. We agreed that yards are safer but mallards need canals.

Then I trudged home alone, wishing for a world both more and less wild.

I was shocked when the mallard led her brood back, that evening. My husband saw them coming up the sidewalk and called for me. The female mallard had guided her dozen day-old ducklings out into the canal and back again, safe and tired. We opened the gate and welcomed them home, pond wreckage forever forgiven as the sleepy family spilled back into their nest.

The next morning they left for good, of course. The yard, for all of its unwild safety, is not meant for mallards. Nor are mallards meant for the yard.

They haven’t returned, and they won’t. At least, not as the same little family that left. But every mallard I see, for all my years to come, will be one of them.

The Unwild Mallards

The unwild mallards were stubborn and messy
Unwily in their need
And the pond was water enough for nesting

An unwild nest
In unwild irises

A quick meal and a bath
Then back to the nest

Days growing longer and hotter
In the unwild yard
With unwild waters

And then
The unwild dozen

That afternoon, they left
Then returned for one last night
Before they left for good

Heading toward the good wild waters
Where unwild mallards might learn
To be wild

Video comprised of still images and iPhone video clips of the mallards’ time in the yard. Text over the images repeats the poem printed above. The audio is a separate recording made in the yard as I edited this video. Traffic noise and wind dominate the audio, but crows and a blue jay make guest appearances.

Footnotes

1 We added the board after removing a commercial floating planter/island. We removed the island because it was ruined, then added the board because we felt sorry for the minnows that had enjoyed hanging out under the island. (Click here to go back.)

2 The ducks were not so efficient as to depopulate the minnows and invertebrates. I’m not certain how anything survived, between the feasting and the fouling, but some survived and carried on. Currently, the pond is teeming with baby minnows and every surface is clumped with snail eggs. (Click here to go back.)

3 This is another of my oldest sister’s “Rae with pets” series of photos, which span years and will likely continue to appear on this blog. In the background, two chickens and our shepherd make guest appearances. (Click here to go back.)

4 After our father left, the job of stacking wood fell to me. Mother purchased cut wood from a neighbor, who unloaded it in a heap. I would sort the wood by size and age, stacking it all in our pole shed. The freshest cuts went at the bottom of the pile (to age/cure) and the aged/cured wood at the top. The largest logs started at the left and the smallest kindling at the right. I even sorted the wood according to Mother’s lore: she believed that the hardest woods (usually hickory and oak) burned long and hot, the softer woods (often maple and hackberry, but sometimes others that I didn’t recognize) burned fast and cool, and the evergreens (pines and the occasional cedar) burned oily and deposited more creosote in the chimney. When bad weather was forecast, I brought days or weeks worth of wood to the porch, where it stayed drier than the shed. But Mother didn’t like keeping wood stacked on the porch because warm air escaping through the door woke the woodpile’s insects, who followed the warm air indoors. (I never had cause to doubt Mother’s wood fire lore and would likely stack wood by size and hardness, away from the porch, if we burned wood for heat today.) (Click here to go back.)

5 The wading pool was the closest thing they had to a pond. A second blue plastic wading pool, visible in the background, was in the dog pen and helped our dogs stay cool. The second pool also kept the dogs from digging under the fence because they wanted to play in water. (Click here to go back.)

I regret that I do not have a list of links, for this post, to articles and essays that are more important and more interesting than the small unfoldings in our small yard. I have been tired, of late, and taking a break from the larger world. I will resume reading and exploring and learning once I have regathered my energy, both emotional and physical. In the meantime, please post links of your own, to articles and essays that have helped you better understand the world. (Please also note that I screen comments.)

The Owl House

April 27, 2023April 19, 2024Rae SpencerLeave a comment

Last summer I hatched a plan to invite screech owls into the yard.

I’m not certain where my current longing for screech owls started. Probably on social media, where many of my middle-age longings start. Perhaps an outbreak of screech owl photos infected my scroll. Or maybe I succumbed to nostalgia. Again.

This is a winter view of my childhood home in Tennessee, dated 1983, as seen from the top of our terraced pasture. Everything looks barren, dilapidated, and somber in this photo. All of the grasses are yellow and brown. The barn’s tin roof is mostly gone, leaving only tall rafters and a single row of rusting tin at the eave. The pole shed visibly leans and its rusting tin roof is peeling back. The yard’s maples have lost their leaves, as have all of the trees in the beaver-made swamp across the road. A thin trail of smoke shows that it was cold enough for the wood-burning stove (our only source of heat) to be lit.

*This is a photo of me at some pre-adolescent age of maximum awkwardness, complete with knobby knees, ill-fitting shorts and halter top, and a bad haircut.* *(All of my ages were/are maximally awkward, complete with knobby knees, ill-fitting clothes, and poorly planned hair.) Here, I’m in our Tennessee yard, posing with a half-grown calico cat for one of my oldest sister’s “Rae with pets” series of photos.*

In my childhood home, air conditioning existed but was rarely used. Mother considered our two window units massively luxurious wastes of electricity and only turned them on for company. So all through the long, hot, humid Tennessee summers, I treasured the open window beside my bed.

This is the only image I could find of my bedroom window. The photo shows one end of our gray wood-sided house, but the main visual impact is a heap of splintered branches blown down by an Easter morning tornado in the mid-1980s. The yard is green and slightly overgrown. There are two white-trimmed windows, one (mine) mostly obscured by the downed branches.

My childhood window, open more often than not, let me hear summer in a way I never hear it anymore. Katydids were my favorite singers, but frogs, whippoorwills, and owls made special appearances during their individual busiest weeks of summer.

In the early spring, peeper frogs spawned in the beaver swamp across the road and in the leaky crater that our father had thought would become a pond, when he dug it. (It was a pond after rain, but the ground was too porous for it to be a permanent pond. Most of the year it was a muddy basin cut into the hill above our garden. The rest of the year it was either a shallow pond or a dry pan of cracked red clay.) Later into spring, bullfrogs took over. During the hottest part of summer, whippoorwills called in the field outside my window. In the late summer and fall, barred owls echoed in the woods all around. And through it all, during the whole long length of summer nights too hot for sleep, screech owls hunted the woods and fields and massive maple trees around our house.

This photo shows the view from our back yard. The large maples and overgrown field were nesting, grazing, and hunting grounds for untold numbers of birds and other wildlife. All of this was just outside my childhood window as I lay awake listening to summer each night. In this daytime photo, laundry is on the line, four spoiled goats are approaching the camera, and a trio of white geese are parading through the background. The disheveled pile of old lumber to the right is the remnants of our well-house roof, which was in the process of being replaced.

I’ve never seen or heard a screech owl in Virginia. I know they live here, unheard and unseen in our busy suburb. Most summers, I’m content simply knowing they’re here and don’t need sensory proof of their presence. But last summer I couldn’t shake my longing to hear, maybe to see, my screech owl companions from childhood. So I built a screech owl house.

After browsing the internet, I settled on building plans from Audubon and began shopping for wood. With no access to affordable cedar in a 10″ cut, I settled for untreated pine, which then wanted paint. A few days later, The Owl House was complete. (If you are intrigued enough to look at the plans, you’ll note that I decided not to use hinges on the roof, opting instead to attach the roof with a few screws that can be easily removed when the house needs cleaning. I also added an extra water barrier over the angled rear roof joint, because I couldn’t fit the angle well enough to prevent leaks.)

Photo of The Owl House, which is essentially a wooden box about 10 inches square and 16 inches deep with a slightly sloped roof, a three-inch-diameter entry hole cut near the top in the front, and some quarter-inch ventilation holes. I painted the outside surfaces white with layered leaf impressions in varying shades of blue, tan, and green. The inside surfaces are unpainted, unsanded wood.

We waited until November to hang The Owl House, hoping that the wood rats and squirrels would have settled into other winter nests. We chose a spot about eleven feet off the ground in the back yard’s large pear tree, nestled between three major branches. For the first few weeks I kept careful watch, as if I expected screech owls to materialize, after decades of invisibility, simply because I invited them. After the first weeks, I watched less frequently. So when a January storm destroyed a squirrel’s nest in the front yard, I didn’t notice until much later that the squirrel had relocated into The Owl House.

*Photo of an adult gray squirrel peering out of The Owl House.*

With only slight screech owl dismay, I named the squirrel Owl and adjusted my expectations. I also adjusted the bird seed mixture to include more of her favorites: shelled and whole peanuts. (I was already buying these for the crows and blue jays.) I soon grew fond of the squirrel’s watchful attention as I filled bird feeders, put out fresh suet and water, and took care of the yard’s limited winter needs.

*Photo of a mature gray squirrel peering over the edge of The Owl House’s entry hole.*

When we first moved into our home, in 2001, the neighborhood had more rabbits than squirrels. Far more rabbits, to the extent that we rarely saw squirrels at all. But the squirrel-to-rabbit ratio has steadily changed, over the years, and now we have an abundance of squirrels and very few rabbits. While both of these small mammal neighbors are welcome in the yard, I must admit that, after years of watching rabbits, I find the squirrels’ chronic haste a touch overwhelming.

Photo of a gray squirrel sprawled in a pot of newly sprouted milkweed. I start my late summer milkweed in pots because the squirrels dig up and scatter fragile sprouts, whenever I plant directly into the pollinator bed later than spring. Here, one of the squirrels was taking a break from a vigorous (and milkweed crushing) roll in the pot’s cool, damp dirt.

Marie and Duchess find the squirrels’ antics entertaining (if stalking and chattering under their breath can be taken as signs of entertainment, in cat language).

Photo of our cats, Marie and Duchess, watching through the kitchen window as a gray squirrel climbs down the window’s screen. The yard outside is brightly lit by sunshine; the pollinator beds are overflowing with milkweed, fennel, and flowers; and the dragonfly pond has a single water lily bloom.

All winter long, I enjoyed Owl’s active presence in the yard. Then, for a few weeks in March, Owl disappeared. She stopped peering out of The Owl House when I was in the yard, stopped edging down the tree to see if I had added peanuts to the feeder, stopped chasing other squirrels out of the tree. The Owl House was, as far as I could tell without wrestling the ladder over and climbing up to check, abandoned.

Early in April, Owl returned. Thinner and hungrier, but active as ever.

Photo of a gray squirrel poised at the roots of the pear tree. This is Owl, though in real time I identify her more through behavior than her markings, which are the standard gray, brown, and white markings of your average gray squirrel.

Photo of a gray squirrel (Owl herself) in The Owl House’s entry hole. Her head and shoulders are fully out, her right front foot is grasping the edge of the entry hole, and her left front foot is braced against the facing board of The Owl House.

And on April 13, there was extra movement in The Owl House.

Photo of two squirrel kittens peering just over the edge of the entry hole to The Owl House. Both are barely in view, just a foot, nose, and eye for the kitten on the left and a foot and ear for the kitten on the right.

*Photo of a squirrel kitten peering out of The Owl House. Its nose and eyes are in view, along with a few toes and the very tip of its tail.*

The kittens seemed almost as curious about me as I was about them and popped up to look every time they heard me outside. They became increasingly active, and, while I never caught a photo or video of the action, I could see swirls of activity in The Owl House as the kittens zoomied around inside and fell past the entry hole in wrestling-worthy stunts.

*Photo of two squirrel kittens looking out of The Owl House. The kittens are jostling for space, and one has a foot hooked over the other’s nose, attempting to shove it aside.*

Photo of two squirrel kittens competing for space in the entry hole of The Owl House. One kitten is head-and shoulders out of the entry hole, front feet clutching the edge for leverage as the other kitten pushes from the side. All that is visible of the second kitten is its nose, mouth, and chin.

Photo of a squirrel kitten with its chin resting on the lip of The Owl House’s entry hole, while a second kitten climbs past overhead. All that is visible of the second kitten is the underside of its chest and a portion of one paw.

Photo of two squirrel kittens competing for space as they watch from The Owl House. Both are somewhat sideways in the entry hole, one looking out from the right side and the second trying to gain more room by locking a paw over the lip of the entry hole.

The kittens looked mature enough to be leaving the box and exploring their world. But they stayed. For days after I imagined they would leave, they lingered. Sometimes just noses in view, sometimes faces and heads. Usually two kittens at a time, but sometimes three.

*Photo of two squirrel kittens peering out from The Owl House. A third kitten’s nose is in view.*

I don’t know how many kittens there were, in all. I believe only three, but they were so active that four or five kittens might have been taking turns at the entry hole of their increasingly too-small nest box. To borrow a human reference of expression, they often looked bored.

*Photo of two squirrel kittens resting against each other as they gaze out of The Owl House. If I saw two children with these expressions and body language, I would guess that they were bored.*

Photo of a squirrel kitten gnawing at the lip of the entry hole to The Owl House. Again, if I saw a child staring off into space with a similar expression as they nibbled on something, I would guess they were bored. And probably tired.

Side view photo, through a gap in the pear tree’s leaves, of two squirrel kittens looking out of The Owl House. I wish that I had words to describe their expressions without resorting to anthropomorphism. As it is, I’m left with saying they look a bit bored, a bit tired, and a bit wistful. They were ready to leave the nest.

Owl stayed very close, most of the time. If I went into the yard looking for her, I usually found her either in the box with her kittens or sleeping on a nearby branch.

*In this photo, Owl is stretched out on a limb, belly down, with her chin resting on her front paws.*

In this photo, taken through a thin curtain of leaves, Owl is stretched out on a branch, belly down. She was asleep (or at least had her eyes closed) as I tried to convince the camera to focus through the leaves, but she roused at the sound of my shutter.

*In this photo, Owl had been sleeping with her forelegs draped to either side of a smaller branch well above The Owl House. As usual, she roused when she heard my camera shutter.*

Sometimes she climbed over and around The Owl House, when she saw me photographing the kittens. Again resorting to anthropomorphism, she seemed anxious about all the attention, and maybe a touch pleased to show them off to me.

*In this photo, Owl is looking at the camera from over the top of The Owl House, and one of the kittens is peeking out through the entry hole.*

*Here Owl has climbed down one of the large limbs beside The Owl House while one of her kittens looks out from the entry hole.*

*In this view from the side of The Owl House, Owl is perched behind the nestbox while one of her kittens looks out from the entry hole.*

As The Owl House was designed and mounted with screech owls in mind, it wasn’t ideal for the active coming and going of squirrel kittens. With no perch within kitten-reach of the entry hole, the kittens couldn’t exit without a perilous scramble, a prodigious leap, or a blind drop. While I’m certain the kittens were capable of scrambling, leaping, and dropping, as they had been doing all of the above in the confines of the box, they fidgeted at the brink for hours at a time.

*Here, one of the kittens leans out of the entry hole to look down and around while a second kitten clambers over its littermate’s back.*

*In this photo, one of the kittens leans forward, shoulders and forelimbs out of The Owl House, and feels around for some purchase on the front of the nestbox.*

*Here, one of the kittens leans far out of The Owl House, front foot extended, as it watches Owl climb through the branches in front of and below The Owl House.*

On their last evening in The Owl House, the kittens mimicked holding food in their forepaws as they watched Owl eat peanuts.

*In this photo, a squirrel kitten leans out of The Owl House and goes through the motions of holding food in its forepaws and chewing as it watches Owl eat peanuts.*

In this photo, a squirrel kitten leans out of The Owl House, one foot curled in front of its mouth as if holding on to a tidbit of food while eating. The kittens were watching Owl eat peanuts and seeming to copy her motions.

Owl moved in and out of The Owl House by stretching or leaping across the gap between branch and entry hole, but how could the kittens learn such acrobatics without a reachable perch to practice from? I decided to intervene. (This is one of my known and admitted failings, my penchant for unnecessary rescuing. I expect that any wildlife experts reading this blog will be muttering under their breath, “Why can’t she leave them alone? If she would just leave them alone, they would work it out.”)

We decided to run a long, skinny board across two branches that were each some distance from the nestbox, securing the board at one end so that it couldn’t slip. When we were finished, the board passed, at a slight angle, a few inches below and away from the entry hole. (We intentionally chose a board that was too narrow and lightweight for a cat, or even a hawk.) Owl and the kittens observed our activity with what seemed like only mild anxiety, and we watched to make certain Owl was comfortable coming and going with the board in place. She was, and the kittens immediately began testing the board with their front feet. The light was too low for photos, by then, so I went to bed excited to see what would happen the next morning.

The next morning, they were all gone. Gone from The Owl House, gone from the tree, gone from the yard. I don’t know if this is normal behavior, when squirrel kittens achieve the squirrel equivalent of fledging. Maybe squirrel kittens always leave their nest trees and nest yards on this exact schedule. Maybe the kittens had been coming and going from The Owl House all along, when we weren’t watching, and it was simply time to explore other trees and other yards. Maybe our activity, as we added the board, was simply too much and too close for Owl and her kittens.

A day or two later, Owl was back at the feeder, dashing up the tree to her usual perch when I went out to add more peanuts. She comes twice a day now, morning and evening, scrambling always to her perch when I go to meet her with a handful of peanuts. She’s shown no interest in reclaiming The Owl House. After eating her fill, she leaves the yard by way of the neighbor’s back fence, following the entire length of the fence and disappearing into the next yard over. My hope is that she and the kittens are exploring and mapping the neighborhood as she teaches them how to forage on their own. Maybe the kittens will come with her, some day soon, when she comes for her peanuts.

*Photo of Owl perched atop The Owl House as two kittens look out from the entry hole. This photo was taken well before we added the “rescue” board described above.*

The story of Owl and her kittens will undoubtedly resurface as nostalgia, in future years. If the past is any guide, time will renovate and revise the story until it is as unforgettable as an open window full of katydids, frogs, and screech owls.

I feel the need to provide an “after” image, as the opening images show my childhood home in disrepair. This is the house a decade later, in 1995. The long single-story house is wood-sided, painted very pale yellow with blue trim around the windows, and has a clean new roof. In this photo there are lots of healthy trees, a freshly mown yard, and plenty of sunshine. The barn and pole shed have been torn down.

As a final note, I admit to naming the kittens, though I couldn’t even count them. They are Sarah and Percy and Bill. If you don’t know why, read the book Owl Babies by Martin Waddell (illustrated by Patrick Benson). Hopefully your library carries this delightful little book. If your library doesn’t have it, try asking them to add it to their shelves!

And if you see Owl’s babies out and about, with or without their Owl mother, now you know their names.

The Dragonfly Pond

February 24, 2023February 27, 2023Rae Spencer2 Comments

The dragonfly pond represents an intersection between two stories. The first story started in 2001, when we purchased our home. The second story started decades later, with an impulse purchase of marked-down water plants. These two stories converge on my obsessive fascination with dragonflies.

Photo of a brown striped dragonfly perched behind the curved metal hook of a slightly rusted plant hanger. The dragonfly’s wings show to either side of its perch, but its body is mostly hidden. The wings are transparent with brown tips and delicate networks of veins. One wing has a significant tear.

My fondness for dragonflies snapped into obsession when I learned to photograph them. (See previous posts and photos here, here, here, and almost anywhere else in this blog….)

*Photo of a bright red dragonfly perched on a dried stalk of vegetation.*

More than simply adding beauty to my life and the yard and the world in general, dragonflies eat the mosquitoes and other biting-type nuisances that flock particularly to me each summer.

Video with multiple clips of dragonflies launching from and returning to a perch of dried vegetation. On each return, the dragonflies are eating prey captured in flight.

The Deck

When we purchased our home in 2001, the back yard was dominated by a large deck that we envisioned as a convenient space for relaxing and entertaining. As we adjusted to home ownership, I began to see the deck as a massive, expensive, time-devouring inconvenience. (My husband continued to see the deck as a bonus feature in the yard for many long years. Our early heated disagreements cooled to intermittent disgruntlement over time, as we allowed each other room to like and dislike according to our different experiences and preferences.)

Already painted by the previous homeowner, the deck needed regular (yearly or every-other-year) paint and repairs. The paint faded and peeled; the boards warped, split, and rotted; and a slow parade of deck furnishings marched from side to side as we fought for and over the deck’s various features.

Photo of the deck mid-repair on a sweltering hot sunny day. A bottle of tea-mix sits on the railing and a box fan is set up on the deck in an attempt to stay cooler. My bright green sun-visor rests on the deck where I dropped it as I went inside for a break. Newly replaced boards are pale, the old boards are red, and a fresh coat of pale blue paint has been started. The pale blue was intended to keep the boards from getting sizzle-hot in the sun. (It didn’t work.)

Rabbits died under the deck and spiders flourished. It was a pretty enough feature, with enough time and money invested, but I never loved it enough to stop resenting the expense and labor.

Photo of the finished pale blue and white deck, complete with a dog ramp for the arthritic old dog. Irises grew to the right of the north steps, and a rotating selection of potted plants, yard art, bulbs, and perennials struggled in a small bed to the left (in one of the many little mysteries of the yard, nothing ever thrived in that bed). The air conditioning unit is visible to the right, on a bed of rocks held by landscape boards that were still mid-repair.

Photo of the finished pale blue, white-trimmed deck. A hydrangea (blooming in this photo) grew at the left of the south steps, a clump of ginger lilies at the right, and irises grew in a bed under the kitchen window. It was all quite pretty, when fresh and new and summer-drenched with water and sun. It was less pretty in the fall and winter. It was always expensive and heavy work.

The Water Gardens

Somewhere along my journey of frustration with the deck, I paused at a marked-down display of water plants in my favorite greenhouse. Over our years of home ownership, I had wanted a pond or a fountain or some kind of water in the yard, but there was never enough room. (There was only room for that gigantic deck… grumble grumble grumble….) So the birds and squirrels and rabbits made do with plant saucers of water. But here were water lilies, marginal plants, oxygenators, and water garden tubs all on sale with detailed instructions. I didn’t consult my husband or our bank account, I simply dove in.

Photo of the first of two assembled water gardens. A purple Louisiana iris blooms center-frame, the oxygenator plants have stalks of miniature pink blooms all around, and the round, shiny green water lily leaves are beginning to peek over the edges. *This photo was taken after the water garden had become well-established.*

The next week I invested more, buying a large barrel planter, a pond liner, and some rope at the nearby big-box store. My second, this time do-it-yourself, water garden gave me space for more oxygenators and water lilies. I let the water gardens settle their chemistry for several weeks, then purchased ten feeder-tank rosy red minnows at the pet store, five for each garden. (Rosy red minnows are a color morph of the widely introduced, but not necessarily widely native, fathead minnow.) The minnows and plants thrived. The whole set-up was lovely and fun, and the yard had water lily blooms. For the first two winters, I heaped cut ginger lily stalks around the water gardens, to provide a bit of cold protection, and enjoyed watching as the minnows grew (though they did not breed).

Photo of our cats Duchess and Marie, sleeping in their kitchen window beds during a cold snap. My do-it-yourself water garden is visible near the fence, a barrel planter and pond liner affair secured with rope around the rim and surrounded by drying ginger lily stalks.

During the second winter, I discovered an anxious flaw in my designs. The pond liner set-up was clearly more secure for the minnows than the plastic tub. What would happen when the plastic fractured, as plastic always does, under the stresses of seasonal temperature fluctuations? I fretted over visions of sudden water garden collapse, minnows spilling onto the grass during the night or some afternoon when I was away and unable to save them.

It’s often difficult to judge if my fretting-level anxieties are based in logical concern or OCD, but over weeks of internal and open debate, my husband conceded that the logic was sound enough to warrant replacing the plastic tub. But, with what? The barrel and pond liner option had flaws, too. The barrel was already showing signs of deterioration. Metal tubs exist, but they are of uncertain reliability and chemistry.

Convergence

As I fretted over the water gardens, the deck’s yearly repair cycle began. COVID-19 made securing boards and other materials difficult for our immunosuppressed household. Additionally, ground settling under the deck had created a depression over the years, and this depression now collected water each time it rained. For days after rainfall, if we poured water onto the deck, the water draining between boards splashed audibly into a significant area of standing water. Paired with an uptick in mosquitos, this required some sort of remedy. The final straw was a pair of deteriorated support boards under the steps. The deck needed major reconstruction.

I mapped out a plan to take down the deck, rebuild either a smaller deck or a simple set of steps for the back door, and install a dragonfly pond based on instructions from the Migratory Dragonfly Partnership. The minnows and water lilies and other water garden inhabitants would have a safe and rather more permanent home. My husband agreed, out came the saw and sledgehammer, and down came the massive, expensive, time-consuming deck.

Photo of the bare ground behind our house after deck demolition. The ground under the deck was sandy and soft. The hydrangea had died a few years earlier and been replaced with a small pad of paver stones, the ginger lilies had been relocated to a different bed, and the irises had been replaced with Joe Pye Weed–a plant native to Virginia that blooms prolifically for pollinators in late summer and fall. In this photo, the house’s siding is stained and worn under the living room and kitchen windows, concrete blocks are serving as temporary steps, and the Joe Pye Weed hasn’t been moved yet.

After having the yard marked for utility lines, we began digging. I splurged on a thicker pond liner and made trip after trip to the big-box store, where they bemusedly loaded bag after bag of dirt and rocks into the trunk of my car via contactless curbside pickup. (We had to build up one end of the pond, as the yard has a significant slope. We also added several inches of topsoil to the entire area that had been under the deck, leveling and stabilizing the soft, sandy soil.)

Photo of one of our cats, Duchess, watching through the kitchen window as rain falls into the partially-filled pond. At this point we were uncertain how to finish the edge of the pond, so the liner still stretched past the edges like a large skirt, weighted down by bags of dirt and rocks. I had started adding pea gravel to the pond, to give it a head start on surface areas for biofilm to grow, so the depth variation of about 1 foot in the ends to nearly 3 feet in the middle is visible.

So many rocks! I was not prepared for the sheer volume of rocks I would need to stabilize and finish the pond’s sides and edges. (I confess that I probably didn’t need all of those rocks. I liked them. I like how rocks feel, especially rounded and worn rocks. And I liked creating caves for the minnows in the bottom of the pond and up all of the sides.)

Photo of the finished pond with irises planted at the built-up end, to help stabilize it. Flagstones at the opposite end provide a place for seating, and a few bits of yard art provide perches of varying height for the dragonflies. We didn’t plan the edge of the pond well enough, so an irregularly spaced and variably tilted double-row of stones covers the cut edges of the pond liner. If I make another pond, I will take extra care when digging to build a wide (5-6 inches) flat lip all of the way around instead of this rounded lip with its sloping edge stones. The remaining bare ground that had once been under the deck has scattered piles of stones raked and ready to be removed, as well as a small stack of lumber destined to become a pair of wide steps for the back door. Many thanks to my brother-in-law, who picked up and delivered the lumber when we were unable to find a seller with contactless curbside service.

A few weeks later, the pond was ready for minnows. And dragonflies.

*Photo of a bright orange rosy red minnow exploring the shallows of its new pond. Piles of rock provide a connected series of tunnels and caves, while water lily leaves float in the background.*

Within a month, the minnows were happy enough to begin breeding.

*Photo of a tiny (less than 1/2 inch) pale speckled baby minnow.*

Damselflies had been breeding in the water gardens all along, but I had not seen dragonflies laying eggs or emerging.

Photo of a freshly emerged damselfly perching on a red-stalked and pale-green-leafed oxygenator plant in one of the water gardens. The damselfly’s molted exoskeleton still clings to the plant’s stalk. The damselfly is brown and tan striped with distinct fine “hairs” on its legs and thorax. It’s transparent wings are still soft and slightly bent with a visible fine network of brown-gold veins.

Close-up photo of the damselfly’s shed exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is orange-brown in color. Visible features include the outlines of tiny wings, eye bulges, legs, and the everted linings of thoracic airways.

After transferring the minnows and plants into the pond, I combed through the sludge at the bottom of the water gardens, trying not to leave behind any damselfly larvae. (The water gardens had a thick layer of debris in the bottom, and I didn’t want to dump it all into the pond. In retrospect, I should have simply dumped it. I would have saved more larvae in less time, and the pond built its own layer of debris so quickly that the water garden debris wouldn’t have made a difference.) Scattered among the damselflies were dragonfly larvae.

*Photo of a brown striped dragonfly larva resting in a small scoop of water, above a grainy smudge of dirt and sludge, in a white tablespoon I used to catch the larvae and transfer them into the pond.*

All went into the pond, where I now sat each afternoon and watched over our creation as if I had, actually, created it all.

Months and years later

Now the pond is a busy and central feature in our yard. Rabbits, squirrels, birds, snakes, wasps, bees, spiders (arachnophobia alert! spider photo to follow…), and other insects drink from it; birds bathe in it; the minnows, damselflies, and dragonflies breed in it; and frogs overwinter in it.

*Photo of a yellow and black carpenter bee perching on the pond’s surface to drink. The bee’s feet make small dimples in the water, but do not break through the surface tension.*

*Another photo of the yellow and black carpenter bee perched on the pond’s surface. The dimples in the pond’s surface, where the bee’s feet rest, are more apparent in this photo.*

Photo of a large brown-striped spider standing near the center of a floating green-and-purple veined water lily leaf. A seam of water, where the water lily’s leaf splits, is visible just beneath the spider.

*Photo of a dark gray damselfly perched on partially dried vegetation over the pond. The damselfly’s large eyes are prominently visible, and its folded wings lie along its narrow thorax and abdomen.*

Photo of a large green dragonfly perched on the edge of a water lily leaf with its abdomen curved so that the tip of its abdomen is under water. The dragonfly is laying eggs on the submerged vegetation.

*Photo of a cluster of brown, oval, slightly pointed-at-the-ends dragonfly eggs (from a different species than the one shown above) found on the cupped surface of a green water lily leaf.*

*Photo of a small brown frog with darker brown stripes climbing onto one of the rocks around the pond’s edge. Four variably-sized baby minnows swim at the left of the frame.*

Photo of a small frog floating with its eyes above the pond’s surface. The frog is brown with green coloration around its mouth. It’s eyes are orange-gold with yellow-gold highlights around the oval opening of the pupil. A medium-sized seashell is visible in the upper left of the frame to provide a size-perspective showing that the frog is very small, maybe only an inch or two in total length.

*Photo of a small brown and green frog sitting on one of the pond’s surrounding stones. The frog looks very small on the large-ish stone.*

Photo of two small brown and green frogs sitting mostly submerged among the rocks in one of the pond’s shallower spots. Both frogs have their eyes just out of the water. A tiny baby minnow is visible to the right of the frame. For size perspective, the shallowest part of the water in this frame is less than an inch deep and the gravel is pea gravel. The frogs are maybe an inch (or a bit more) long.

Somehow that feels like enough photos of frogs, but I have so many more! Some of the bullfrogs have lingered in the pond until they are quite large, though none have ever stayed to spawn. (I’m eagerly awaiting the first tadpoles. There must be tadpoles at some point!)

Photo of a green and brown frog peeking from beneath a large green water lily leaf amid a floating cluster of water lily leaves. The water lily leaves range from about three inches across to maybe five inches.

Photo of a large brown bullfrog with green around its face and a pale white-and-brown spotted neck and belly. The frog is sitting mostly out of the water surrounded by oxygenator plants and a small pitcher plant. A small brown frog with less green on its face (I think also a bullfrog? I’m less certain with identification for the smaller frogs) sits partially submerged in the same plants. A few smallish (2-3 inches) water lily leaves float around them.

Photo of a large bullfrog (maybe 3 inches long? maybe a bit more?). The frog is overlooking the pond from a heap of edge-stones that are wet with rain. The pond’s surface is littered with white petals from a nearby pear tree that was near the end of its spring blooming cycle.

The frogs, no doubt, eat the minnows. Especially the younger minnows. But the minnows reproduce quickly, and the pond’s minnow population has never dropped below twenty or thirty adults. At the height of summer, I’ve estimated as many as a hundred adult or near-adult minnows in good body condition and seemingly healthy.

*Photo of a small mottled-brown frog with green just visible around its mouth. The frog is floating, mostly submerged, with small minnows swimming around it.*

The pond is, by now, its own vigorously alive ecosystem. I interfere for my own purposes: removing sheets of algae to provide easier swimming for the minnows, cutting back the water lily blooms as they wilt so that the water lilies won’t re-seed and overcrowd, feeding the minnows flaked fish food because I like to watch them eat, and adding water (which I treat with tap water conditioner and let sit for a day before I add it) when the water level gets low during dry periods. My husband purchased a pond heater for the minnows, and for me, to keep ice from closing off the surface exchange of oxygen and other gases during freezes.

Photo of the pond surrounded by snow and ice. The tips of the irises are just visible above the snow, along with three cut branches we installed as dragonfly perches. In the background, along the fence, my butterfly cages and flower pots have a 2-3 inch layer of snow on top of them. The pond is maybe 50% iced over, with an no ice around the visible floatation ring of the pond heater.

Temporary Guests

The pond is too small, intentionally, for the charismatic megafauna of park ponds. Mallards visit briefly each spring, but we discourage them from staying as they foul the water. They don’t seem to mind moving on, though one youngster made a confused mistake on the steps before agreeing that this was the wrong place to nest.

Photo of a pair of mallard ducks snoozing on the wide steps we constructed out of blue-tinted artificial deck boards for the back door. There is a freshly-laid egg on the doormat. The ducks did not stay, though I would have let them had they insisted, and there were no more eggs. They abandoned this egg, which I moved down into one of the beds after a few days (when the abandonment was confirmed). I later found shell fragments and opossum tracks.

We enjoyed a few weeks, one spring, when a hatchling pond turtle wandered up the drive and happily adopted the pond as his nursery. He didn’t stay, probably deciding that such a small pond didn’t suit his needs, but he was fun to watch and photograph.

Photo of a small (2-3 inches) pond turtle basking on a rock beside the pond. The turtle is mostly brown and black, with yellow-green stripes on his face, neck, and feet. His head is up, neck extended, and his right rear foot is stretched and lifted as if to better catch the sun’s warmth. Spiral grass, one of the pond’s marginal plants, is visible in the front right of the frame. Green water lily leaves, one yellowed with age, float on the water’s surface, and a single bright pink water lily bloom is open to the left front of the frame.

Snakes (Ophidiophobia alert!)

I’ve seen more snakes in the yard, since installing the pond. (Ophidiophobia alert! Snake photos to follow!) As I quite like snakes, and as none of them have been venomous, these visitors make me happy.

A black racer moved into the yard last summer and stayed. It roamed between our house and the two neighboring houses, even exploring our garage. It visited the pond for a drink daily, though I never managed to see it drinking when I had my camera (or even my phone camera) ready.

*Photo of a slender black racer snake, shiny black all over in this photo, raising its head from the weedy and slightly overgrown grass of our back yard.*

Photo of a black racer pausing with its head slightly raised near our fence. The snake is black over its back and sides, slightly pale along the few visible scales of its abdomen, with very pale scales under its lower jaw and neck.

While I hope the black racer is somewhere in our yard or under our garage, hibernating for the winter, I am certain that the young brown water snake that arrived last fall is hibernating in the irises at the foot of the pond.

Photo of a brown snake with darker brown spots in a defensive posture against the white background of a bucket I used to safely secure the snake while I verified its identification. I wasn’t confident enough in my identification skills to positively declare it non-venomous, so I sent a few photos to the Virginia Herpetological Society, who confirmed the snake was a brown water snake. Our harmless non-venomous visitor seemed quite happy to settle in for the winter. I haven’t seen it emerge yet this year, not even during the current record-breaking warm spell, but I expect it will let us know when spring is truly imminent.

Photo of a small brown snake with dark brown spots curled atop one of the yard-art features beside the pond. The snake is less than a foot long and slightly heavy-bodied, especially compared to the slender black racer shown in earlier photos.

I also spotted a very small (less than 6 inches long) baby snake last year that didn’t stay in view long enough for a thorough identification. I suspect it is a young ring-necked snake. (I would appreciate verification or correction, if anyone wishes to comment…)

Photo of a very slender and very tiny young snake slithering across a patch of moss. The snake is mostly gray-brown with a band of pale just behind its head. It is so young and small that its eyes appear overly-large, a variation on the exaggerated cuteness of neonates that I usually associate with mammals.

I don’t know if the snakes came because of the pond, nor if any of the yard’s other visitors come because of the pond. I hope they all know they are welcome, and that the pond might serve as some form of official notification to any creature passing through or opting to stay. They are welcome to have a drink or a dip as needed. (Unless they are venomous or otherwise dangerous to ourselves and/or our neighbors. The black and brown widows seem to be getting the message. No one else has tested the system.)

Too long, don’t have time to read? Here’s the summary…

A few years ago, we gave up on our aging, deteriorating, massive, expensive, time-consuming deck. We tore it down and replaced it with two simple wide steps leading up to our back door. At the same time, I had begun worrying about the safety of ten rosy red minnows that were living in my two water gardens alongside water lilies, oxygenator plants, and marginal plants such as a Louisiana iris, spiral grass, and a small pitcher plant. I feared the water garden containers, especially the plastic tub, might break or collapse. So we installed a dragonfly/minnow pond at one end of the area previously occupied by the massive, expensive, time-consuming deck. The completed pond is now home to the minnows, damselflies, dragonflies, and plants that inhabited the water gardens, but also to frogs and the occasional turtle or snake. A huge variety of small mammals, birds, and insects visit the pond. It’s a beautiful and functional addition to the yard. I don’t miss the deck.

Photo of the view through our kitchen window, where our cats Duchess and Marie like to watch the yard and sleep. Here, Duchess is watching the yard while Marie sleeps. Their front paws are touching, as is their habit. The yard is green and sunlit, and the pond is visible to the left as a circle of stones with irises growing at one end and layers of water lily leaves rising over the hidden water. One of the water lilies has put up a pink bloom.

*Photo of the same kitchen window view as above, but this time only Duchess is present. She has rolled onto her back and is looking directly at the camera.*

Surface-level photo of the pond with water lily leaves floating on the water and a single water lily bloom standing several inches above the surface. The bloom is freshly opened with rows of pink petals and stamens bearing yellow pollen showing in the center. Piles of pale rock form the backdrop, with a fold of the black pond liner just visible under the rocks.

I like to imagine that the dragonflies understand how the pond was meant for them. I like to imagine that they are thanking me, when they perch on my hand for a moment as I putter in the pollinator beds.

*Photo of a Halloween pennant dragonfly, translucent orange-and-black striped wings spread, perched on my hand. My hand has a Joe Pye Weed and bee tattoo.*

I like to imagine that the yard, and the yard’s inhabitants, wanted the pond all along. I know that I certainly did.

Photo of a bullfrog peering out from the arched doorway of a yard-art-trinket we purchased decades ago, when we were new homeowners. The piece is shaped like a domed cottage with a small chimney and a molded placard saying “Toad House” over the door. The bullfrogs sometimes explore this little house on rainy days, and the brown water snake seemed to enjoy basking in the sun on top of it last fall. I believe the brown water snake is hibernating in the thick grasses and irises beside the house.

As usual, I want to acknowledge the immense and unearned privilege that allows me the resources and time to have a yard at all, to be able to tear down decks and build ponds, to be able to photograph my yard and pond and post the photos on this blog. I am trying to exercise as little control as is practical over the tiny patch of Earth that my colonizing ancestors (they were all colonizers, as far as I know) taught me to call a “yard”. I know full well that this patch of Earth wants to be something other than my yard.

Here are a few articles that are more interesting and important than my dragonfly pond: