In the Yard

The Wax Myrtle and Yellow-rumped Warblers

Rae Spencer2 Comments

Much of the yard’s fall and winter activity takes place in the wax myrtles. (I believe ours are southern wax myrtle. Other names include Southern bayberry or candleberry.) I’ve never bothered to count, so I don’t know how many individual plants make up the barrier between our fence and the sidewalk. Enough to create a unique habitat in the yard.

More tree than shrub, the wax myrtles are distinctly male and female. Only the females produce berries. (Technically, their fruit is considered a drupe.)

The berries aren’t in high demand. Few of the yard’s visitors bother with them, which leaves more than enough for the yellow-rumped warblers that come each fall and stay until spring.

According to The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website, yellow-rumped warblers are the only warbler species able to digest the berries.

The warblers stay through pear-blooming time, when they spend a few weeks feasting on nectar and soaking up sunshine. Then they disappear.

Today I saw fall’s first flock of warblers flitting through the wax myrtle. For me, their arrival is as certain a sign as the Harvest Moon.

Thread-Waisted Wasp

Rae Spencer4 Comments

Some years ago, the tree beside our mailbox became infested with yellownecked caterpillars. (I believe the following moth is the adult form of these caterpillars. Please comment if you can confirm or correct my identifications!)

That first summer, the tree’s lower branches were stripped of leaves by fall. The next summer, thread-waisted wasps arrived in the yard.

Dozens of these wasps dug burrows in the loose soil under the tree. The following year, we saw very few caterpillars and even fewer wasps. The tree kept most of its leaves. Another year later, the caterpillars surged again. More wasps, as well.

They continue on in this pattern. Every other summer, we have caterpillars and wasps, with the between years bringing decreased populations of both.

The wasps are very efficient. A burrow takes only fifteen or twenty minutes to complete. They dig with their front legs and jaws, vibrating their wings as if to loosen the soil faster, and carry the excavated dirt several feet away. Each trip clears a pea-sized lump.

When the burrow is deep enough, they fly into the tree, sting a caterpillar, and let the stunned victim fall. They find the caterpillar on the ground, grasp it in their impressive jaws, and drag it into the burrow. A few minutes for egg laying, and the job is done. (I missed this part of today’s activity because my camera batteries died. 😦  Maybe I’ll get another chance tomorrow.) When finished, the female stuffs clumps of dirt and small stones into the burrow’s entrance. Then she moves to a different part of the yard and starts all over again.

The sandy parts of our yard, where grass grows poorly, are peppered with burrows right now. Next year, I expect the tree will keep its leaves all summer.

As a final note today, this might be the same mockingbird that I photographed yesterday. It certainly had the same sneeze…

Katydids

Rae Spencer3 Comments

Growing up, katydids were my summer lullaby. On hot, still nights, I would move my pillow to the foot of the bed and sleep with my face inches from the open window. I remember the night air’s damp smell and the moonlit silhouette of silver maples. I remember the hollow calls of barred owls in the swamp across the road. And I remember the rhythmic, echoing chorus of katydids. Mother told us they were saying katydid katydid katydid… katydidn’t… katydid katydid…

I never imagined that I was leaving katydids behind, when I moved to Virginia. The closest thing I’ve seen, since moving, is the greater angle-wing pictured above. (Photos taken in 2011).

The yard does have a thriving population of small katydid cousins, meadow katydids, but they sound nothing at all like my childhood.

Check out this web page for recordings. Click on the common true katydid, to hear the call I grew up with, then compare it to the common meadow katydid. You might also listen to the greater angle-wing, which solves one of my ongoing yard mysteries. I’ve spent many a night creeping around the yard with a flashlight, trying to figure out who makes that repetitive click…

While I was hunting katydids today, trying unsuccessfully for a video clip, I kept hearing what sounded like a sneeze. A tiny, high-pitched bird sneeze. This mockingbird seemed embarrassed, when I traced the sound to it. I wonder if birds suffer from allergies, too?

Gesundheit!

Cicadas

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Cicadas

Youth taps through a labyrinth
Of root, exploring in blind stages
Each nymph counts, each instar
Molts toward the relentless percussion
Of age, where the last skin hardens
And splits at the nape, final
Form shrugging free to unfurl song
In heat, muscles tuned to the sun’s declining
Tenor, late summer’s desperate chorus
Clings to tired limbs that droop
With the weight of leaves past saving
A monotonous harvest of lust
Set to succumb after securing the eggs
Muffling them in summer’s golden pith

2012 Hampton Roads Writers Conference, Part Two

Rae Spencer3 Comments

One of the last things I did, before leaving for the conference, was bring in the mail. The top envelope in the box was one of my submission SASEs, which could only be a rejection. Since better than seventy percent of my submissions result in rejection, it was a safe assumption. The envelope contained my very first photography rejection.

As I drove to the conference, I mulled my usual regrets. Did I miss something in the submission guidelines? Did I choose wrong, as I selected what to send? (The photos in this post are some of the ones I considered, but decided against.) And, the biggest question of all, what was I thinking? Why did I ever imagine that my work was good enough for publication?

I’ve been submitting poetry since 2003. Nine years in, I’ve accumulated a drawer full of rejections and a folder’s worth of acceptances. My rejection-regret processing time is down to a little over an hour, so I reached the “it’s okay and I’ll try again” stage before check-in time at the conference. Even so, it wasn’t the best way to start my weekend.

The first night offered a choice between three sessions. I opted for “Mastering the ten-minute agent pitch” by Molly Jaffa of Folio Literary Management. Anyone who has ever considered submitting their work to an agent should hear this talk. Before, I had vague ideas of how I wanted to present my book. After, I had a firm outline and growing confidence that I was on the right track.

Friday and Saturday’s schedules included talks about poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. My favorite sessions focused on marketing and editing:

  • “A Day in the Life of a Literary Agent” by Molly Jaffa
  • “Getting Published … and Maybe Even Paid (for your poetry)” by editor and publisher Annmarie Lockhart
  • “Buffing and Polishing” by author John DeDakis

I learned from every speaker, but the daily first-ten-lines critique sessions were the most interesting part of the conference. The critique panel consisted of agents Molly Jaffa, Rachael Dugas, and Brooks Sherman, along with authors Rick Mofina and Patricia Hermes. Earlier in the summer, conference registrants had been invited to submit the first ten lines of their works-in-progress. These submissions were projected in the auditorium (with the authors’ information removed), read aloud, and discussed by the panel. Points of interest included formatting, character development, point of view, word choice, and placing your work within the proper genre. In each submission I recognized problems from my own work, and I left each session with new ideas about how to strengthen my writing.

By Saturday evening, my mind was full to overflowing. I was happy to come home and eager to start applying all that I had learned. Which brings me back to “what was I thinking?” I was thinking this: I prefer a drawer full of rejections to a computer hard drive packed with poems and stories and photos that I never bothered to edit and submit.

Now, it’s time to get back to work.