in the yard

Hungry Warblers

Rae Spencer2 Comments

Warbler October 24

Yellow-rumped Warblers began arriving a few weeks ago. Now they are a constant presence in the wax myrtle as they gorge on the small, unappealing berries that other warblers cannot digest.

Warbler October 23

Warbler October 24

Every year I fall in love with the warblers, all over again, and spend hours trying to photograph them.

Warbler October 24

Cloudy days test my patience with low light and grainy images.

Warbler October 23

Sunny days emphasize the warblers’ camouflage, turning photos into abstract riddles of highlight and shadow.

Warbler October 24

Exposures set for the interior of the wax myrtle flare distractingly bright whenever a bird strays into a patch of sunlight.

Warbler October 26

Exposures set for sunlight fail when a bird retreats into shadow.

Warbler October 24

Every so often, sunlight, shadow, and bird merge into a split-second of breathtaking beauty. At those moments I freeze, too captivated to remember my camera. Then the moment passes, and I’m left snapping a photo of perfection’s echo.

Warbler October 24

These photos are the most frustrating of all, teasing reminders of what might have been. They are also my favorites. They are cause and effect. A reason to keep taking photos. Photos worth keeping.

Warbler October 26

I’m finding that photography, like poetry, is a hunger that returns season after season.

Turning Colder (Arachnophobia Alert!)

Rae Spencer12 Comments

Mantis Sept 30

The yard is getting colder and colder, though it’s not cold enough, yet, to use the word winter. In fact, it’s a stretch to use the word cold.

Finch Oct 2

Maybe brisk is a better word. Except, nothing feels brisk. Instead everything feels sleepy and slow. Spider webs ripple in smoke-tinged drafts, and wasps pause for photographs as if posing.

Spider Sept 30

Unknown Wasp Sept 27

Grubs curl sluggishly when disturbed, and I have to go slow with the mower because fall’s chill has dulled the toads’ reflexes.

Grub Oct 12

Toad Sept 1

Jumping spiders retreat higher and higher into trees, searching for safe crevices in which to spin their thick winter nests.

Spider Oct 2

It happens like this every year, and every year I succumb to a listless bout of melancholy.

Which reminds me of a poem by Kay Middleton…

O, October what have you done?

Introducing a Live Oak (Treebeard)

Rae Spencer3 Comments

Live Oak Oct 12

We planted a tree yesterday — a live oak from Friends of Live Oaks in Virginia Beach. From the time we left to pick up our tree until the time we stood back and admired our work, the entire process took less than three hours.

Live Oak Oct 12

The result of our three hour investment will (hopefully) outlive us. It’s a profoundly satisfying concept, that something so simple can be so permanent.

Live Oak Oct 12

The website says these trees may live 1,400 years, a span impossible to feel. I’ve lived forty-four years. My father lived fifty-two years. My mother, seventy-six. My grandmother, one hundred years.

Beyond one hundred years, I’m grasping mist. A few family photos from the late 1800s. A Civil War diary. A name that may or may not be an ancestor. Rumors and speculation.

Live Oak Oct 12

It makes me wish paper could be shaved, sheet by sheet, from a tree’s cross-section. Pages would preserve rings far more interesting than the words I write. Seasons of flood and drought, ages of ice, flashes of fire.

Today our little live oak has two rings, three at most. Each says nursery in healthy excess. Next year a smaller ring will say transplanted. After that? Mist again…

Live Oak Oct 12

I haven’t named any of the yard’s trees, until now. A few days ago I started calling the live oak Treebeard, and the name stuck.

Kleptoparasites

Rae Spencer4 Comments

Wasp Sept 7

The tree in our front yard had fewer caterpillars this summer, so the yard had fewer thread-waisted wasps. Instead of a daily swarm of wasps under our tree, I saw one or two a week.

Wasp Sept 7

The wasps dug burrows as usual, but I didn’t see any of them return to their burrows with prey.

Wasp Sept 11

Twice I waited over an hour as wasps searched through leaf litter on the ground and branches overhead. Both times the wasps were still hunting when appointments called me away.

Wasp Sept 11

My wasp failures were disappointing, but it’s always worthwhile to spend a few hours sitting quietly in the yard. Last year as I waited on the wasps, I found a wolf spider carrying her army of spiderlings. This year I found flies.

Fly Sept 11

The flies caught my attention because they seemed as interested in the wasps’ activity as I was. They watched as intently as I did.

Fly Sept 11

As the wasps dug, three or four flies positioned themselves within a few inches of the developing burrows. Each time a wasp carried a pinch of excavated dirt away, the flies zoomed in and flew quick figure-eight patterns over the burrow. When the wasps returned and resumed digging, the flies lit nearby and watched until the wasps left again.

Fly Sept 11

The longer I watched, the more convinced I became that the flies were kleptoparasites. They were waiting to deposit their larvae in the wasps’ larder, alongside the wasps’ hungry larvae.

Fly Sept 11

The behavior is well-documented. It’s one of those complicated, clever twists of nature that fills me with questions. How do the flies learn to follow the wasps? Generation after generation, flies see a thread-waisted wasp and something whispers deep within their experience. Follow it. And they obey. Why?

Praying Mantis, September 2013

Rae Spencer14 Comments

Last night I found a praying mantis on the kitchen window. As I watched it groom its antennae and feet, I imagined it was using the window as a mirror.

Mantis Sept 26

I have no doubt that clean antennae and feet matter on a functional level, but does some portion of a praying mantis’s experience reflect a sentiment I would call vanity?

Mantis Sept 26

I thought about the mantis off and on all night. Does fall make it anxious? Are these last few weeks of summer, its last few weeks of life, more urgent than all of its previous weeks?

I decided to look for the mantis again today, starting with the flower beds closest to the kitchen window. When I found it (or a similarly sized mantis) the situation was decidedly urgent.

Mantis Sept 27

At first I thought a mantis had caught one of the yard’s few remaining dragonflies. Then I realized it had caught another praying mantis. Or rather, the two insects had caught each other.

When I approached with my camera, they retreated to the underside of the ginger lily’s leaf.

Mantis Sept 27

The battle took place in slow motion, a strained embrace of stamina, strength, and will. Both sustained significant injuries:  the larger mantis mauled its opponent’s bent and broken wing, while the smaller mantis locked one barbed foreleg over a vulnerable eye.

Mantis Sept 27

Gradually, the smaller mantis extracted its damaged wing, and it seemed on the verge of gaining an advantage.

Mantis Sept 27

But the larger mantis broke its opponent’s grip and disabled the smaller mantis by biting through the major joints of both forelegs.

Mantis Sept 27

It was a brutal way to end the battle, precursor to an even more brutal death for the defeated. I didn’t stay to watch the victor dine, but when I returned a half-hour later, little remained of the smaller mantis.

Mantis Sept 27

I’m fond of praying mantises. They are among my favorite subjects to photograph. But this encounter? This is not why I love praying mantises, and I didn’t enjoy taking these photos. I don’t know why I watched so long.

In particular, I regret that my presence changed the course of their struggle. Except, it’s possible my presence in the yard changes the course of every struggle. Perhaps my camera affects everything I photograph, and my eyes affect everything I see.

Mantis Sept 27