nature

Amphibious

Rae Spencer4 Comments

Amphibious

The embryo flexes
Twirling in its clotted pearl
Of egg, clouds of spawn
Spattered across the bog

The pollywog nursery lined
With moss and leaves
Mud and silt, secluded pools
For the immature throng

Of grazers, minnow sleek
In mottled skin with bristle
Gills neatly tucked away
The whole world is water

Mouths full and ears full
As bones push into buds
Sprouting these legs
In an awkward unbecoming

The road to exile, maturity
Is always a breaking
Of surface, an intersection
Of amnion, water, and air

No ribs, no muscles
For the breath, only gulp
And inefficient heart
Subject to chill, blood

Flecked and flickering
Supplemented by supple
Skin, a tenuous tension
Of absorption and loss

The sustained refrain, air
Vibrating in humid heat
All their hungry songs afloat
Thrilling through their empty throats

These photos were taken January 1, 2004 at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, which was hosting a traveling exhibit called “Frogs: A Chorus of Colors”.

Blue Jay Nests

Rae Spencer4 Comments

As a child, I both loved and dreaded blue jays. Beautiful and fierce, they are a permanent fixture in my summer memories. (See this poem.)

Last year, a pair of blue jays nested in our wax myrtle. They built on the far side of our fence, right over the sidewalk. It was a precarious choice, and I wasn’t too surprised when the nest failed.

Today, a new nest is taking shape. This time they chose the neighbor’s pear tree, a safer and more defensible position. They are using twigs from our wax myrtle, which makes for some fun photos, but I’m content to have them in someone else’s yard. They are, after all, quarrelsome birds.

Okay, that part about being content is a lie. I’m jealous. Maybe the babies will spend some time in our yard, as they learn to fly…

From the Video Archives

Rae Spencer4 Comments

My video skills suffer from lack of discipline. My hands are shaky, I tend to forget my tripod, and I forget to turn on the image stabilization feature. I’m too eager with the zoom, always wanting to get “closer”. The resulting clips feature subjects that drift and leap out of frame. The quality of these two videos is best described as amateur, with hints of motion-sickness.

Like everything else, I’m working on it…

Blue Dasher Dragonflies

Rae Spencer10 Comments

In my dragonfly archives, I have more pictures of blue dashers than any other species. (At least, I believe so. As noted in a previous post, dragonfly identification is a tough study, for me.)  While I can’t claim absolute confidence, I’m reasonably certain that all of these are blue dashers.

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Please correct me, if I am wrong!

Yard Work and Spiderlings (not recommended for arachnophobic readers!)

Rae Spencer7 Comments

I did a few spring chores in the yard today. I mowed, which thrilled the robins.

Then I uncovered the ginger lilies. Last winter, we lost an entire bed of ginger lilies, who are more susceptible to cold than any of our other bulbs. I feared losing all the beds as snowstorm after snowstorm plowed through the area. Stung by last year’s losses, this year I have been determined to leave them insulated until well after our last “frost date”. They’ve had other plans, stubbornly growing through and under and around their protective layers. So tonight they are free.

It’s not just the ginger lilies. The tulips are ahead of schedule, too. We don’t have many tulips (six, to be exact), and they don’t seem to thrive in our yard. Some years, they don’t bloom at all. That’s not the case this year.

While working in the corner flower bed, I found a family of fresh-hatched spiderlings. (Look away!) I’m wretchedly arachnophobic, but these little motes hardly seemed like spiders. They were almost cute. I watched as they trooped across a tiny span of web, climbed the tallest iris, and floated away on gossamer sails. I wanted to wave goodbye. And wish them luck. And read Charlotte’s Web again.

All told, it was a lovely day in the yard.