It’s a daisy and maple kind of day.
With a few thorns, of course. No day is complete without thorns.
nature
Amphibious
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
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
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
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.
Please correct me, if I am wrong!
Rae Spencer 