Noiseless & Patient

I'm not sure who noticed them first, but they are hard to miss. My first sighting was while walking out the door a few mornings ago. A thread had been attached to the door frame in the middle of the night and I tore it free with my exit. This particular Neoscona crucifera, a Hentz orb weaver, was nearly as startled as I was, as she - because we learned that it's only the females who spin webs - skittered up the side of the house. Their webs are impressive and stunning.

We've been in this house for three years but have never seen this particular species, but right now, we've got about half a dozen in various crevices outside. Z. has named the one outside her bedroom window "Orba," while the two other most visible ones are "Peg" and "Meg." She told me that some spiders spin different types of silk, some sticky and some not, so they can move freely across their webs. I guess I had never really considered why it is that spiders don't get stuck in their own webs. The orb weaver typically doesn't spend much time in one place, though, and several days later, most have moved on to new locations. Such excitement this morning when I woke Z. up  with the news that Orba had returned to her location sometime in the night. We're all hoping that there will be eggs and wee spiders (perhaps a thousand or more), before the frosts come.

 When I was in Pittsburgh last summer, one had spun an intricate, massive web along the entire length of my hosts' front porch. It was impossible not to stop and examine it, and I came and went every day, impossible not to admire how much effort and detail go into such a complicated - at least, complicated in my mind - endeavor.

Presently the Floods Break Way

The New River can be seen in the background

Bisset Park is reopened (though many of us had been using it anyway) after the epic January flooding, and on Sunday we took Petie & Pepper to the dog park there for the first time since. While the city has cleared away all the debris, it's stunning to see how much the landscape has been altered; the paved and grass-covered riverway park resembles a sandy coastal beach. It's still unclear how much blame exists beyond that of the weather, but one thing is clear: it could be a very long time before the landscape will be the same, if ever.

For now, though, The Girls are enjoying playing in the sand.




Too-Muchness

What happens when you give two children cameras on a mid-winter afternoon hike through Wildwood Park? This happens: 268 new photos (a great many of which are of the ground and/or a certain child's sparkly light-up sneakers) and two dead camera batteries. It's amazing to me that, in a seemingly empty, dormant landscape, children are able to find amazement and images worth preserving. When I asked V. why she was taking so many photos, she said, "I just can't stop Mom! Nature is too beautiful!"

 

Local Culture

Preschooler: Mommy, why do we all have to turn to bones someday?
Me: Well, because nothing on the planet lives forever and ever.
Preschooler: Except plastic.

I've been too busy this semester to post about the recent controversy over what to do about Radford's vulture populations, but it's clear that the mitigation plan imposed a few months ago was effective. And I'm still conflicted about it. The childcare center mentioned in the article is attended by both of The Girls. And really, their huge presence on the playground there had made a huge mess, probably a health hazard. But, despite its apparent success, I'm not sure this was the most humane approach. I miss seeing hundreds of them roosting in the trees in Wildwood Park. They are still here, though. It just takes more mindful attention to see them. I wonder, too, if Buttercup the Vulture is among them; one day a few months back, after years of being in rehabilitation, she saw a flock (is that the right term?) flying overhead and just took off. I like to think so. 

A New View

The dust, so much dust, of the last six weeks begins to settle and so do I. A new, smaller space, which is challenging. But apart from a Very Little Ant Problem (both in scale and in ant-size), all I can feel is relief at no longer having to share my living space with the mice, stinkbugs, black flies, box elder bugs, and mini-flock of European starlings. Hard to believe that life had become *normal* to us, having all those outside creatures inside, right alongside us. And I am trying to return to a normal Me, the one that conjures up sympathy and empathy for those other creatures, rather than resentment or contempt.

A few days ago, The Girls and I spent a long time observing together a lone carpenter ant which had found a dead-moth "treasure" (as they call everything that is found outdoors, leaves, sticks, acorns, berries). The backdrop of this shared moment was the lovely view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from our patio (seen in the photo). So nice to be able to enjoy the outside space without thinking about all the pests trying to get inside.

The one thing I do miss so far from the other house are the birds. Watching them. Looking them up in the field guide. Writing down all the species that frequented our yard. Particularly our (because after 2 years, we felt that they belonged to us somehow) pair of red-bellied woodpeckers. From the songs, there seems to be a great many more birds here (a great many more trees & fewer houses), yet none of them - beyond the mundane Little Brown Jobs - show any interest in the feeder we've put up. There is one in particular that has intrigued me. I'm terrible with identifying birdsongs - they all sound so much the same to me - but this one was unusual, a bird I'd never seen and one with a constant and distinctive song. We finally got a good look at it yesterday, saw a fledging baby and mother in the foliage outside the kitchen window: a mockingbird. We've noted it on our list and listen each evening for its calls. And to ameliorate my sadness at what we've lost, the Preschooler has drawn me a picture of the woodpeckers, which she says is for "whenever you are missing them."

More Feathers, Hope

We spent today worrying about a female house sparrow in our  yard. She clearly has an injured wing and spent most of the day splayed on one of our feeders. Every time we tried to have a closer look, she would attempt, and fail, to fly away, usually just landing in a heap on the ground. By nightfall (when birds should be in their nests), there  were eight inches of snow on the ground - with just as much more forecast by morning - and she was still there, limply resting on the feeder. Knowing that she would freeze to death by morning, we placed a call to the wildlife rehabilitators up in Roanoke who helped  us with our baby squirrel situation earlier this summer, who gave us some suggestions about how to capture her and bring her inside. The suggestions were irrelevant;  in her exhausted state, she didn't even put up a fight. For tonight, at least, she is warm and safe with food and water in a cardboard box in our downstairs bathroom. We shall see how she is in the morning. The injury doesn't look life-threatening, and she doesn't appear to have any eye problems like the wildlife rehab person says they've seen with sparrows around here. The Preschooler was enthralled with this whole situation, watching her father capture her outside through the living room windows, and then insisting on having a look at her once she was moved inside. She's been asking a lot of existential questions lately about life and death, which are hard for anyone, harder for those of us with out-of-the-mainstream ideas and beliefs. We're hoping the sparrow makes it, so that we can avoid some of those Hard Questions for a while longer.

During all this bird-rescuing chaos, my father-in-law called and thought we were crazy for going to all this trouble to help a common bird. Certainly house sparrows don't get much love from me, as far as local birds go. They are ruthless in their role at displacing the disappearing Eastern bluebirds, and while they're not as horrible as say, cowbirds, they definitely aren't the kindest, gentlest species. Still, there was just nothing else we could have or would have done but this. Nothing at all.

Happy Ending Postscript:
House Sparrow seemed to be rejuvenated this morning, with no sign of any serious wing injury. So we all just released her into the yard, where she promptly flew away quickly and eagerly. Good thing, since it doesn't look like there's any bird rehabilitators within a two-hour drive of here!

Illuminations

Fireflies in the Garden
Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

—Robert Frost

This morning Z sat eating a bowl of cereal and I attempted to sweep the dining room around her - V The Toddler has discovered how fun it is to throw food, made worse by the fact that we have spent this summer waging The Battle of the Ants - and in my sweeping, came upon a dead firefly. I said to Z, "How sad," and she insisted on getting out of her chair to look at it, as she likes to do with most creatures, alive or not. I finished my job and grabbed the dustpan to sweep up all the little piles, when she told me, "It's not dead. It's alive." I knelt down to have a closer look and sure enough, she was right. Alive, but barely. Probably too far gone by this point. Z has truly discovered the wonder that is a yard full of flickering fireflies this summer, has in fact gone to bed far to late most nights because she stands in bed watching them out the window, and she was visibly distressed at the plight of this lone firefly. "We HAVE to take it outside," she said, "it needs to go out there." Carefully I collected it in a tissue and placed it into the Invasive Species Jungle that is the backyard. "There," she said. "Now it will be okay because it will find all its firefly friends. Now it won't be lonely anymore because it can fly away and be with them."

I of course didn't have the heart to tell her that I didn't think so, that it was dying (not that she really *gets* death at 3 1/2 anyway). Better to let her believe. Better for me to learn how to believe from her. Better for us all.

Twitterings

For the second year that we've been in this house, a pair of European starlings has set up house in the crevice alongside the chimney (this house is full of crevices, hence our Neverending Battle of the Bugs). One of my most vivid memories of the first days with newborn V. exactly a year ago, was the seemingly incessant sound - right next to my head while lying in bed - of many newborn baby birds CHEEPING! for food. At the time, I remember considering the parallels between helpless chicks and the brand-new one I had of my own, how utterly, singularly focused they were on the same exact thing: sustenance. Funny, and sad, how much less dependent my little chick is now, a year later. Her whole world is so much larger now. I used to be the center of it, and now I am simply a (still huge) part of it.

This year, all I can think about is How. Very. Loud. those little creatures are. And how they seem insatiable. And how I wish the nesting birds were something much more interesting and less nuisanc-y than starlings. Like bluebirds.

Hope Is the Thing with Feathers

I've talked here about my "bird issues," how despite my being an animal person wholeheartedly, I've never really liked birds, except for the big, impressive birds of prey ('charismatic megafauna' anyone?). There's just something twitchy, unpredictable, and more than a bit creepy about them to me. All of them - in a sweeping generalization kind of way. And really, since I've mostly lived in fairly urban areas, I've been too busy paying attention to other animals where I can find them to notice something that's always seemed insignificant to me as birds have. And then I came here to Appalachia, where birds are the most abundant wildlife that I encounter regularly. They are everywhere, always. And it turns out that the three-year old really digs birds.

So, last fall, we went and bought a bird feeder for the front yard - which has now multiplied into three in the front yard and two in the backyard. And I dusted off that Audubon Guide to North American Birds - Eastern Region that's been sitting largely unused on my nature writing bookshelf for years, sat down at the front window, and I have forced myself to start paying attention. And this act has surprised me, in ways I couldn't have imagined. Such a diversity of birds. Such an unexpected thrill when I see a new one and *need* to figure out what it is ("I saw an eastern bluebird in the park today!"). Such fun to pore through the book with that three-year old, identifying what we look at together. Such sadness for four long days after a Terrible Squirrel Incident when the front feeders had been emptied and few birds came to visit.

I will likely never be a bird person, not even when The Toddler tells me she would like a *pet* bird. But I am learning to appreciate them, for the first time. And I guess it isn't only the big ones that can mean something to me.

On Vultures

I've posted before about the enormous turkey and black vulture populations here in Radford. Radford has one of the largest turkey vulture and black vulture populations in the country (there's a 1000+ bird roost out at the local army ammunitions plant, plus a gazillion more birds in the city). Every year for the past several, Radford has been having this "Vulture Day" to educate people about the birds. We missed it last year, but finally, we all went to this year's activities and it was great fun!

There were crafts for Z., which she loves, but the best part was that we got to meet a turkey vulture in person. "Buttercup" was hit by a car and can't ever be released again into the wild, so her caretaker, Bob (an RU faculty member in Biology who we have known for a while), takes her around for educational purposes. Vultures are definitely demonized by the local folks here. During our visit, J. got to hold her, and Little Miss Z. - She Who is Currently Afraid of EVERYTHING - was really thrilled to see her and even petted her feet several times. That's definitely *progress* on her part.

Cooler still was there was a man there taking photos who we got to talking to; he snapped these photos of J. & Z. with Buttercup. He's apparently editor of a local nature newspaper/journal The Appalachian Voice. He wants to use one of the photos for the back cover of the next issue. And, in talking with him, he was really interested in me and my work, and suggested that I might find some writing opportunities with the journal. Being such a natural introvert, I rarely make these sorts of connections, so I am excited for the possibilities.

Nesting Dreams

After the ill-fated and much-failed hummingbird experiment back in Pittsburgh, I haven't really felt compelled to do much in the way of bird feeding since. Part of it has to do with my ongoing *bird issues* and part of it is that, while I love and admire all animals, birds just don't really do it for me. But I guess I have never before lived in a place with such an amazing and incredible diversity of birds as there are here. And The Toddler is turning out to be really into birds. So we went and got ourselves a bird feeder - supposedly "squirrel resistant" - and hung it from the maple tree in front yard. We're not getting too much action yet out there, as it seems more different types of birds hang out in the back yard (we'll get a feeder out there next, I think). But I'm sitting there on the couch diligently with my Audubon Field Guide to Birds Northeastern Edition, learning how to become a novice bird-watcher. So far, though, I'm not improving much in my birding skills. Maybe it's my poor eyesight. Or maybe it's because those things are so twitchy and fast and unpredictable (the source of my "issues" in the first place!), I just can't ever seem to get a good, close-enough look. But I'm trying. We're all trying. Z. seems to think that it's "her" bird book and whenever I take it out, she has to steal it from me and look at the pictures.

Thus far, we have identified:

• rufous-sided towhee;
• Carolina chickdee;
• tufted titmouse;
• jay;
• cardinal;
• common grackle

And of course at other places in town we've seen the vultures, both turkey and black. But more on that soon. Radford's annual "Vulture Day" is fast approaching and this year, we're definitely going!

Remembering the Exact Color and Design

In a former life - the one without Very Small People - I used to look forward to the start of Daylight Saving Time, in spite of the fact that it meant I couldn't deny the approach of winter any longer (much as I would like to). It inevitably fell on the same night as our annual Hallowe'en Extravaganza, so we gained both an hour of extra partying and an hour of extra sleep. These days, especially with little V., there's no such thing as an extra hour of sleep, ever. Naturally this year, both girls' schedules were all out of whack and both woke up extra, extra early the day the clocks were turned back. Rather than wallow in my sleep-deprived-misery, I decided to seize the moment. As I looked out the dining room sliding door windows to the mountain ridge in the distance, I could tell that it was going to be an absolutely glorious sunrise that morning. Hearing through the baby monitor that Z. was already awake, I ran to her room and excitedly said, "Come quick! I want to show you something COOL!" That sort of promise, even if it's made over something we adults would find small or silly, always motivates her in surprising ways. So we both went dashing downstairs to the dining room and I pointed out at the sunrise, which was just as spectacular as I thought it was going to be. The skies were the most intense shade of crimson-red, light shining through filmy clouds over the tops of trees just coming into their most colorful autumn hues. We stood there together at the glass, just watching and admiring. Z. even stood still for longer than usual.

Even a week later, she is still talking about that sunrise. I feel blessed not just to have shared it with her, but that she has the capacity to appreciate such small, beautiful moments in this world.