Symbiotic Nectar Feedings

III Symbiotic Nectar Feedings (11Aug10)

1920 Sspopiikimi - we arrive under cloudy skies to the sounds of young catbirds and the local nighthawk. I wonder if the latter is a father, like the one upriver, alerting his nesting wife to our presence

1932 Tonight we're walking counter sunwise, starting with the west length of the pond. Mahoney sticks to the shale trail while I walk along beside her in the recently mowed strip. It's definitely the time of year for grigs. Grasshoppers leap aside with each of my steps. I stop to take a picture of one that struck me as unique by its patches of white. We've notice though that there are no road-dusters as yet, and if memory serves there were many here toward the end of last summer when they mowed this way

1957 We linger for a while at the south bench. Here, amongst the absinthe leaves, there's an insect drama playing out that we have no understanding of at all. There are tiny, black, spiked critters the size of aphids in tight clusters at the base of some leaf stems, as if they recently hatched. Then there is a certain kind of ant scurrying around on the same plants. I follow some of these ants, and they seem to be surveying the entire plant, but then pausing at the spiked critters to collect nectar

2016 We eat our way toward the south bend, stopping for a handful of golden, red, or black currants at each easily accessible bush. We are grazing. So too the mountain cottontail on the path in front of us. But rather than berries, the rabbit’s tasting several varieties of ground vegetation

2030 When we get to the river, there is a complete rainbow arching north to south. It seems a few bank swallows have recently returned. They're zipping past about five meters above the surface of the water. The bulberry bushes on the skirts of the owl wood are bright red with fruit that we'll soon be harvesting

2043 Our walk along the levee, looking across the canopy of the forest main, is fairly quiet. We hear robins, catbirds, redwings. Still no orioles. Beneath the canopy, the goldenrod is brilliant yellow and the bergamot a pink-purple in bloom. The flood-mud floor of the north wood is turning a mossy green with new grass sprouts, and the beavers have been down there knocking over choice trees, now that they can reach above the old wire shields

2053 A kingfisher flies chattering by as we round north-pond. There are several chokecherry-rich raccoon scats, even though the berries aren't ripe enough for our preference yet. They might clean up the bushes here at the pond before our time comes. It's been a short evening for us here, but we have a long day ahead at Mookoan Reservoir as the ethnobotany session, my last course of summer, begins

IIII ) ll Franklin Migration (14Aug10)

1440 Pitsiiksiinaikawaahko - it's a drizzly, breezy afternoon, succeeding two days of fairly constant rain. The ground should be nice and soft, so I am out for a short while to dig more ma's, and of course check in on the black widow and nighthawk nests

1456 Right when I pull off the road to park on the coulee rim, heavy rain and hail begins pounding down. I'm sit tight in the truck for about ten minutes, waiting patiently for it to subside, and soon it does. But from the appearance of the sky to the west, I don't think this will be the only storm to pass this afternoon

1504 I don't have to walk too far down the slope before it occurs to me that it was a silly decision not to wear gum boots. The ground is absolutely saturated and slick, the grass is wet, and already my shoes and socks are starting to soak through. In any case though, I have to start paying attention. The first item of note is that there's far more gumweed blooming than in my visit last week. And despite the rain, many of them are hosting black blister beetles

1517 There are a lot of grasshoppers leaping away with each step I take, and I know I need to be more mindful of them. The two most prominent species today are an all green, very camouflaged one, and a somewhat orangish-colored two-striped grasshopper, the latter a tad larger than the former. Neither seem prone to flight

1547 The first ma's begin to reveal themselves just as I enter the area of the hibernaculum. I stop and make a payment, tell them why I'm uprooting them, and set to work digging my first four. It's not easy to get these roots out of the ground, nothing like the shallow pop of a prairie onion. As each one comes out, I clip off the taproot and rebury it, then leave the seeding head on the ground to deposit anything it hasn't dropped already. I've given myself a quota. I want to pick at least 100 of these roots before they dry up and their stems form tumbleweeds - 50 for our bundle closing, and 50 to add into our regular diet over the winter

1610 After the first four roots, I take a break from digging to check on the widow nests, situated at the entrance burrows to the hibernaculum. Both of the glossy black ladies responded the same way to my appearance, quickly moving to hang upside-down from their large egg sacks, using these bundles as a sort of shield to conceal themselves. In the same area of these nests, I find evidence that someone has been eating the prickly pear fruits. The otsstatsimaan, or ball cactus fruit, is not quite ready yet

1653 I dug one more root before leaving the area of the hibernaculum to head up hill, climbing to the top of the ridge where the nighthawk nests. On the way up, I dig six more ma'siksi, a couple of these having already broken off their tumbleweed stems, an indication that I don't have too much longer before the season for these roots is gone. Luckily, I can usually locate the break-off point when they've initially fallen

1658 I expect to find the pisttoo mother with her two growing hatchlings right where they were last week. But to my surprise, they're not here. Hard to believe that they could have fledged in such a short period. But perhaps with how exposed they live, they've got other strategies for concealing themselves once they can scoot about. As I type, I hear a scratchy voice not too far away that might be a begging nighthawk. I'll continue digging roots and moving toward the sound

1731 I've hiked up the hill where the begging call seemed to have sounded from. Although I've seen a white-tailed jackrabbit, a family of western kingbirds, and two adult nighthawks, I've yet to spot the hatchlings. But wait... just as I've been typing this note, one of the nighthawks has come in for a landing, on the same ridge where she'd nested, but a different position. It's less than a hundred meters from where I now sit, and I'm going to check it out before I head home

1755 Wow, amazing camouflage these pisttoo babies have. I know roughly where they must be, from seeing their mom land and take-off, but I can't spot them

1813 Okay, having taken three passes up and down the slope, I'm conceding defeat. The baby nighthawks are too well concealed, and I need to get back up to the rim, have dinner, and go to the pond with Mahoney. Total number of ma's dug this afternoon, sixteen

1947 Sspopiikimi - phenological event of the week, we step out of the truck to witness thousands of Franklin's gulls leisurely following the currant of Oldman River. The sky is absolutely filled with them for about ten minutes, and then all but the odd straggler are gone

2003 There has been a significant drop in the algae level here since we last visited. Much of the pond's surface that had been overgrown now reflects the sky. Dozens of tree swallows glide over it, chirping and snatching mosquitoes from the air

2007 The ksissskstaki family is awake and paddling around, the mi'ksikatsi and aiksikksksisi are dabbling, and sspopiiksi can be seen raising just their heads out of the water. As we walk the length toward the south end, we hear the familiar cry of sikohpiitaipannikimm, a swainson hawk, loud and very close. But as we look in that direction, an entirely unsuspected character come gliding low around the edge of the golf course cottonwoods, a merlin who disappears into the trees behind us. The screaming hawk calls again, and it is perched on a pole even closer than we'd thought. It's growing nervous at our approach and leaps off and wings past in the direction of the merlin

2017 We sit at the south bench to catch our notes up, then look around at the absinthe plants that only days ago were coated in pockets of a tiny aphid-like critter and the ants who feed off their nectar. None remain. Were they all washed away with the recent rains?

2038 Our currants are almost completely played-out. We've brought a sheet to test the ripeness of the bulberries, but they're still sticking to the branch, and they remain very tart. No frost yet, we're jumping the gun to even try, but we don't want to miss the opportunity when they're ready

2106 We walk through clouds of male mosquitoes as we round the south bend, the members of these swarms rising as we pass, ricocheting off us. Just on the other side of the bend, at the edge of the forest main, we see a chokecherry bush heavy with black fruit. A taste test proves they're sweet and juicy, and so we remain there picking until the female mosquitoes, drawing blood, become too overwhelming. We have perhaps four or five pounds of berries when we move on. It's a start

2127 As we walk in the dark toward the truck, rounding the north end, the early crescent Moon can be seen falling behind the coulee rim, following the path of the Sun, and the coyote family who lives on that slope have begun howling

Widow Eggs

IIII ) llllllllllllllllllllllllll Magpies Sleep Alone (7Aug10)

0524 Nookoowa - I promised myself that if Dottie Dog woke me up before dawn, I would hike down to the coulee below our house and try to learn where the family of magpies who come visit Derrick and I each morning spend their nights. Sure enough, Dottie came calling at just the right time, and now even though I'm wicked tired still, I have to follow up on the promise

0549 Couldn't leave the house without a cup of coffee, and even keeping the lights off Derrick still heard me and came flapping out of his apartment to perch on the base of one of the dining-room chairs. I know he's still a bit groggy himself though, because he didn't utter a peep while I collected my gear and moved out the back door

0554 I hope Derrick's magpie friends are equally slow at rising. As I cross the single block of suburbia to bring myself to the coulee edge, the dawn is very near. A mule deer looks up at me in surprise from the grass on the rim, stunned it seems that a human being should be out here at this time. The last crescent of okonoki otsitsi'tsspi has risen in the eastern sky, and Naato'si is not far behind. I move as quickly as I can toward a ridge that will take me out above the brush where I suspect the birds might camp. The mosquitoes are swarming

0617 I have no idea where I need to be to witness the magpie awakening. As I hike the ridge, I hear in turn savannah sparrows, catbirds, then crows. The larger corvids are already on their way to the neighborhood. The magpies won't be far behind. In fact, when I get to the end of the ridge and start descending the slope of the upstream and most brushy drainage, where I hope these birds will be, I think I might have heard them briefly. If so, they are one draw over upstream, which is a considerable distance. These coulees leading down to the river are massive. A coyote passes below me, tiny by comparison to the landscape

0629 Naato'si, the Sun, has just come over the eastern horizon, and now I hear a single magpie giving a double call just below me. I leave my pack on the slope and head down with just my camera to check it out

0643 I don't have to go far when the magpie I'd heard wings its way up my slope, over the rim, and out of sight. I can hear another magpie in some brush on the opposite slope giving the same inquisitive "wokwok" call. And as the deer move off the rim and down into this drainage to hide, I see magpies above them as well. My socks are filled with the sharp seeds of needle-and-thread grass, and there's a lot of rice grass down here too. As Naato'si rises, changing his paint from red to orange, I return to my pack

0654 Because I'd observed the neighborhood magpies calling to one another, gathering together, and moving as a collective down to the coulees at sundown, I'd assumed that they shared a communal roost. Apparently, that may not be the case. Back at my pack, I sit and watch as a mule doe and her fawn emerge from the gully in the draw below me and begin hiking uphill toward a large patch of brush I assume are saskatoon. Another lone doe is already there feeding. There's a coyote following the mother with fawn, but it sees me and returns immediately back down to where it can conceal itself in the gully at the bottom of this draw

0713 I'm sure by now the magpies are already up in the neighborhood, and probably waiting in my back yard for breakfast with Derrick. As I begin climbing the slope again to walk the ridge back home, I come across a coyote den right above where I've been sitting. I don't know if this den's still active or not, but I'd be interested in keeping an eye on it to find out

0725 I don't visit this place in my back yard often enough. The last time I was here, all of the milkvetch and onions were in bloom, there were flowers everywhere. Now, although it's still very green, and the first gumweed blossoms are just beginning to open, the prominent flower is dotted blazing star. We are indeed approaching the end of summer

0733 Returning to the neighborhood, what strikes me is the noise. There is a pervasive hum of automotive sound, so different than the quiet that prevailed before dawn. The rumble reminds me of airports, the sound from the tarmac. The magpies are indeed making their way toward my house. They are at the very edge of the neighborhood, surveying lawns, moving inward. There are mountain cottontails on these lawns as well. I'm sure these birds recognize me, the one we call Tuft just looked me in the eye. I have some liver in the fridge for them. Breakfast awaits

0746 Arriving home, Derrick greets me with the same "wokwok" his friends used when they initially woke up. Mahoney too had a double call for me as she emerged squinty-eyed from the bedroom, two words... farmer's market

1941 Sspopiikimi - not much daylight remaining this evening, but we've decided to come out, touch base, and perhaps pick more berries

1952 We enter, as usual, at north-pond, the surface of which is still covered with algae. We can hear catbirds nearby giving their alarm calls, a nighthawk above peeping, and there's a sizeable family of redwings - adults and juveniles - fluttering around the bat tree

1956 The flowering plants of the north end include absinthe, yellow and white sweet clover, alfalfa, and hairy golden aster. There are two-spot lady beetles on the absinthe and black blister beetles on the alfalfa

2003 Up on the levee-walk, above the big river island, it's definitely sunflower season. It is the rhombic-leaved variety. The plant has reddish stems, opposite leaves, and often more than one flower, each at the terminus of a leafless stalk

2009 We stop briefly to sit at the downriver bench. Here, I notice the licorice root in flower, and the early green berries on both the buckbrush and prickly rose. These will be winter berries, for the deer, ourselves, and others. The nighthawk is still in display above, occasionally diving to create the croaking sound after which its Blackfoot name “pisttoo” is derived (flatulence)

2031 It doesn't take long for us to move past the forest main and wind our way around south-pond to the bench by the currant bushes. We have harvesting in mind. Along our route, we passed several lone waxwings, which to me suggests there may be nests. The chokecherries are near to ripening, right on time as we are coming into their moon. Both goldenrods are still in flower, while yarrow is playing out. And the female bulberry trees are draped with bright red fruit

2036 I have not seen the aapsspini Log family this evening. They may have moved to start congregating with what will be their winter clan. Both the north and south coot families are still around, as are the mallards, but I'm unsure as to whether any teals remain. Also, I've not seen any orioles this season, save for one during the flood at Pitsiiksiinaikawaahko. I wonder now if they will return to Sspopiikimi at all this summer

2112 We pick for the next half hour, not getting nearly the quantity of berries we did in our last session here, but not allowing ourselves as much time either. Many of the currants are already playing out. I noticed as I picked that some berries were falling just from the movement of the branch, and I wonder if these ones are not too spoiled. They would be easy to collect with a ground tarp, and could be useful for jelly. The ants didn't appreciate us working their bushes at all. They climbed all over us, and a couple of them managed to get their mandibles into me, but most were too small to do so

2121 It's dark as we walk back to the truck, waving mosquitoes away

IIII ) lllllllllllllllllllllllllll Widow Eggs (8Aug10)

1401 Pitsiiksiinaikawaahko - out on this breezy day with the specific intent of visiting the pisttoo nest, seeking another lesson in efficiency. If I happen to bump into any of my slithering friends, or chance upon some insects whose lives are connected to the late summer flowers, these encounters would be welcomed too

1418 Hiking down the slope toward my destination, I'm inspecting all the blooming wildflowers, and finding that the yellow blister beetles are just as apt to feed off broomweed and gumweed as they are sunflowers. There are black blister beetles on the broomweed as well, and though few gumweed flowers are open yet, there are some just crawling with a miniscule insect, smaller-than but shaped-like rove beetles, dark with three white stripes laterally across their back. The gumweed stems are also host to a black, weevil-like creature

1435 Continuing along, I start to notice that the black medick, and even some of the yellow sweetclover plants, have gone to seed. It would be a good time to gather these grains, before any of the grey mold sets in. I munch on some as I walk. There's a lone, scraggly bulberry bush near where I pick the seeds, and a family of about six or seven western kingbirds are perched and chirping there. I stop to see if they are eating the berries. They're not. Most of them are fledglings waiting on the bush while their parents gather other food, insects I presume. Each time a parent brings a load, the fledgling who's being fed (all of whom look mature enough to feed themselves) erupts into begging chatter

1502 Eventually I make it down as far as the hibernaculum, and although I don't expect to find any rattlesnakes here today, not even the bachelor, I can't help but pay a visit. I'm glad I do. As suspected, the snakes are still gone, not to return until summer's end. But the black widows are here. I had thought there was only one widow, shifting her hunt between two of the den entrances of the hibernaculum. Now I have determined that they are two spiders, and each of them have enormous egg sacks they're attending to

1512 I hustle back to where I've left my camera bag, just outside the hibernaculum, so that I can retrieve my macro lens. When I return to the widow who will be the easiest (though still difficult) to photograph, I find also present what I at first suspect is a spadefoot toad, but turns out to be a chorus frog. It hurriedly hops down into the den, just beyond the widow web, and although I may be brave enough to sit close to these spiders and their snake allies, I'm not about to reach through the web to retrieve the frog

1523 In addition to the widows, I find funnel web spiders set up at two of the other den entrances. In all instances, my lingering presence has frightened the animals - frogs and spiders - to retreat into the earth. I will now go check on the nighthawk mama and perhaps return to these others again afterward

1540 In order to get to the pisttoo, I need to climb up to the top of the narrow ridge where it's incubating. As I do so, I make two stops. The first is at the canada goldenrod flowers, which are covered with insect droppings perhaps left by the yellow-and-black striped skeletonizing leaf beetles I find here and there. The second stop is to harvest more ma's. I also notice that there's another flowering of prairie onion underway

1556 Presently sitting about six feet away from the mother nighthawk and her two beautiful hatchlings. I spoke to her reassuringly as I approached and am trying not to act stealthily or predatory at all, and as a result she has let me extremely near and is sitting here with her eyes closed, sleeping

1612 Babies of course have to eat, a lot, and seeing as how mama's just sitting here I suspect papa is the one bringing all the grub. He may not be daring enough to stop by with me around, and there's nowhere to conceal myself. I've backed off and am sitting tight a few minutes in the off chance that he braves it. But if not I'll soon leave this little family alone

1622 A bee has just flown by and slapped me on the back of the head, which I'm taking as a signal to get a move on. If I have an opportunity, I'll return to visit these birds again before they're fledged

1643 I walk immediately back to the spider nests, where I find the widows and funnel-webbers once again tending to their eggs. The toad is nowhere to be found, probably well concealed in the snake den. Now I'm starting my way back up the coulee slope toward the truck. I'd still like to visit the pond and gather more currants this evening, but I need to get some food in me to replenish my energy

Pisttoo Incubating And Blister Beetles

IIII ) lllllllllllllllll Pisttoo Incubating (29July10)

1245 Pitsiiksiinaikawaahko - to the coulee for an afternoon lesson in life and, if I happen to get down to the river, a cool swim in the Oldman. Of course I'll be hoping to encounter some of my slithering friends along the way

1258 Just as at Sspopiikimi, there are many common wood nymphs out, fluttering around the grass on the coulee rim. But that characterization of their behavior, I know, is not good enough. They are up to something, and if I hope to learn I'd better keep an eye on them. In the meantime, I'm noticing some of the plants - the salsify in seed, the broomweed turning yellow, the gumweed growing close to bloom, and some of the sunflowers already there

1311 Taking a picture of one of the sunflowers, I notice a narrow blister beetle on its bloom, colored almost the same yellow as one of the petals. Obviously this is a relationship that has grown over vast ages. Similarly, I'm noticing on the ground-hugging rose blossoms metallic green rose chafer beetles, about the size and shape of a lady bug, and one of the rose blossoms has a grey blister beetle along with the metallic ones. This beetle is a bit larger than his cousin on the sunflower

1322 I come to a long patch of prairie coneflower. At first there are three sulfur butterflies moving over them, but they depart immediately. I begin looking for any of the whitish leaf-cutting bees I'd seen on these flowers at the pond. There were none. In fact, no interested pollinators at all, aside from the sulfurs. There was, however, one of the wider species of coneflower hosting a bug I've not previously encountered, something like a stink bug, but brown, inornate, and less rotund

1409 Eventually I make it down to the hibernaculum, hoping to find the bachelor around. He wasn't. None of them were there, not even the dependable black widow. I walk over to the landslide section of the slope, nearby, and sit down to write these notes. As I type, a clickhopper flies noisily beside me. Then out of nowhere, a western kingbird swoops in and, in a little flurry, snatches the grig in mid-air

1428 My next move is to climb the slide, up to the ridge above, and walk that down toward the river. About a third of the way along, I luck across a nighthawk sitting on a pair of dark, marbled eggs. Really beautiful. The mama has hopped off and taken flight, and I've backed a ways up the slope, waiting, hoping she'll soon return

1442 It didn't take mama too long to return. She swooped around below me for a few minutes, then glided four times over the nest in inspection. Though I'm right out in the open, I'm sitting still, and on the fourth pass she came to land again. Her site is exposed ground on the ridge, smack dab in the middle of an artery used by deer, coyotes, and jackrabbits alike. No nest to speak of, just a little padding of dead moss phlox, still anchored by roots, but pushed flush with the ground

1454 Inching ever so slowly forward, keeping myself seated on the ground, I've managed to halve the distance between us. She's very aware of my proximity, of course. I'm curious to find out where she draws the line for her comfort

1506 Her comfort went to two meters, at least at the speed I was moving. Perhaps if I'd had been even a bit more patient, the nighthawk would have allowed me closer. But I wasn't, and tempted as I am to repeat the exercise, I figure she's had enough, and I'd best continue on to the river

1511 I envy this nighthawk, her life so efficient that she doesn't even have to construct a nest, she just sits right here on this ridge and for the time being, this is her home. It has everything she needs right here in its natural design. We could only hope to ever evolve to her level

1536 I walk down to the river in a kind of daze, just floored by both the nighthawk encounter and the height of the flora in the floodplain forest. By this time I've received a message from home that my magpie is lonely, that I need to come keep him company. So I quickly wade into the Oldman to get a few dunks in before I start ascending the slope again. As I put my shoes back on, a juvenile spotted sandpiper walks past me, very close, completely unconcerned. I on the other hand am growing wary... of the thunder clouds building in the skies above the rim. A wind has picked up quite suddenly, the forest is swaying, and there's a small sandstorm on the bank upriver

1610 Straight from riverbed to coulee rim I walk, non-stop, breathing heavy, mouth ajar, lower lip flopping up and down with every step. The thunder crosses the river somewhere downstream, missing this floodplain altogether. All the same, I've been called home, so I needed to head out. I might have to start bringing Derrick the magpie with me if I want to be able to lengthen my expeditions again

IIII ) lllllllllllllllllll Out Of Bird-Body Experience (31July10)

1202 Something interesting just occurred. I was outside with Derrick, because Mahoney had been sewing and didn't want him stealing and hiding her needles. But we'd already been out back for most of the morning, and Derrick was ready to be inside, and a little frustrated to be compelled to stay out with me. So we're sitting out there, and Mahoney whistles from inside in the way she does when she's calling me. I asked, "Are you calling me?" She said, "You might as well come inside, Derrick's sleeping on the back of the couch." As I walked up the stairs, Mahoney watched the bird on the couch take three hops, then drop down onto the floor, out of sight. Only thing was, the real, physical Derrick had been outside with me the whole time, and came hopping into the house when I started my way up the stairs. Seeing him enter, Mahoney became confused and said, "Unless it's another bird?" Then we looked around and there were no other birds in here. I figure either Derrick was out of bird-body travelling, or she was seeing one of the magpies from our Beaver Bundle

1846 Sspopiikimi - just like that, on seasonal cue, as we slide further toward the disappearance of okonoki otsitsi'tsspi, beyond the climax of summer, everything begins to look dry

1853 Tonight we move counter-sunwise, strolling first the length of the water. There is algae covering the entire surface of north-pond, and we notice the yellow primrose and white sweetclover are now in bloom. With no wind, the mosquitoes are about, but tonight we've brought repellant to ward them away

1900 At the ksisskstakioyis, we come across the mama mallard with two, now fairly grown, ducklings. We watch them, and even though they are on the opposite side of the water, it makes them nervous that we're here. The two ducklings take off in flight just over the pond's surface and their mother follows. The take-off seems awkward, as though they're still not used to their wings, and one of the ducklings lands long before the other, the mother following the one who's gone more distant

1906 There is another mallard family of three at south-pond, way over below the blind. The aapsspini Log family are still here as well. They were on the cutbank just south of the ksisskstakioyis as we approached, then paddled out to the security of the marsh. Below the south bench, where we presently sit, there's a golden currant bush draped with ripe berries, and there are turtles surfacing, feeding in the deep pool just under us

1915 I can't just continue past these berries without gathering. To do so would be almost criminal. I search my camera pack for anything I can put currants in, and come up with a plastic grocery bag. While Mahoney waits at the bench, the cutbank too steep for her to descend, I go after the fruits

2025 We are now more than an hour into picking, and I still have almost half my bush to clean. Mahoney is working on red currants. For me, this is the epitome of being a real human being and truly engaged with this place. It is interesting what happens when picking, the shift away from inquiry. It is different, I think, than what occurs with animals, who seem just as aware of everyone else in their environment when feeding as they do otherwise, perhaps even more so. I notice the sound of a catbird alarm in the bulberries down the way, the chatter of a kingfisher flying by, chucks and runs by the coots in the marsh, a nighthawk gliding above the pond. Of course I can't help but notice the cannon fire of some silly reenactment at Fort Whoop-Up, a crew of joggers talking over heavy breath as they pass, the completely unengaged. And I am covered with ants, the small ones who scurry about on the currant bushes. I don't know what they are doing here, and that is a problem for me. I don't stop to watch and learn. I'm harvesting. I should have watched them closely before we reached this stage of ripening, when now I have no ethical choice but to immerse myself in the harvest

2053 The Sun has gone down and it's beginning to get dark by the time I finish picking from my bush. Between Mahoney and I, we've collected half a grocery bag full of berries, which is not too bad for currants. There are still dozens of other ripe bushes here for us to return to. There is something happening with the swainson hawks. As we came back to the bench, we saw a small bird, probably a redwing, chase one of the hawks to the coulee slope, where it landed and began to call out. Two other hawks responded, one in the forest main and another in the owl wood. By the sound of their pleas I would guess them to be juveniles. Perhaps they're wondering what happened to the parent who was guiding them on their hunt

2115 The ksisskstakiiksi are out, floating silently on the surface of the water along the edge of the wet meadows as we make our way back to the truck. I see some plants beside the trail that I should photograph for the both myself and the phenology students, but it's too dark now to do so. The days are getting noticeably shorter. I'll have to return tomorrow afternoon

IIII ) lllllllllllllllllllll Black Blister Beetles (2Aug10)

1116 Sspopiikimi - this is my last visit to the pond for the summer semester's phenology, which doesn't mean I won't be back here again in a day or two, continuing to build on my engagements, familiarities, and awarenesses here. What it does mean is that whatever I encounter today will be the last I'll share with the students for this term, then some will continue on visiting their sites and learning, while others will never bother with this study again

1130 My first stop is at the white, tobacco-like flowers below the first cottonwood trees on the trail leading toward north-pond. The upper flowers are already spend, developed into seed pods, and there are still tiny beetles and ants moving around on the lower flowers and stalks. Perhaps next week I'll take a seed pod and plant these next summer at the house

1134 There are no robin alarm calls at the tree today, and as far as I can see there's nobody in the well-concealed nest. The hatchlings must have fledged out. I'm taking pictures of the western cottonwood leaves, and I'll get others from the narrow-leaf variety and the balsam poplar so my students can see the difference. In Blackfoot they are all a'siitsiksimm, and this makes sense because there are many hybrids to be found between the three

1143 When I get to north-pond, passing a few wood nymphs along the way, I stop at the bat tree to eat a few red currants. There are house wrens with fledglings in this small balsam poplar, chattering in alarms that suggest rattlesnake mimicry. I hear another such mimic, an insect in the grass, but can't find it. There is a nighthawk calling from above the river, and the northern coot parents with their two young ones are feeding in the milfoil this end of midpond

1154 I stop at the patch of prairie coneflowers along the cutbank. About half of them have lost their yellow petals and are now in seed. On some of those that remain blooming today, there are black blister beetles. I watch through my macro lens as one of them dips into a flower and comes out with mandibles yellow from pollen. It then flies a short distance into some grass, where there's another of its kind waiting. The two scurry on, and are soon climbing up to reach the purple flowers of a neighboring alfalfa plant, where I see still more of these blister beetles at work

1205 While continuing to photograph the beetles, I notice something tucked tight between a few leaves at the terminal end of a clematis vine. Peering in, I find it to be a colorful spider, who has pulled these leaves close, almost like a tunnel, and secured them with webbing. She feels completely safe in there. Even when I manipulate the leaves a bit, she doesn't budge. As I'm doing so, a man and two children pass by on the nearest trail. Apparently they've just found a butchered garter snake in the strip that was mowed last week

1213 When the man and children move on, I go up to investigate. Sure enough, there's a dead snake here. And not just one, but two. The first one, which they'd spotted, has several lacerations across its belly. The other one, which was probably sitting with the first snake at the time, has been cut in two. I don't know what motivated the mowing of a five-foot swath on either side of the trails, probably something as simple as European aesthetics, but it seems to me a vicious, completely needless, act of stupidity

1234 Coming up onto the levee-walk, I pass under a narrow-leaf cottonwood. Now I have the images I need of all three a'siitsiksiistsi. On the other side of the levee, there are sunflowers in bloom, and I see that someone has set up a dome tent beside the bulberry bushes in the north wood that hosted a yellow warbler family with new fledglings just a couple weeks ago

1240 I drop down into the forest main and sit in the shade for a break, not too long lest the mosquitoes claim me. Nearby I can see that the tall goldenrod are finally in bloom, and that the chokecherries and bulberries are a brilliant red. The nighthawk is calling from the sky above me, and I'm hoping to see an oriole before I get to the south end

1301 It's getting hot, and about a third of the way through the forest I stop to look at the wasps who are moving around some goldenrod flowers, and manage somehow to dump the drink I'm carrying in the process. Now I'm hustling along to get to the blind, where I can dispose of the sticky cup. The dirt trail has many holes punched in it, and at one point I come across a flicker making such a hole. I suspect it's hunting ants, though I suppose it could be another kind of insect

1313 I'm sitting at the blind, writing these notes, when suddenly I hear a loud whap, followed by cries that sound like those of a crow. I look up to see that a swainson's hawk has nabbed something large out of the air and is flopping down into the forest with it. It's so large, it could even be another hawk. And another large swainson is following them down. I pick-up immediately to follow

1323 I move through the forest toward the alarm calls of catbirds and wrens, and they lead me directly to the hawk, which takes wing again as I approach. This time it is not carrying another large bird, but it does have something. Perhaps the body of a magpie or crow, or maybe a rodent, I can't see. I should have went to search where it landed first, but instead I follow it over the levee-walk and soon lose it altogether. I suspect what I originally witnessed were two swainson youths fighting over a rodent

1337 Rounding the south pool to begin making my way back to the truck, I pass by two of the mallard families (females and grown ducklings only), as well as the aapsspini Log family. Along the west cutbank, the cabbage whites are fluttering around the seeding patches of lens-podded hoary cress, which makes sense, seeing as how they deposit their eggs in various mustards

1348 I arrive back at the truck hot, tired, ready for a glass of cold water. And so ends another semester

Catbird Fledglings, Mosquito Seige And The Mow

IIII ) lllllllll Under Siege (21July10)

2006 Sspopiikimi - out for our dusk walk around, sunwise tonight, beginning at north-pond where there are four female mi'ksikatsi and two aiksikksksisi dabbling in the algae-bloomed waters. The wandering garter snakes of the cutbank have gone under to rest, while the mosquitoes for their part are rising

2017 We stop off at the red currant brush beside the bat tree to taste a few of the ripe, gently tart berries. On a snag beside us there's a bohemian waxwing perched alone, giving its cricket-like calls and making occasional flights out over the water and back again

2024 Rounding the north bend, up on the levee-walk, I'm struck again by the appearance of the forest on the river side, it's floor now a mud-flat from this season's floods. There's something attractive about the cracked mud, and I realize tonight that the pattern of the fissures gives the earth the look of flesh, magnified tremendously

2033 It's not likely we'll be here long tonight, just enough to make a single round non-stop. We are entirely under siege by ksisohksisiiksi, and have brought no repelant. All I'm wearing is a t-shirt, and there are dozens of them feeding of each arm

2043 Already we have rounded the south bend, seeing along the levee-walk catbirds, robins, goldfinch, and very much missing the mosquito-eating bank swallows. My arms are now pocked, absolutely rippling with the swellings of bites upon bites

2049 The sikaaatsisttaiksi seem equally agitated. They're not acting in their usual elusive ways, sticking to the high grass and thick brush. Rather, they're standing out in the open along the trail, refusing to return to protection until we are within a meter of them. For us, the mosquitoes are terrible tonight. Completely distracting. I don't want to imagine what they're like in the bush

2057 Back to the truck already, spattered with blood from the many needle-noses we couldn't help but brush-at. They're still bouncing off our windows. Not much good for our dusk visit. I noticed yellow evening primrose as a new bloom just before we cut to the parking lot. There was much though that we didn't have the opportunity to look at, or to engage with

IIII ) lllllllllll Catbird Fledglings (23July10)

1234 Sspopiikimi - with my previous agenda for this cloudy day cancelled, I've decided to come down to the pond for the afternoon. I have in mind a singular objective for my visit, and that is to be responsive. Lately, partially as a result of mosquito pressures, my explorations have felt rushed. Today I intend to allow the inhabitants of the pond to guide my attention

1248 It begins almost as soon as I step out of my vehicle and onto the path toward north-pond. My awareness is drawn to the plants. The most abundant grass of the absinthe field, aside from crested wheatgrass, has a drooping seed head that has turned a purplish hue as the season's worn on. There's a white flower whose identity I don't know, something like a fireweed, a small patch and no others. I search its foliage and flowers for associated insects, finding a tiny green beetle. In a nearby cottonwood, a robin is protesting my presence

1258 I continue to look closely at the white flowers. There are several of the small, sometimes green, sometimes grey beetles on their blooms. At one particular flower, a pair of these beetles are copulating. There is also a little black ant drawn to these flowers, but fewer of them than the beetles. The robin continues to protest, but less emphatically now, and it occasionally breaks into a happier song

1313 I remain patient, observant, the robin has quieted, I await the sound of chatter again while watching the insects. The ants are searching for something, crawling all around the flowering heads of these plants, not as much on the white blooms themselves, although occasionally they do dip in. The beetles, for their part, stay on the petals and stamens. There is also a lygus bug, like a small orange stink bug, a defining yellow V at the base of its wings, like the cape of a superhero. It is exploring the dry top of an old absinthe pant from last year

1322 It seems as though the robin has gone when I hear the chatter again, the sounds of several young voices calling for food. I begin walking slowly around the base of the tree, eyes up to the canopy. There is a nest up there, hatchlings, has to be. The robin starts in again, giving alarm, but I don't think this is its nest. I see the small flash of the grey bird swoop into the leaves again, hear the babies feeding. The nest is hidden in plain sight, and I can't locate it

1341 I'm still not more than fifty meters from the truck, remaining at the base of the tree. The mother bird continues to swoop in and feed her hatchlings, and through I'm now able to distinguish the branch where this activity's taking place, I've not been able to see it with my eyes. Joining me in the grass is a dark aapanii, with two prominent concentric circles on its upper wings, a white pupil inside a black iris with an orange halo, a common wood nymph

1347 A tour bus has pulled in beside my truck. A dozen elderly people walk down the path, past me, smiling. They go as far as the cutbank overlooking the pond, turn there and move back to the bus, rolling away again. I can now see the nest, or at least one edge of it, extremely well positioned at the fork of a branch high in the canopy, concealed almost all the way around by leaves

1357 After an hour without significant movement, my patience has paid off. I've found an angle from which to glimpse, when the leaves sway in the breeze, the faces of those hatchlings heard calling from above. When the parent (father) next glides in to feed them, I find that they are robins after all

1411 Since it's not far away, I return to the truck to toss my cap in the back seat. With the clouds lifting, it's making my head too warm. It's a trade off though, as now I have less shade. I then walk down to the cutbank and toward the bat tree. As I move, my presence disturbs mama aiksikksksisi of the north-pond nest, with her two babies. They must have been feeding along the cutbank. Now the mother is roughing-up her young, chasing them toward the reeds of the wet-meadows. Coot parents are not delicate. When they want something of their children, they're violently demanding, chasing and biting the backs of their heads. How unfortunate that my presence has provoked such abuse

1436 At the bat tree, I am challenged, tested. I stop to pick and eat a few ripe red currants, noticing as I do that there are ants crawling all around the currant stems, leaves, and berries. I almost move on, but then remind myself of my objective, response. For me to walk away from ripe berries and an opportunity to possibly see what the ants are doing here is no different than the behavior of the elderly tourists who just passed through. I'm not here to be a mere spectator. I'm here because we are a part of this place, because we need reacquaintance with the lives of our fellow inhabitants, because we need to foster the kind of awareness of them that they have of us, because we need to be re-educated in how to live sustainably with them, instead of following the ill-conceived Western notion of human ascendance and separation

1437 The berries are ripening, I am beside them. As a true human being, I need to stop and participate in this event, to harvest. In doing so, I'm fulfilling my purpose, and assisting the plant as well. I'm a firm believer that the surest means of conservation is to approach our food sources as just that. My harvest today will help in this plant's reproduction, and ensure more berries for it in the future

1454 Why are the berries so brightly colored? The red currants are just such a perfect example. It would be difficult for a person to pass by and not take notice of them. But many do. Some are just not practiced in seeing. Others glimpse the berries but don't have time for them. And yet, these plants are so obviously communicating with us. The drooping stems full of brightly colored berries are their call, "Come feed here!"

1503 I pick most of the ripe berries that are within my reach, without having to scale down the steep cutbank. The waxwings will take the rest, I assume. I hear their cricket voices coming in and out of the bat tree as I harvest. Moving on, my next stop is not far, twenty meters north where the coneflowers are blooming. Again I look to see what insects have been drawn to them. What I find is something like a leaf-cutting bee tapping the flowers with the end of its abdomen

1511 I expected to see garter snakes here this afternoon, but walking the length of the cutbank there are none. Only their cast-off skins. This absence prompts me to search the logs and such on the water for basking turtles. There is just one where I would normally see dozens. The reptiles are responding in concert to some condition I'm completely unaware of

1522 Along the north cutbank I encounter, in turn, a kingfisher who flies away immediately, an eastern kingbird who follows suit, and a goldfinch who, from high in a poplar tree, sings back and forth with me. The saskatoons of the far north end, on the slope of the levee-walk, are beginning to ripen. As with the red currants, I stop to harvest what's ready

1544 I cut down into the north wood to check on the flycatcher nest. The fledgling who had been here is now gone. There is, however, a catbird scolding me from nearby. I find the bird and then I begin searching for what it's protecting. I don't have to look far. On a low cottonwood branch having over the levee slope, I find one of the catbird's fledglings. At first it is unsure of how it should react. When the parent sees that I've spotted the baby, it cuts off its loud alarm cries and begins issuing hushed pleas. The fledgling then flitters up toward the canopy, and the parent rushes over to sit above me and resume its holler. Only now, as I write these notes from below, do I see the very camouflaged nest that the fledgling must have been in as I approached, higher on the same branch where I first observed it

1608 Soon the scolding parent led me toward some bulberry brush, where it was joined by the buzzing alarm of house wrens who were calling to their own fledglings. Heading over there, I again heard the change in tone of the catbird, and again saw that it was because I was very close to its baby. I decided to sit right there on the bank with these two families, watching and photographing them, hoping they would calm down and resume their regular activities. But they didn't, and eventually I got the call from Mahoney that she's waiting to join me out here. So I'm packed up and heading home to get her

1725 Sspopiikimi - back again to the pond, and now accompanied by Mahoney, walking the same route to start as I did earlier along the cutbank, excited to show her the north wood fledglings and move on from there

1734 Not much appears to have changed since earlier this afternoon. The robins are still bringing food to their hatchlings in the first tree along the trail, the coots can be heard chucking in the wet-meadow reeds, there's a strange absence of snakes and turtles. Suddenly though there's an abundance of a certain colorful deer fly. It's attracted to Mahoney's clothing

1812 Back in the north wood, we find the wren family in the same place they've remained the last week or more, in the bulrush thicket along the levee slope. The catbird family, however, seems (at least at first) to have moved on. We wander the woods, waiting to hear the parents' alarm calls. When they don't sound off, we step out of the woods, by the river, and start toward the main forest. As we're passing the same wren-filled bulberry patch, one of the catbirds gives itself away. Moving toward the brush we see at least two fledglings. The parent's voice changes tone. We're close to them. But soon the fledglings flitter off, following their parents into the poplar canopy

1825 With the catbirds away, we walk over to sit at the forest bench, on the levee-walk overlooking the river. We catch glimpses of yellow warbers, and I can hear waxwings and doves in the vicinity, but for the most part it's quiet

1838 We sat at the bench for a while, listening, noticing how different this particular spot is now from when it was alive with a variety of warblers and swallows earlier in the season

1846 Walking the levee south, we pass a goldfinch in the yellow sweetclover, and the rattlesnake mimic warning of another wren family. Out on the river, a family of five aapsspini have landed, possibly the Big Island couple in flight training. And in the dense, vine-like lower branches of a narrow-leaf cottonwood, a catbird calling "owee"

1903 There are, it seems, several more families in the brush along the river this way. We see fledgling and parent catbirds, yellow warblers, and wrens

1920 Coming around the end of south-pond, still up on the levee, we can see both the Log and Triplet aapsspini families in the marsh below, but no Big Island family. They must have been the ones we'd observed landing on the river. Finally the goslings are learning to fly. We also see the south coot mama and her single child moving in the marsh. The coot nests this year, though ultimately successful in spite of the flooding, were not nearly as productive as those of last year

1926 When we reach the south bench, it is to the surprise of a large hawk, who takes off from the ground with what looks like a muskrat in its talons. As it flies, a small bird hops on its back and torments it, I think it is an eastern kingbird. Not to sound cliche, but it all happened so fast. Too quickly for me to identify the hawk, or the meal it carried. The kingbird I'm more confident about, because it has now returned to the area, giving alarm calls... it must have a nest nearby

1945 Off we trek to find the hawk, who appeared to enter the trees bordering the golf course. But the nearer we came, the more obvious it was that the bird had gone to feast farther out on the course than we could go without risking encounters with those engaged in the important activity of slapping little white balls around a carefully sculpted environment. We give up and continue toward the truck. As we walk, Mahoney reaches up and scrubs my hair with absinthe leaves, then circles around me, observing. It's an experiment. She noticed that rubbing absinthe on her hands kept mosquitoes at bay. Now she wants to see if it works on the head, my head, and at least the short distance we have to cross before arriving at the truck, it seems to

IIII ) lllllllllllll The Mow (25July10)

2031 Sspopiikimi - dusk's shadow has just crept over the surface of the pond and tonight we're sitting midpond across from the ksisskstakioyis. The residents of this lodge are already out, paddling around their canals in the wet-meadows. And as we walked in, meeting Cynthia along the way, pisttoo was calling over the north end

2042 Although this is supposed to be a "nature reserve," the city has seen fit to mow a five foot swath on either side of the shale trail leading around the pond, disturbing, maiming, killing thousands, perhaps millions of plants, spiders, moths, grasshoppers, damselflies, bees, probably snakes and hatchlings, and who knows what else. Not that I'm an advocate for nature reserves, given that they reinforce the illusion of separation that's fundamental to so many of our eco-social ills. But I am a proponent for avoiding needless massacre, which is basically what this mow represents

2106 It's so peaceful down here, listening to all the birds singing their evening songs. The ants are glad we came. They're swarming around to cold perspiration coming off our cups of iced-tea. There's a robin that's been sitting on the back of the beaver lodge for the last half hour. Every now and then a single bank swallow glides over the water surface in front of us

2130 Taking a brief walk along the length to the peninsula and south-pond, I pass the aapsspini Log family. They are alone, and this answers my question of a few weeks ago as to whether the two other families would wait for them once their goslings were ready to fly. Soon we will be without geese on the pond, and they won't return until next nesting season, although we'll rendezvous with them on the river in winter

2143 Now the whole coulee is growing dark, the Sun is below the horizon. A ksisskstaki climbs to the top of the lodge, makes some repair, and moves back down to the water. Muskrats are swimming back and forth between our shore and the wet-meadows. The night-hawks continue to chirp, and every once in a while we can hear a male redwing who's not in alarm

2211 With the darkness upon us, the mosquitoes are ascending in swarms around us, and we decide to make our way back to the truck, brushing the ants off our cups as we pick up to leave. The moon is rising, almost full, just starting to wane. I wish I had the week off to pick currants