A Bird in the Web Is a Bird in the Hand

It's migratory season for hummingbirds which means that about twice as many of the critters as normal are flitting about our feeders. They tend to be fairly possessive and uncooperative--often with one bird trying to stake out a solitary claim to a particular feeder. This leads to lots of little "dogfights" with lots of swooping, chittering, and ruffled feathers.

This morning one poor hummingbird darted right into a large spider web draped over one of our living room windows and was trapped, splayed out with wings quivering and extended like a tiny crucified Christ. I happened to see this almost as it occurred and dashed to the hummer's rescue before it could become prey either to our salivating feline, Dot, or to the gigantic spider hiding timorously in its silken lair.

The bird-in-hand was remarkably difficult to cleanse of the sticky strands of web and it was some time before I was able to get it back in a condition to fly. It did indeed zoom off, seemingly unharmed, but I had to wonder if its tiny feet had been fully freed of the sticky web. Would it be able to perch on some safe twig or would its feet remain bound to its abdomen so that it must fly on until eventually falling from the sky. Or if it could land, would the remnants of stickum attach it so firmly to a branch that it could never lift off again?

Pets

Years ago, when I first dug the small pond behind the cabin, I stocked it with a few goldfish. They have thrived--reproducing and living out their little lives in peace and idleness, interrupted only by scattered moments of apparent bliss when I think to toss them some stale bread crumbs.

And almost from the very beginning the pond has also been home to a single, decorative water snake. I do not feed the snake bread crumbs. I do not feed the snake anything at all.

The snake feeds itself.

Know Your Enemy

"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on."

Ulysses S. Grant (1822 - 1885)

Each year at about this time I begin my summer-long battle with ticks. They come in all sizes--from the almost microscopic larval ticks (that I have often confused with the equally obnoxious chiggers) to the thick grey slugs (about the size of a typical button) that drop from the hides of the pitifully-infested deer. I am generally a peaceable person, but I confess that I am continually striving to discover the best way to kill--or at least repel--ticks. And I am continually baffled in my endeavors.

This week, however, I have at least made a bit of progress at understanding the enemy. I finally decided to look closely at the battleground. I thought that if I could just see where ticks like to set their ambushes, I might be able to avoid them. As it happens, they do tend to be just where they are usually said to be--in grassy areas. But they don't like short grass and they don't seem to like thick blades of grass. The vast majority of the ticks I have observed so far have been at the very tops of the tiny, cylindrical seed stalks. They typically hang head-down with fore-polyps extended as widely as possible to each side of the seed-head, as in the picture above.

There is a certain evil intelligence in their behavior. If they were on the wide side of a blade of grass, their polyps wouldn't extend far enough to enable them to snag a ride on any unfortunate passer-by. And their anatomy doesn't enable them to cling to the narrow edge of a blade of grass--at least not with both fore-polyps extended for action.

I have seen a few ticks on stalks of lespedeza, but I may be guilty of having maligned that plant by considering it the primary haven for ticks and chiggers. It seems that lespedeza is a relatively innocent bystander, conscripted by those ticks that are unable to find suitable stalks of grass in their immediate environs.

Ron and Liz's Chickens

As a longtime vegetarian, I have occasionally felt a little twinge of conscience when I made an omelet. The hens that produced the eggs for my meal were probably living wretched lives. Since moving to Hand Cove, however, I have grown acquainted with quite a number of people who raise their own chickens. Indeed, in 1986 a chicken suddenly appeared on our doorstep (really camper step) and lived with us during our weekend visits to the lake. Some years after that we had a peacock stay with us for months. My brief experiences with poultry convinced me that I really didn't want any as pets. But our friends Ron and Liz really do view their chickens almost as pets. They actually raise them to sell the eggs locally, but Liz tells me that when a hen quits producing, Ron simply refuses to eat it--even though neither Ron nor Liz are vegetarians.

Anyway, we have started buying our eggs from these two friends--at least in part because their chickens seems to have rather spacious and comfortable digs, as seen above.

Waterfall Hunting

Last weekend twelve inches of snow fell in Fayetteville as spring formally arrived. Here in Hand Cove we had twenty-four hours of cold rain instead. By Monday morning the skies were bright blue, the day promised to be warm, and the run-off was continuously trickling down the hillsides to fill the cascading brooks. It was a perfect day for waterfall hunting.
Sue and I packed a lunch, put on hiking clothes, tossed my rescue gear into the car, and drove around the lake to the Leatherwood Wilderness Area in the Ozark National Forest.

Waterfall hunting is a rare adventure in the late winter and early spring. To get the best run-off and hence the best waterfalls, nature needs to be dormant with roots no longer sucking up moisture so eagerly. To get the best views, the old leaves should have fallen and the new leaves should not yet have fully emerged. It should be too cold for ticks and too early for poison ivy. It needs to have rained plentifully, but ideally the skies should be sunny. . . . Fortunately, all of those conditions were met on Monday morning.

I first discovered waterfall hunting a year or so before retiring by browsing through a book on the subject by Tim Ernst, the dean of Arkansas's hikers and nature photographers. Sue and I generally only visit the waterfalls in the Leatherwood Wilderness Area--and because it is a wilderness area, there are no formal trails. Some of the falls that are closest to the road have developed an informal path, but generally-speaking bushwacking is the name of the game. Since the great ice storm of 2009, that has become much more challenging.

Now there are huge tree trunks and large limbs everywhere, turning parts of the forest floor into a giant jungle gym. We visited only three waterfalls on Monday, and each of them was within a quarter mile (as the crow flies) of a gravel road. But two of the three were very challenging hikes. That quarter-mile hike always takes one down a steep hill to the top of the waterfall. Then it can be another quarter-mile--or farther--before one can make one's way to the base of the falls. Since a waterfall inevitably implies a rocky ledge, one usually has to consider some rock climbing . . . and there is always the remote risk of slipping, rolling, and tumbling off a cliff.

Waterfall hunting is an adventure that stokes a bit of adrenalin and rewards one with beautiful views . . . and aching muscles.