My Virtual Reading Room

So here is is... these are pictures from my walk yesterday. I think it was yesterday. I had class today and it fried my brain a little. There's still not much going on as far as flowers or leaves, but I did find some pink acorns...






Fuzzy catkins on what I suspect is a birch, but feel free to tell me otherwise... tree identification is not my strong suit.





These I recognize, though, and down to a species... these are the flowers of a red maple, a very common tree in this area and often planted as an ornamental around houses for their bright red fall foliage. They are some of the first trees to flower in spring and for a tree, their flowers are fairly showy.





The ever-present coltsfoot... I have seen the flowers come out of rock piles and scrap heaps. They are small but extremely resilient, and the flowers make their appearance far earlier than the leaves do. To accomplish this, it's necessary for a plant to store enough food in underground structures to be able to generate flowers the next season. Plants that flower later can gather up sunlight with their new leaves before having to produce a flower, which is extremely "expensive" in evolutionary terms... the structures for sexual reproduction are energy-intensive to produce and maintain, but provide no energy for the plant.


Now, my friends, you can assist me in solving a debate between me and my husband, even though I am CLEARLY right and he is CLEARLY wrong... because he insists that the plants in the following two pictures are the same thing, and I insist that is stupid.




These are young skunk cabbage shoots. Notice the thick branching veins and the way that the leaves are curled around each other in a distinct spiral, and also that you can already tell they will be quite broad once they are unfurled.





My husband INSISTS that these are ALSO skunk cabbage. Note that all of the veins in the leaves are vertical, meaning this is probably a monocot (if you remember your biology class, monocots usually have straight veins and dicots have branching ones). Also notice that the leaves are NOT in a spiral and that they are clearly layered over each other rather than wrapped around each other. So clearly, my husband has no idea what he's talking about.

ANYWAY.




This is one of the few parts of the trail with a large number of oak trees, and so there were a large number of acorns. And of the ones I found, almost all of them were cracked open, but not sprouted... and all of them were PINK. Some just in spots, some all over, but ALL of them were pink. I tried looking up everything I could think of about pink acorns and got nowhere. It could be a fungus, a bacteria, or just a chemical reaction in the acorn... I have no idea. But pink acorns everywhere. Very strange. I took several more pictures but I realized that they were all pictures of pink acorns and you probably got the idea by now.


And on to my bird friends...




The tree swallows are nesting. Their natural habitat is, as the name implies, cavities in trees, but they are more than happy to use anything even remotely similar. They are very, very common around the lake, and are very acrobatic as they hunt insects over the surface of the water. They are also very noisy and protective of their nests and will dart around you, attempting to be threatening, until you go away.


I was hoping they would be back, my osprey family that nested here last year... they should already have eggs. I was afraid I wouldn't see anything, as their nests are so big that a nesting adult with its head down can't be seen from the ground.

Then, even before I came around the corner, I heard that familiar high, whistling call. It's the one bird call I know by heart, would know in my sleep, know in my bones.



She sat on exactly this branch all last spring and summer, or went hunting while the male took the perch. This time of year it's likely to be the female staying close to the nest, although this might have been the male watching over the female in the nest. This is where they always perch, where they can see the lake and the trail and all around. Same tree, same branch, same spot. I hope there are nestlings again. I hope the juveniles from last year come back, although from what I've read they usually spend a year or two roaming before returning to the area where they were born.

It made me so happy to hear that call again... walking around the lake, I will often hear their call even if I don't see them. It reminds me that they are there.

I know that the ospreys are not there to teach me a lesson, but that doesn't mean I can't learn from them anyway. And when I sit down on the trail and stay very quiet so they forget I'm there, it feels like they're telling me something.

They are telling me...

Wait. Watch. Listen. See everything. Be quiet. Be ready.




P.S. Although Chris Hemsworth is not generally my type (not that I know what my type is, other than a sarcastic smartass), I cannot deny the hotness and honestly, the man just gets better with age, so... I found some things to share with those of you who mentioned your fondness for him, starting with the picture in my icon, which is from him guest hosting "Saturday Night Live".
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