Saturday, February 28, 2009

Spring Eve

 
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The Eve

Trail Wood #34.2.09 Earl Plato

Writer’s note: Yes. I’m “jumping the gun” with these Trail Wood articles. This latest is part of his March 20th offering. I just can’t wait for Spring. Forgive me.
“Daybreak and sunrise. Starlight and night. Between the two we live the final day and make the final walks while the earth is rushing through space on the final miles that will complete its ring around the sun.
When evening comes-Spring’s Eve-we are waiting in the dusk to watch once more the spectacle that has accompanied the end of the recent days. We hear the whistle of wings; we catch sight of a chunky form with long, down tilted bill lifting from the darkened meadows; we follow it up and up as in wide, speeding circles it climbs into the still glowing sky. We stand with heads thrown back watching it diminish in size. We strain our ears to catch the beginning notes of that sweet, twittering warble-the flight song of a woodcock in the days that mark the transition of the seasons into Spring.”

Friday, February 27, 2009

Earl Plato and High School students in Marcy Woods

 
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Marcy Woods-Spring 2007

NN6006 Earl Plato

We stopped to listen for the forest birds. Instead we heard the Chorus frogs, Spring peepers and then the “chucking’ sounds of the little Wood frog in the Marcy pond. No sound of the American toads or the ‘baaing’ of the Fowler’s toad. Maybe another time. Marcy Woods is bird country especially during migration times.
We reached the cabin and took a break. Now we would take the Upper Trail and be on the lookout for birds. Some saw Turkey vultures soaring overhead. Two Red-tailed hawks were spotted. We heard the beautiful calls of the White-throated sparrow and then a moment later saw two Red-bellied woodpeckers. Yes, in the distance to the north came that powerful hammering sounds of the Pileated woodpecker. There was a Hermt thrush wagging its tail. Some identified a Yellow-bellied sapsucker, a Brown creeper, and a White-breasted nuthatch. The place is filled with birds. The calls of Blue jays and crows echoed throughout the woods. In the vale below a red fox had been seen. Young ones around? We think so. We crossed the bridge and descended the steps on our way out. Someone pointed the budding in the wetlands of the beautiful Marsh marigolds. Soon they would be in full bloom and we would then return to Marcy Woods. Want to come along?

Life at Trail Wood

Trail Wood #33.2.09 Earl Plato

Writer’s note: I stood in the little writing cabin of Edwin May Teale. It looked out over the Trail Wood pond. Fully screened in front Teale had a great view as he looked up from his writing. Teale loved “life -all life-large and tiny life….”
We walk through this day as we have walked through days in the other months of the year, wondering about what we encounter. How many times have we beguiled ourselves along these trails by speculating about such things as what it would be like a cicada maturing slowly underground or a spiderling ballooning through the sky on a thread of gossamer or a flying squirrel gliding from tree to tree in the twilight. How alien to us have seemed all those people who are interested in no another species except their own species. As for us it is always life-all life-large and tiny life, dull and brilliant-hued life, life as rooted as he lichen gardens, as intensely active as the hummimgbird that holds our interest and augments our enjoyment of the out-of-doors through all our successive years on this New England farm.”
Writer’s note: Edwin Teale and his wife Nellie were in love with nature. So evident, eh.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Trail Wood More Memory Walks

More Memory Walks at Trail Wood #32 E.Plato

“After we have ascended Juniper Hill (see map) and stopped among the sprawling masses of the clumps to examine a haircap moss that so resembles tiny junipers that the German botanist Carl Ludwig Willenow long ago gave it the scientific name of juniperinum. How far will they be carried by the wind and water in the storms of spring, we sit on a fallen log in the woods beyond. Here we examine a cluster of Indian pipes, now dead and dry. The seed vessels are up thrust each suggesting a small sculptured urn balanced at the top of its stem. I break open one of these dry containers. Snuff, brown dust, the fine powder of the seeds, streams into my palm. What will be the fate of such particles, seemingly without number? How far will they be carried by the wind and water in the storms of the spring?
So we walk through this March day, as we have walked through days in the other months of the year, wondering about what e encounter.”

Trail Wood

 
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Trail Wood #31

Trail Wood #31.2.09 by Earl Plato

Memory Walks with the Teales
“Wherever we go, all our walks today are memory walks.”
Writer’s note: Two summers ago we walked the trail Io Firefly Meadow. It was thus marked. Edwin Teale’s Trail Wood is a place to visit.
“When we descend the slope of Firefly Meadow
we come to the spot where I stood in the snow photographing the stars at midnight and to the area we traversed in wandering in the midst of the fireflies in June. When we look back we see the hickory trees towering above us, the trees where the katydids wrangled endlessly during warm and moonlit nights. On other paths we come again where the flicker flicker and I took sunbaths, where Nellie stepped aside to watch the skunk parade go by, where along Shagbark Trail we went nutting in the fall.
On a slow circle of the pond we walk with other memories. It was here that the chipmunk set out to swim across the water; here that I found the tiny warbler nest built among the feathery ferns; here that Nellie waded into the pond trying to rescue the floating grackle and here, near the rustic bridge, that she encountered a black and white warbler in the midst of its broken wing performance, and another time two woodcock bathing in the shallow flow of Stepping Stone Brook.

The Goshawk: Look Out!

 
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Goshawk

Goshawk Earl Plato

The Northern Goshawk is back in Niagara. Not far from the Fort Erie Friendship Trail in Thunder Bay one was definitely sighted last week. Keith Bailey of Crescent Park reported the sighting. The Audubon guide states, “It has recently begun extending its range to the south.” That’s us! “It now breeds in small numbers in deciduous forests.
Déjà vu. Some years ago in the Fonthill area in a wooded area a seventy year old woman was struck on her neck by a huge hawk. She fell unconscious and suffered talon wounds on the neck. Later a twelve year old girl walking on a trail in the same forested area was similarly attacked by a hawk. She too suffered deep talon gouges in the back of her neck. What gives? Audubon again states, “…it (Northern goshawk) is fearless in defence of its nest and will boldly attack anyone who ventures too close!” This is December, 2008 no nesting here until spring time. Hopefully our goshawks will return more northerly where they came from.
Note: It is a heavy-bodied hawk larger than a crow; pale undersides. Up close it has conspicuous white eyebrows.

Miracle of Migration

Trail Wood #30.2.09 Earl Plato

From his Trail Wood setting Ed Teal and wife Nellie enjoyed the spectacle of migrating birds.
“Hearing and seeing those advanced migrants revices memories of the great flocks of varied species we have seen assembling in the south. Tens of thousands of birds, excited, active, stimulated by the approach of their long journey to their breeding grounds in the north. I remember a day when as far as Nellie and I could see across the saw grass of the Everglades. The air was filled with clouds of swirling tree swallows, shooting down, twisting, climbing, theor white breasts catching the sun, birds innumerable, swallows beyond counting. We wondered where they all would end heir northward travels. They seemed lile the milling throng in some Grand Central Station, each traveler with a ticket for destination. How the migrants cross the sky by day or night, how they guide themselves along the way to their separate destinations is a riddle…”

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Tree swallow

 
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The Early "V"

Trail Wood #29.02.09 Earl Plato

Sign of the times at Trail Wood pre-spring.
Teale wrote about that time in March.
“ Yesterday the fox sparrows. Today and the journeying Canada geese. Tomorrow and tomorrow, in the weeks when spring arrives and spring advances, we will see the vast movement of the homecoming birds-with ripples mounting into waves-flowing toward us and sweeping around us.
Like an entering wedge, this early “V” of northward-cleaving waterfowl moves in the vanguard, reversing the direction of the “geese-going days” of October. We listen to their calling grow fainter. We strain to see their diminishing forms as long as possible.
They pass on, a moving sign in the sky, certain assurance of the nearness of spring. A hundred geese were in the flock. How rapidly the news spreads this morning through the village! A little later we hear a killdeer in the sky.”
Next: memories of flocks

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Chestnt Blight Revisited

Trees Earl Plato


I stood with the Park Ranger in Shenandoah National Park several summers ago. We were standing on the Blue Ridge in the northern mountains of Virginia. The cheerful, rotund park officer commented, “Isn’t it a shame?” I knew what he was talking about. All along the ridge we viewed young healthy, seemingly thriving, American chestnut trees. The ranger said, “That one there looks like a good specimen but it will start dying soon. See those stumps down the way? What magnificent trees they once were. Probably 60-70% of the trees on the Blue Ridge were chestnuts. First happened back in the thirties when the blight hit.” I inquired about chestnut blight resistance trees being grown presently. “They are.” he said. “I can hardly wait to see their return.” He had photos of those magnificent chestnut trees in the late 1920’s. The spreading chestnut tree was a great sight as is the towering elm which has suffered greatly in Eastern North America from the Dutch Elm disease. The University of Guelph arboreal scientists are working on developing disease free elms and they are succeeding. The late, famed Guelph scientist Dr. Henry Kock‘s notable research work there still goes on. Great!
Note: Sadly Dr. Koch has passed away. Hopefully his work still goes on.
***
To walk in the woods such as Marcy’s brings peace of mind.
“Cast cares aside and solace find.
This is no place to plot and scheme
But place to think perchance to dream.”
No Hamlet I, but on walks in Marcy Woods I often stop and look and perchance to dream. One blustery spring day the winds sweep down through beginning leafing tree to tree along the edge of the great sand dune to my right. The big hemlocks to my left hardly move despite the increasing force.
The trees around me and above on the slopes and crest are still virtually leafless skeletons. The maples, beeches, and oaks reveal all their differences. I look to my left on that Lower trail of Marcy Woods as I trudge along then I stop. I recognize all around me at Twin oak Hill the stolid black and red oaks standing in their structural poses, seemingly oblivious to the winds. As I round the bend and head southerly there are the leaning trunks of the great, gray birches. The sound of the winds dies away in this protective part of the trail. This is the time of budding leaves. It is still time to see the framework of each deciduous tree that was once lost in its clothing of green in summer. Stop and scan each tree as it takes on new individuality through curve of limb, tilt of trunk or openings or subtle markings. I love this opportunity to see the deciduous trees in this spring setting. Yes, I stop for a moment at the towering Tulip tree. One of my favourites. I look up. High in the branches in the maze of the topmost twigs are remnants (calyxes) of the base of its distinctive flowers. Many are still clinging tightly. Soon new buds will emerge and force their stubborn hold and they too fall.
Perchance to reflect in this peaceful setting. I believe that some of these great oaks have been here before the coming of the European settlers. Those earlier trees in Niagara provided the settlers with shade and lumber, firewood and material for a thousand-and- one home-crafted aids from axe handles to bobsleds. But two of the largest and most valued trees are all but gone. Those were the American elm and American chestnut. All but wiped out by the Dutch elm disease and the chestnut blight we are told of their weathered remnants forming stark landmarks in area fields and woods. 2006 will see the gradual return of these two of the most beautiful trees of Niagara, the American elm and American chestnut. Believe it! Think about it. I should live so long.

Sign of Spring

 
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Monday, February 23, 2009

Part Two

Trail Wood #27.92.09 Earl Plato

PART TWO-
Teale continued with his look at suffering in animals:
“ The keenness of the nervous systems of living creatures which saves their lives so often is not something that can be turned off when sensations become unpleasant. It is unpleasant sensations that warn them of danger. Conscious sensitivity forms the foundation o which life exists. If creatures were mere machines incapable of feeling, if-as an earlier school of scientists believed - the dog that howls in pain really is feeling no pain but is merely giving a mechanical reaction to a stimulus, this intense personal awareness that brings a conscious feeling of both pleasure and pain in life would be lost. Viewing in this light the old dilemma of why so much suffering is in the world, we find a measure of understanding. The suffering of the individual which so often stirs our pity, has its practical value, plays its essential part in he functioning of nature.”

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Change Part 1

Trail Wood #26.02.09 by Earl Plato
PART ONE
Change is inevitable. I can hardly wait for winter to change into spring. Ed Teale in a March 16th log account wrote about change.
“We change and as we change our viewpoint alters. Nothing is ever the same again-not even the past. We see all in a different light.
I have been remembering as I have plodded trails slushy with melted snow under this somber sky and what I have remembered has had a somber cast. I remember the blue jay dying its lingering death from tongue worm, a time of dying that may drag month after month over a period of years. I recall the starling, the flesh torn from its back and neck by the sparrow hawk, pushing itself into the weeds to await its end. I see again the wasted body of the walking grackle as it spends its final hours in ceaseless activity. And the question of a lifetime returns with renewed force. Why should there be so much suffering in the world?”
PART TWO: Teale’s answer

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Be Oservant

Trail Wood 25.2.09 Earl Plato

Writer’s note: I have taken many school groups on walks in Marcy Woods. There is often someone who sees something I missed.
I appreciate their observations. Most students
“observe inattentively.’ Edwin Teale, Connecticut naturalist, encourages us to be more observant. Here in is March log he wrote the following: “Not only seeing what we look at - accuracy of observation- but truth in conclusion is a first obligation of a naturalist. To see clearly where others observe inattentively; to see familiar things sharply in all their details where others see only generalities or indistinct, mentally out-of-focus objects; to note correctly what is taking place; and then to interpret accurately all that is seen= this has seemed the goal, in a ay the lifework of certain writers in the field of nature such as Henry Thoreau. Thoreau went about noting just how the trees look when the wind ruffles their leaves, exactly how the hawk mounts in the air, precisely how the spring flowers spread their petals.”
Writer’s note: He late Fort Erie naturalist, Bert Miller, encouraged us to observe things. As a ten year old on a late winter walk we came to a patch of Skunk cabbages. Spring was coming and the snow had melted around each plant. Bert asked us, “What do you see?” I replied, “The snow seems to have melted around each plant.” “Why?” he asked. We learned why. E asked, “Why the name skunk?” I smelled a leaf - no odour. Bert took his pen knife and sliced a piece of a leaf and the pungent odour assailed our nostrils. I have never forgotten that little lesson. Teale encouraged us to see nature freshly and exactly and through our own eyes.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Big Bird - Marcy's Woods

 
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Big Bird in Marcy's Woods

vBig Bird by Earl Plato

Think big. In that great little pocket of Carolinian Canada, Marcy Woods, pileated woodpeckers were seen and heard.
When? This second week in May, 2008. Have you ever heard the “Cuk-cuk-cuk-cuk” of this our largest woodpecker or its loud tapping sounds? “Rat-a-tat-tat-tat.”
I have taped their calls and drillings in Marcy Woods in past years. They love the Yellow birch as shown by the big cavities that they have chiselled out. See photo below. Yellow birch trees flourish here. Unlike our white paper birch the yellows live several decades more. Walk the Lower Trail and off to your north you will see these good sized trees with their buttery coloured curled back strips of bark. Spring is coming to Fort Erie. Get walking, eh.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Want a Friend?

 
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Need a Friend?

The Big One by Earl Plato

We have been to Pelee Island in Lake Erie in search of the Blue Runner snake. We saw the over five foot reptile mounted in the local museum. We saw no live ones on our short stay. However, this article is about (elaphe obsolete) Canada’s largest snake the Black Ratsnake. It can reach a length of over 200 centimeters. That’s over five and a half feet! As a youth on the way to school I saw the huge black snake in the Helena Street ditch, One of the Erie Beach boys stoned it to death. Back then j the only good snake was “ a “dead one.” Thanks to Fraser and Owen Darling of the Niagara Falls Nature Club who have a resident Black Ratsnake as their friend at their family cottage near Kingston, Ontario. Here is some of the Darling brothers observation.
“In a hollow tree. We often observed Black snake sunning itself. We have also seen the snake crawling through thru cottage yard and in a trailer on the property. We have decided that the snake thinks the trailer is his for we see him he is often sleeping under a sleeping bag! Luckily we found one in our mom’s kayak before she went paddling out on the lake.” The boys give some advice about the big Black Rat snake as follows: “ Don’t be afraid of them for they will not hurt you. They only want to be left alone.”
The Darling brothers end with this, “We will be back up at the cottage in July and look forward to checking in on our friend the Black Ratsnake!”

Friday, February 13, 2009

The Hunter

Trail Wood #23.09 Earl Plato

Writer’s Note: On a good March night that means
clear skies. I set up my spotting scope at Crystal Beach Waterfront Park. I look south over dark Lake Erie and find Orion. Years ago at Trail Wood Ed Teale looked into the southern heavens too.
“We see the stars peep out. In the sky to the south-west Orion, the constellation of winter nights glitters with blue-white Rigel and reddish Betelgeuse. To us each brilliant star seems shedding its light only in our direction. It is hard to realize that its beams shoot out in all directions from the ball of its incandescence. That the starlight we see is such minuscule proportion of the whole, Similarly in our walks of Trail Wood what we have observed - things great and small, old and new, animate and inanimate represent a tiny fraction of what has passed unobserved..”
Writer’s note: Why not step out some clear evening and view “The Hunter.”

What is it? Read on

 
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Have You Heard One?

Trail Wood #22.09 by Earl Plato

Writer’s note: It was in the evening dusk on a road in Wainfleet Marsh that I heard the unmistakeable notes of a special February bird. Edwin Teale describes those sounds as only he can..
“ Evening comes-we are waiting in the dusk to watch once more the spectacle that has accompanied the end of recent days. We hear the whistle of wings, we catch sight of a chunky form with a long, down tilted bill lifting from the darkened meadows. We follow it it up and up as in wide, speeding circles it climbs into the still glowing sky. We stand with heads thrown back watching it diminish in size. We strain our ears to catch the beginning notes of that sweet, twittering warble” -
Writer’s note I recall those sounds. Of what?
“ the flight song of a woodcock. … it whirls like a gust-blown leaf, tilting and veering with such sudden changes we have difficulty keeping it in our glasses. The air is filled with he beauty of its song.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Spring is coming at Trail Wood

Trail Wood #20.09 by Earl Plato

Writer’s note: Apparently many of the readers of my “Nature article “ blog like my offerings of Edwin May Teale’s daily log write ups. I will continue to do so. Make a comment anytime if you wish,
“… the hours pass on as Nellie and I follow the old trails. Visit old friends among the trees, note the effects of winter and its storms. The day is filled with sunshine; the mercury is rising.
We find the red-wing blackbirds scattered over the lowland woods, We listen to the scream of the red-shouldered hawk above the trees. We see an emerging woodchuck nibbling on tender leaves of the new green grass. We catch the richly nostalgic scent of the warming soil, the reviving earth. We stand beside the widening band of open water along the edges of the pond. We notice how transparent it is after the months of calm beneath the ice.”
Writer’s note: I have seen only a few red-shouldered hawks in Niagara and New York state. Thanks to my slide from my Cornell collection I include it

Downy at Trail Wood

Trail Wood #19.09 Earl Plato

Writer’s Note: In my little sketch pad I drew a Downy woodpecker. Later I colured it. Ed Teale mentions this little woodpecker in this March offering.( my drawing was too faint)
“ On this morning in the wake of the quiet storm, Nellie and I wade on a wandering course through the woods, along the brook, and across the fields, clad in immaculate white. We take our time. The sun shines. The day grows warmer. The calling of titmouse and redwing charges the air with the emotion of spring.
Twice on the way home we stop beside the stems of last year’s goldenrods. Ach stem exhibit’s a round,
balloonlike swelling has been punctured by the chisel bill of a downy woodpecker. On some cold day in winter, the bird had excavated the round bevelled hole and had extracted the pupa from within the sphere of the goldenrod gall.”
Trail Wood #19.09 Earl Plato

Writer’s Note: In my little sketch pad I drew a Downy woodpecker. Later I colured it. Ed Teale mentions this little woodpecker in this March offering.( my drawing was too faint)
“ On this morning in the wake of the quiet storm, Nellie and I wade on a wandering course through the woods, along the brook, and across the fields, clad in immaculate white. We take our time. The sun shines. The day grows warmer. The calling of titmouse and redwing charges the air with the emotion of spring.
Twice on the way home we stop beside the stems of last year’s goldenrods. Ach stem exhibit’s a round, balloonlike swelling has been punctured by the chisel bill of a downy woodpecker. On some cold day in winter, the bird had excavated the round bevelled hole and had extracted the pupa from within the sphere of the goldenrod gall.”

Downy

 
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Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Red-shouldered hawk

 
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Trail Wood Redpshouldered hawk

Trail Wood #19.09 by Earl Plato

Writer’s note: Apparently many of the readers of my “Nature article “ blog like my offerings of Edwin May Teale’s daily log write ups. I will continue to do so. Make a comment anytime if you wish,
“… the hours pass on as Nellie and I follow the old trails. Visit old friends among the trees, note the effects of winter and its storms. The day is filled with sunshine; the mercury is rising.
We find the red-wing blackbirds scattered over the lowland woods, We listen to the scream of the red-shouldered hawk above the trees. We see an emerging woodchuck nibbling on tender leaves of the new green grass. We catch the richly nostalgic scent of the warming soil, the reviving earth. We stand beside the widening band of open water along the edges of the pond. We notice how transparent it is after the months of calm beneath the ice.”
Writer’s note: I have seen only a few red-shouldered hawks in Niagara and New York state. Thanks to my slide from my Cornell collection I include it

Downy

Trail Wood #19.09 Earl Plato

Writer’s Note: In my little sketch pad I drew a Downy woodpecker. Later I colured it. Ed Teale mentions this little woodpecker in this march offering.
“ On this morning in the wake of the quiet storm, Nellie and I wade on a wandering course through the woods, along the brook, and across the fields, clad in immaculate white. We take our time. The sun shines. The day grows warmer. The calling of titmouse and redwing charges the air with the emotion of spring.
Twice on the way home we stop beside the stems of last year’s goldenrods. Ach stem exhibit’s a round,
balloonlike swelling has been punctured by the chisel bill of a downy woodpecker. On some cold day in winter, the bird had excavated the round bevelled hole and had extracted the pupa from within the sphere of the goldenrod gall.”

Downy

 
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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

3 different Sights at Trail Wood

Trail Wood #18.09 by Earl Plato
Edwin May Teale and his wife Nellie were always walking Trail Wood pathways. This day was no Exception.
“ The feature of our walk in the March sunshine today is creatures doing something different. In the Wild PlumTangle. We see a cottontail rabbit carefully going over the surface of the snow. It is gleaning fragments of cracked corn scattered by the wind. Out in the open downward from the catalpa tree we discover jays, grosbeaks, and smaller birds picking at he snow. We tun aside to investigate several of the dark, slender, cigar-shaped seedpods dangling on the catalpa have split open. The birds ae consuming the watery seeds that speckle the ground. A red squirrel that has found a snug winter home under the roof of our garage provides the third of these instances of creatures engaged in unusual activity. I see where it has torn apart a mud dauber’s nest and added meat to its diet by consuming the wasp pupae within.”
Writer’s note: Be observant. Whar three different things will you see in nature this week?

Red Squirrel

 
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Alive and Revived!

Trail Wood #17.09 by Earl Plato
Dead? Teale tells us otherwise.
“ When I come up to it, I find the gray squirrel lying on its side on the grass. Its eyes are wide open. But it is rigid and unmoving. It gives every appearance of being dead. Minute follows minute without any sign of life. … it remains inert in the sunshine. At last from where I stand a little way off I see a twitch of one hind leg. Then it lifts its head and lets it fall back again. Slowly it makes a few jumps and a rest and revives from its profound state of shock. It struggles to its feet, It flips its banner tail/ t makes two or three tentative jumps. , then flattens out in the grass again. For several minutes it rests, Then another few jumps and a rest. And so by degrees it attains a tangle of bushes, then a tree. And so it disappears. It had not sustained any important physical injury. But for a half an hour after its narrow escape the high-strung animal had been in a state bordering on “catalepsy.”
Writer’s note: The white cat is not mentioned again.
One lucky squirrel, eh?

Monday, February 9, 2009

The White Cat & the Squirrel

Trail Wood #16.09 by Earl Plato

Writer’s Note: According to my parents “Whitey” our white cat was born the same year as I was. For eight years Whitey was my cat. No albino but pure white she was a skilled huntress. More than once she brought her prey back to our little farm. Sadly one day she dropped the body of a beautiful meadow lark at our door. Sometime in her eighth year she disappeared. I missed her. Edwin Teale, as a trained naturalist, watched a white cat on his Trail Wood property. He wrote on that March date: “ My eye is first caught by its little leaps and that as it forages over the ground for food. I watch it for a moment or two before I become aware of a large white cat that has wandered from a neighboring farm. It is crouching low in the grass. Its eyes follow every movement of the squirrel. For some reason that usually alert animal seems unaware of the cat. It even turns its back to the danger. That is the signal. The white cat streaks torward it and makes it leap. With the squirrel in its mouth it begins to run, making surprising leaps with so heavy a burden. Shaking off my surprise I set out in pursuit. The white cat drops the squirrel and scuttles into the protection of he Wild Plum tangle.”
Note: Teale writes next about survival..

Trail Wood #15.09

Trail Wood #15.09 by Earl Plato

Writer’s Note: Three times U have been to Thoreau’s Walden Pond all during the summer time. The first visit in 154 I walked to he edge of the pond. Across the way was Thoreau’s cabin. Edwin Teale writes about Thoreau’s winter experience at his pond. Teale wrote.: “ Beside that larger body of water, Walden Pond, Henry Thoreau listened to the same sound of winter ice movements. “ The pond began to boom about an hour after sunrise when it felt the influence of the sun’s rays slanted upon it from over the hills …” he writes in the “Spring” chapter of Walden. Local anglers fishing through the ice believed the “thundering of the pond” scared the fish and prevented them from biting. This booming of the ice we hear but rarely at Trail Wood.”

TRAIL Wood March 3rd.09

Trail Wood March 2nd by Ear Plato

We revisit Trail Wood and Edwin Teale and the next day- March 3rd.
“ Where a stand of staghorn sumac once grew at the edge of Wild Apple Glade, only the silvered trunks and branches now remain. They lie fallen, jumbled together like discarded and weathered antlers.”
Writer’s note: The following Teale offering conjures up old memories - ice fishing on Lake Erie. Sounds - would be ominous sounds and groans
“ Last night the temperature dropped to zero. Already on this morning of sunshine it has risen to 22 degrees. I assume this sudden change, accentuating the tensions inherent in the ice is responsible for the dull cannonading I hear.”
Writer’s note: How do you describe those noises of ice contracting on Lake Erie? Scary? Yes. This past weekend. February 7, 2009 over a 100 American ice fishermen had to be rescued off a broken away ice floe in Lake Erie. I have experienced something similar. Going out a small crack and accompanying “wonk” sounds of ice movements. Coming in the crack had opened up to several feet. What to do? Walk eastwards toward Buffalo, New York a few miles. Pull your ice sled over the ice mounds and come ashore safely. All that time we heard the thundering sounds of ice contracting.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Trail Wood with Teale March 2

Trail Wood #13.09 Earl Plato
It was one March 2 when Edwin Teale wrote the following: “The trouble with looking at birds” an all-around naturalist friend of mine once observed, “is that you miss so much else while you are looking at birds.” The same might be said for looking at ferns or rocks or wild flowers or deer. Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous two-line poem in A Child’s Garden of Verses runs, “The world is so full of a number of things. I’m aure we should all be happy as kings.” For the field naturalist, however, this happiness is diluted from time to time by reflections on the number of things slipping by while he is looking elsewhere. When Nellie and I are circling the pond we are missing what is going on along the Old Woods Road, when we explore the area of Ground Pine Crossing, we have no idea what is occurring in Firefly Meadow.”
Writer’s note: So be it Edwin. We mere mortals are not “ All seeing.”

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Trail Wood Pond As WE Saw It

 
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Trail Wood - The Pond

 
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A Winter Thaw at Trail Wood

Trail Wood #13.09 by Earl Plato

Trail Wood - Ed & Nellie Teale - Spring Is Coming
“ Nellie and I roam over one pasture after another. We tread across a sodden carpet of faded grass that has replaced the snow. We watch combing the soggy ground crows and starlings picking among grass clumps and investigating the remnants of drifts, snapping up bits of food exposed by he melting of the snow. Again we look down on the winding tunnels of meadow mice. We see them three-sided, “on the half-shell” with their roofs removed.
It is when we come to the bridge where the lane crosses Hampton Brook that we encountr the most dramatic efect of this sudden release of water. The sream is tumbling over the rocks in flood stage, patches and islands of foam veering and bobbing, small ice cakes jostling together in the millrace of te current. Where the current reaches the opening under the great slap of rock that supports the traffic of the lane, it piles up into a churning, whitling, roaring maelstrom that gnaws into the stream banks and lifts its crest almost to the level of the roadway. Far into the night we hear this uproar of the floodwater that a single dy of anormal warmth has brought forth from the crystalline substance of h silent snow.”
Writer’s note: On that August day a few years ao we drove over a small stream. That was Hampton Creek! I could see on the right bank the ravages of a spring torrent. Yes, I love Teale’s Trail Wood.

Friday, February 6, 2009

March 1st Trail Wood Pond

Trail Wood#12.09 Earl Plato

Trail Wood: Writer’s note: We stood in front of Edwin Teale’s rustic writing cabin. In front of us was his pond, a large pond, perhaps an acre or more. We return to Teale’s March 1st log. “ Standing beside the pond where the wind has swept away the powdery snow that drifted down in the night. We see the molds of dry leaves, some descending to a depth of two inches into the ice. Through the greater amount of heat absorbed by their darker forms they have melted their way downward. Once we observe the perfect mold of an oak leaf, another time that of a maple leaf. For a minute or two we are mystified by several perfectly round holes, looking as if hey had been bored into the ice with a brace and bit. We peer down into them. At the bottom of each lies the dark rondo pellet of a rabbit’s dropping.”
Thanks Edwin for your daily observations at Trail Wood.

Trail Wood Pond Conn.

 
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Thursday, February 5, 2009

Spring is Coming

Trail Wood#11.09 by Earl Plato

Nature writer, Ed Teale cheers us with his winter warm up.
“ How high the sun! How bright the sky! But how chill the wind! Under this sun, this sky, and this wind we enter the month of March, the month of another spring begins.
Behind us now receded the dead of winter. Ahead of us swells and surges closer the season of change. We seem standing with one foot in retreating winter, the other in advancing spring. Wherever we walk today we confront effects of the sun’s higher path across the sky. Already we sense the hidden rivers of sap flowing around us in the woods. Already we notice a difference in the calling of the birds."

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Arizona Too - Red-tails

Arizona Too Earl Plato

In an Arizona state nature folder we read that the Red-tailed hawk is a common resident around Phoenix. My daughter, Diane, saw them this February. She knows her hawks. My research tells me that they migrate south from Arizona. Curious. Yes, they migrate south from my area in Ontario but why in a warmer state like Arizona? This is the largest of our Buteos and feeds mainly on rodents and yes snakes too. Diane photographed what she believed were Red-tails. Too hard to confirm as photos were too small. But I believe her,
 
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Arizona TOO

 
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Monday, February 2, 2009

Ouch! Prickly Pear Cactus

 
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Ouch!

Flash Back Ouch! By Earl Plato

Ouch! I had reached down to touch the Prickly Pear cactus and reacted with a cry, “Ouch!.” Son Paul and I were at Point Pelee on the east trail. A few yellow flowers growing close to the sandy soil caught Paul’s attention. We had discovered several Prickly Pear cacti plants. Yes, here in Canada’s most southern point. The Audubon Guide reads, “Care should be taken in handling it, since the barbed glochids can be more troublesome than the typical spines of most cacti.” I know by painful experience several small barbs attacked my fingers almost as if they jumped from the cactus.
Daughter Diane O’Brien and family just returned from a week in Arizona. Great photos including those of the cacti- Seguro, Barrel and a variety of these spiny plants. Those in their compound were regularly watered and looked healthy. And yes, there were many Prickly Pear cacti with in the confines of a large cacti garden. Late January 2009 in Arizona there were no yellow flowers in bloom on the flat, fleshy green pads.

Bye Bye Pine Grosbeaks T tRAIL wOOD

Trail Wood#10.09 by Earl Plato

Edwin May Teale continues: “ As we watch, we see the birds tear apart and toss about the brown lumps of the fallen fruit. Apple seeds form one of their favorite foods in the years when they come south. As they feed, their movements appear deliberate. And as we work closer, advancing cautiously a slow step at a time. We learn something else about them. This is their exceptional tameness.
A soft, short whistle a kind of “Cheeee” that shows their relationship to the other finches, continually from among the feeding grosbeaks. This call has been described as having a little roll in it. He full song of the males, the song of their breeding time, is said to resemble that of the purple finch but to be wilder and sweeter. It is a melody made up of warbles, whistles, and trills. It is sometimes loud, sometimes soft, sometimes ventriloqual.
A quarter of an hour goes by while we watch hese visitors from the north. Suddenly, as though on signal, they all take off together.

Male Pine Grossbeak

 
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