From My Nature Journal: A Smile in the Sky, And Other Things to Grin At

Of particular pleasure to most naturalists are the moments they see something they've never seen before, along with the thoughtful realization that they might never see such a thing again in their life. Now, interestingly, these 'seeings' are not particularly rare, as there is so incredibly much to observe on, under and above land, sea and sky, especially if one is a generalist like me. Such delights are the compensation or remuneration of what is called 'paying attention.' And it's the 'paying' part of that phrase that I like, because their return in value, if you will, are commensurate with the investment of the attention one pays.

The seeings range from the curious to the cute, from the nearly unbelievable to the believable but still spectacular.

The curious. It rained buckets after dark the night before last, nearly three and a half inches in four hours. At one point, as I stood at our bedroom window for a few moments staring at the awesome sight of the downpour amid intermittent lightning flashes, I noticed several tiny glow worms on what had to be absolutely sopped turf, lighting up and dimming back. It left me inquiring as to the purpose. Who knows? Perhaps they were just sending SOS's. (See one of my earlier posts, "Holy Buckets in the World is That?" for a similar curiosity.)

The cute. Over the last couple weeks, Gail and I have picked wild apples several places, making a little jelly and applesauce along the way, but more to fill a couple five-gallon buckets and set some out overnight for the deer. This week as we began doing so, the apples were gone every morning, and we sat at the window eating breakfast, smugly satisfied to have provided a little treat. (Sometimes we're rewarded with them coming in at dusk while we can watch them, always a pleasure.) But no. One morning upon an earlier rising than usual, I watched with both displeasure and amusement as a diminutive red squirrel climbed the stumps upon which the apples lay and carried each, one at a time, into the woods, burying them under fallen leaves. Some of these apples were over half its size and surely close to its body weight, a comical sight.

The nearly unbelievable. I'll warn you now, people think I'm pulling their leg when I tell them of this experience. Years ago, Gail and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a trip to the Canadian Maritime Provinces. While hiking in a remote area of New Brunswick near the Hopewell Rocks, we stopped dead in our tracks when we heard a crow in a tall tree above us seeming to sing "It's a Small World After All." Now, we had known that crows are smart enough to mimic, but it still challenged our limits of believability. So we stood under the tree for a few minutes and listened to it over and over; quite soon, other hikers came down the trail, a young couple, and we thought we'd put it to the test. Stopping them, we asked if they'd mind pausing to listen to this crow and tell us what they thought they heard; we must have seemed like crazy old people. After the crow called, the woman replied, "Uhh, it's... a small world after all...?" Bingo. Something else crazier than us. We all laughed with incredulity, and I commented, knowing also that some crows can migrate south for the winter, "I guess there's no question where this guy spends his winters!" It must have been one of those that perch nearby and snag French fries and other treats out of people's hands while they're waiting in line at Disney World, listening to that infernal ditty! Who (or what) EVER can get THAT brain worm out of their head, having once stood in that line?

Finally, the believable but still spectacular. I was not even familiar with these two things before seeing them, and though I've only 'seen' the latter through my sister, they arrest me just the same. Many of us have seen sundogs or glorioles. Sundogs are small arcs of rainbow color, 22 degrees either or both sides of the sun when low in the sky, refracting and separating the colors of the sun's rays as a prism does, through suspended ice crystals. Glorioles are rings around the sun or moon (or partial rings) that are also a refraction of light through high altitude ice crystals. But the thing about both sundogs and glorioles is that their arc bends toward the light source, whether sun or moon; in other words, they appear as circles, or partial circles, surrounding the light.

One day as I walked on a sunny afternoon, a small patch of color near the zenith somehow caught my eye, and I found a small, single arc floating among the clouds almost directly overhead. I thought it odd to see a sundog in that spot, as they usually present themselves nearer the horizon earlier or later in the day. But then I realized its arc was bending away from the sun. What in the world? Well, that was called, I found as I researched later, a circumzenithal arc, but I also read, Cheshire Cat notwithstanding, that it was also called 'the smile in the sky,' which brought the same to my own countenance. That’s also a much more fun title, I’d say. (It’s also called Bravais’ arc, or an upside-down rainbow.) Circumzenithal means ‘surrounding the zenith,’ zenith being the point straight up. These arcs are also formed through high altitude ice crystals, appear 46 degrees above the sun (about a quarter of the sky), and, I was surprised to find, are not that rare; it’s just that few of us ever look straight over the tops of our heads. In this photo, I blocked the sun by the tree in order to see ‘the smile’ more clearly.

Then just last month my sister Carolyn sent me this photo pair of crepuscular and anticrepuscular rays, taken one evening from the roof of her Chicago condo building. I had often seen the former but never the latter. Crepuscular means ‘relating to twilight,’ which is when these rays tend to show themselves best. These rays can often be seen while the sun is low in the sky, especially as the sunlight shines through thick cumulus clouds. (They’re also called splintered light, or god rays. Hmmm…) But I have always thought that the coolest effect is when crepuscular rays show when the sun is below the horizon. Soon before the sun rises or soon after it sets, our star occasionally throws its shadows and light-rays across the sky as it shines through clouds, or even landforms like mountains or hills, that are below our own horizon, which we, of course, cannot see. All those rays and shadows seem to be emanating from the same point below the horizon, like spokes on one half of a wheel, which, of course, they are, coming as they are from our sun's single point of light. Most spectacular is when it happens when our own sky is fairly cloudless. But I’ve also particularly enjoyed it while flying at high altitude into the sunset, when I have been able to see rays opposite the sunset and behind me forming a single, large, arced, purplish shadow, which is actually the shadow of our earth itself, including its curvature, another cool expression of crepuscular light. What I had never seen before is when those rays reach all the way across the sky and exit the opposite horizon, again, as like spokes in another half wheel opposite the sun. Along the way, they appear to expand widely over one's head and converge again on the horizon opposite. But this is only how it appears; the rays are actually nearly parallel, perspective from a single point being what it is, in the same way that parallel railroad tracks seem to come to a point in the distance). These rays opposite the sun are called anticrepuscular, 'anti' of course a prefix from the Greek designating opposition. Sometimes a ray reaches all the way overhead from west to east (or east to west), as some did at the time of these two photos. You can look at both photos and picture the full sky's connecting rays, keeping in mind that one photo faces west to the sunset and the other east (note the Chicago skyline), thus, why the rays are flipped from right to left.

I wax. It's a hazard for us naturalists, as I've said many times. But all of this is to affirm, as I began, what a treat it is to be feted with new and wonderful things one has never observed or experienced before, irrespective of a lifetime of observation.

I've walked with God now for well over a half century. Though much about this walk has become familiar, God also often teaches or shows me new things, or new ways to understand old things. It's why I write. But such was familiar to the Biblical writers as well, with Jeremiah celebrating God's tender mercies of old which seemed to him absolutely 'new every morning' (Lamentations 3:22-23); or James reveling in God's '...good and perfect gifts from above... coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow' (James 1:17). Beautiful image, that one, eh? Or perhaps this from 1Corinthians 2:9 -- 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the mind of humans conceive what God has in store for those who love him.'

Yes.

~~ RGM, September 23, 2018

From My Nature Journal: Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

People often ask me if there are no more animals in the woods, as they so rarely see any. It got me to thinking…

I’ve read somewhere that the typical eastern United States ‘Hundred Mile Wood’ (by definition a ten-mile by ten-mile forest section, or a hundred square miles) contains on average 300,000 non-human mammals, believe it or not. Of that number, though, fully 220,000 are mice or smaller. Hmmm, that would be mice, bats, moles, voles, lemmings and shrews. That’s it. Twenty-two of every thirty mammals in the woods are in the mouse category, a full 73%.

Allow me a moment’s divergence. From this statistic it seems the place should at least be crawling with these furry little rascals. However, in spite of their ubiquitousness, they’re not often seen -- for reasons practical and reasons statistical. Practically, if they’re not hidden in their tree cavities or burrows, many of them are nocturnal anyway. So unless I am out at night with a flashlight, and then looking in the right place, I will not normally see them. But if I look at it statistically, a little math will keep me from having to watch where I step, as even this is not a high population in a hundred mile wood. In a place that big, that would be one mouse-type critter for every 12,672 square feet, on average, or one mouse-or-smaller creature in an area roughly 113 feet by 113 feet. So, if my average forest saunter is a thirty-inch stride, anywhere I stand in the woods I am, on average, a full twenty-three paces from a small rodent of some kind! Unless it’s up! Isn’t math fun? And their various nooks and crannies determine I’ll rarely encounter them anyway.

But to return to the original question, we’ve covered so far only 220,000 of the 300,000 mammals in the typical hundred mile forest (or 300,001 if I count myself). “Surely the rest are man eaters, more highly visible and impressive,” you may say. Well, no, not exactly. As if the above statistic is not curious enough, another 65,000 of that original figure are between the size of mice and squirrels. All we’re doing is climbing the rodent chain a bit, and we haven’t even gotten to rabbits: we’re talking chipmunks, gophers and squirrels. These diminutive downy denizens constitute another full 22% of the mammals in our faire glen, and most of them are out of my sight a long way up in the trees. So that means that 285 of every 300 mammals here (95%) are squirrels and smaller! I can begin to see why it’s not particularly common to see animals in the woods at all, unless I am (1) incredibly lucky, or (2) I am there a lot, or (3) I am patient and intentional, or (4) all three of these, likely the latter.

So, only 5% of the mammals here are larger than a squirrel, many of which appreciate the fact that there are so many delicious little morsels to choose from on the a la carte menu. This would include rodents further up the depth chart like weasels, mink, hares, rabbits, skunks, possums, muskrats, coons, porcupines, woodchucks, otter and beaver (all common, but again, not frequently seen). It will include some of the less common large rodents like badgers, martens and fishers, and maybe a wolverine (but likely not). It will include the medium to large land mammals: red and gray fox, bobcat, lynx, coyotes, deer, black bear, elk and moose. And finally, at the top of the food chain, there may be wolves (in the north) and cougars (referred to in the west as mountain lion or puma, in the south as panther or painter), though both of these are quite rare and infrequently seen. (I’ve seen wolves but not cougars.) But 15,000 of these larger mammals in our woods? How come we don’t see them all the time? Because that, too, may seem like a lot, but the math again gives perspective, like this.

There are about twenty deer per square mile (the most common large mammal), a little better on average than one per quarter-mile-square. That’s actually a pretty large area to watch, 1300 feet forward and to the side, with a lot of cover between you and them and a diffused sight line they’re trying to maintain. They hide their cautious selves so well we likely will not even see the most numerous large mammal out there. So remember, they’re trying after all not to be seen by you! By numeric contrast, there may be one cougar (if that) in the whole hundred square miles. And I’d not want to come across it anyway, thank you, at least not on the trail (though I’d be grateful if I did). Here’s a true truth, however: whatever the large mammal, deer or cougar, they do see you! Maybe by eyes, ears or nose, but they know you’re there, and they’re trying their best to keep their distance.

                                                                                                           

All this goes to show why any serious woods-watcher would do well to consider every single sighting a blessing from God, even if it’s a mouse!

And God saw everything that he had made, and,

behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:31)

~~RGM, from an earlier journal entry, 

Adapted for my blog September 4 2015

POTM...*: Shoein' the Butte

(*Photo of the Month)

It is late in the month, and since I have been planning to highlight a photo each month, I had better get to it!

I wish I could say I took this photo this week. Alas, we have not had really good snowshoeing snow yet this season, at least not down low here and nearby.  This was taken a couple seasons back about two miles south of our home and a mile west of downtown Castle Rock, in an area that will soon be developed into a regional park. It will be a lovely place with miles of trails connecting the butte tops.

The area between Denver and Colorado Springs is peppered with buttes, as the foothills fall off and break up going east to the high plains. Most of these are flat but some are capped with a conglomerate stone, like the namesake of the town. Here around the city of Castle Rock itself, several of the flat tops had historic quarries up top where a building stone called rhyolite was quarried from the late 1800’s into the 1900’s. It is a fairly soft stone of pressed volcanic ash, spread eons ago from an enormous eruption over a hundred miles to the southwest. Local stone ranges from whites to grays to pinks and light purples, and even today graces many an old building in the greater Denver area. The butte in this photo had such a quarry at one point, attested by the scrap rock that can be seen pitched from the cliff edges.

Any guess as to what may have left the tracks that cross mine in two places? Look it over, and I’ll give the answer below. There is enough detail to make a determination.

About the only tree the photo shows is the ubiquitous Gambel (a.k.a. Scrub) Oak, though a few Ponderosa Pines show off to the left in the shadows. This is pretty typical of the foothills here at 6200 feet elevation. Though small in stature (only up to twenty feet in height, usually smaller) and thus very unlike the huge oaks in the rest of the continental U.S., Gambels still provide an unusually large crop of acorns for being so small, and so offer a much needed deer browse when the ground is clear of snow. And actually, contrary to popular opinion outside Colorado, snowcover in the Denver area is very much the exception than the rule. Though we average 57 inches of snow annually, what we get does not last long; moderate temps and intense high altitude sunshine see to a very quick melt. This would not be the case, of course, another three or four thousand feet higher where the snows can last the winter.

The openings you see are not clearings but natural high meadows. It is actually pretty amazing to come across openings even high in the mountains, called alpine meadows, interspersed among the pine and spruce forests. Found where they are due to moisture and drainage patterns, these gorgeous places are typically covered with all sorts of wildflowers the whole spring and summer long. I’ll post some of our alpine meadow photography some time.

To the attentive eye, each moment

has its own beauty, and in the same

field it beholds, every hour, a picture

which was never before seen and

shall never be seen again.

~Emerson

OK, the tracks? Those belong to cottontail rabbits. When the tracks begin to melt they can start to look like human footprints, but these remain on top of the snow and don’t ‘posthole’ like a typical footprint. A series of clumps about the size of a man’s shoe, going in a roughly straight path with about an eighteen-inch center, tell the cottontail’s sign. These rascals have proliferated around here like, errr… like rabbits, and also offer a tasty regular morsel for area coyotes, bobcats, black bear, mountain lions, weasels, hawks, owls and eagles.

Well, a naturalist can talk on and on about what might seem to some not much of anything! But there is a great deal to see in nature observation, wonders in fact. Consider Ralph Waldo Emerson: "To the attentive eye, each moment has its own beauty, and in the same field it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never before seen and shall never be seen again.” Or how about Emerson’s colleague Henry David Thoreau, who said, “That man is richest whose pleasures are simplest.”

Thanks for sharing in some of God’s riches I have known.

Next up next week? “From My Nature Journal…”

~~RGM, January 28, 2013