Fine spring days have me clipping and raking in the garden. When the weather starts to warm we tend to clean up our homes inside and out, putting winter past us and readying our “nests” for a new season. Outside this is not so much a chore for me, but a pleasurable activity as I am also looking for signs of rejuvenation.
Many Long Islanders look forward to the winter. It’s a time for skiing, skating, sledding, and snowman building. It’s an invitation to walk along quiet coastal beaches devoid of the maddening crowds, and it certainly provides the opportunity to reconnect with family and friends during the holidays.
Every morning has its share of routine chores: get-newspaper, retrieve-garbage-cans, check-weather, wash-breakfast-dishes, etc., etc., etc… But then, there are mornings when chores get interrupted by the force of an unexpected event… as recently happened to me on a November morning, not long ago.
After spending a good part of the afternoon gardening, I enter the small bathroom on the first floor of my house to wash up. A miniscule speck of something appears on the far wall. Pavlov’s dogs were conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell. My brain, similarly conditioned by multiple past experiences, salivates at the sight of specks on a wall.
The species names spill off the tongue quickly – “Oh, that’s a Pink Lady’s Slipper…. or a Green Darner….or a Round-leaved Sundew or Great-crested Flycatcher. Perhaps its a Brook Trout….or Eastern Chipmunk or a Diamondback Terrapin”. These names, and hundreds of thousands of others, are the scientifically established common names for these creatures, useful because they help to establish order, definition, and identity.
You are a Monarch Butterfly. Autumn has arrived and you are crouched on a branch on Long island at the starting block of a marathon flight. Your number is on a round plastic tag attached to your wing. While your attention is to the prevailing winds and the passing cirrus clouds, you are aware of the wing that is wearing the identity tag, much like a marathon runner wears a number on his shirt. But with a few differences.
If you love observing the natural world, once in a while you receive a gift. Maybe it’s a special moment of excitement such as with an osprey hitting the water with talons flaring and, with labored flight, lifting off the surface with a writhing fish firmly ensconced. Perhaps it’s a moment of intimacy provided by a doe nuzzling her fawn or a mother cottontail rabbit licking her newborn young.
As they continue their journey from that Sargasso Sea and move more fully into freshwater, juvenile American eels start to gain pigmentation and turn from translucent “glass eels” into “elvers.” Dams remain a significantly obstacle, greatly reducing their ability to reach freshwater habitat.