Chills

"The best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”
― Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath lead a tumultuous life and wrote deeply moving poetry about personal feelings. She also had a lot to say about bees, often using them as a metaphor for attempting to control events and relationships round her. Her epitaph at her grave site in Yorkshire reads "Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted" A little unsettling, given that both her and her estranged husband who wrote that, committed suicide in a gas oven. More unsettling is the fact that "golden lotus" is no actual plant, but is the name of a cultivar of a close relative of the banana....Facts often ruin good poetry, but can also bring out the shine.

 

 As the weather cools, different flowers make an appearance. As has often been commented by Plath, flowers are both ephemeral and hardy. The desert evening primrose is now seen, it sometimes pokes out along the clear ditch, but only where there is dense foliage.

There is a lot more going on in this picture that it would seem. Notice the pile of pollen that has fallen from the anthers. This was created by buzz pollination of the bumblebees. However, others have done a much better descriptive writing job than me, and can be found at this link.
 

 This is a very specifically southwestern aster, the desert chicory. It's specific Latin name is Pyrrhopappus rothrockii. The genus means flame colored tufts, and the species is named after Joseph Rothrock, a fascinating pioneer in the field of American forestry. Asters are a hardy flower often found in the fall. These flowers fill an important niche of fall nutrition for many insects.

These blister beetles are likely destroying the plant, rather than being effective pollinators. In the world of biology this is not actually a bad thing, as the plant has already finished with the pollen and flower structure. The beetle is interested in the pollen, found on male flowers and this system protects the female flowers somewhat to produce the seeds needed for the next generation.
  

 Many bees do look alike, but you should be able to notice that the bees have odd colored eyes and maybe that their antennae are quite long. Even entomologists are quite confused about what bees are in which of these groups. These bees tend to be quite solitary, but cluster around the flowers as the sources of pollen and nectar become scarce.

Asters are a very diverse group of flowers and use a large open face as a sort of dance floor, where generalist pollinators can meet and greet. The center is made up of a compound group of many smaller flowers which are easy to reach, as can be seen by the bulging pollen baskets on the legs of this bee. Bees have the genus name of "anthophila" which translate from Latin as "flower lover"

 

 there are many species of sunflower, most are not as large as the ones pictured in the popular imagination. They have a impressive ability to move so as to keep their face towards the sun. This property seems to have something to do with increasing the temperature of the flower face and speeding seed germination.

 

 In corrales, Bullfrogs are not actually native and seem to be an attempt at animal husbandry at the end of the great depression. Their tadpoles are able to overwinter, but need permanent water sources, which have become rarer in Corrales of late.

 

 While mosquitos are ubiquitous, they are mostly a tropical insect that feeds on plant sap and nectar. They need blood proteins to lay eggs and they need a still water source for their larvae.

 

 Mosquitos have adapted very well to human habitation and now can live year round, surviving the winters in underground culverts to avoid the freeing temperatures that once would have killed them off. Most species draw blood from sleeping birds. Ironically, most birds were nearly wiped out by human mosquito abatement programs involving DDT, which thinned bird eggs to the point where they were crushed by the parents resting on them.

 Cockroaches are another tropical insect that has done very well living close to humans. Desert cockroaches have begun to supplant the tropical species due to being able to tolerate a wider range of conditions. This one was actually killed by pest control on the UNM campus, but it very likely had already left behind many progeny, so the rules of biology makes its death of absolutely no import. While cockroaches provide no direct parental care, this is a huge advantage, as the young are able to fend for themselves as soon as they are born, irrespective of what happens to the mother.

 

The female praying mantis is often unfairly vilified (or lauded) for it's predatory approach to mating. This actually happens in few encounters. Mantis are raised by the thousands to be released in the spring and summer to protect delicate rose buds. They are not terribly good at that, but because of the practice, many have been able to spread throughout the US.

 

 The season for lizards are almost over, those most often seen are the youngsters who have to sun themselves for energy and digestion. They molt as they grow, this also has the effect of increasing their ability to blend into the mulch of a suburban garden.

 

 The turtles are also taking advantage of the decreasing length of daylight to sun themselves. The spiny soft shell here is at the UNM duck pond. They are found in Corrales, but are incredibility difficult to spot, due to their secretive nature and ability to stay submerge for long periods.

There are many insects that are important but don't seem to be. the spittlebug would be one of those. It has an ability to make a protective froth of foam to protect the young eggs. They also are called froghoppers, because of the way they sit with their legs tucked under them.

The pygmy blue butterfly seems to like the Russian Thistles and can be found on them in surprisingly large numbers right now. People do not realize that the Russian thistle has tiny flowers. Makes sense for  attracting small butterflies.

Sylvia Plath was noticeable as a literary figure because she had a new way of describing complex emotions. She showed people their inner lives in a new way. You wouldn't think this has much in common with a spider but think on this.

We all know spiders as web slinging blood sucking insects that catch flies. In fact they are none of those things. The spider above actually chases down and hunts ants without webs. The genus is Euryopsis and even though they have been described since the 1900's almost no one knows they exist. They hunt the much larger carpenter ants and even though they are related to comb footed spiders they act and look much more like the jumping spider species.

This beautiful insect is a spreadwing damselfly. They are the smaller cousins of the dragonflies, but are just as energetic and colorful, if a little smaller. This one is a female from the body color and paler eyes. They prefer mill ponds and still pools as resting places.

 

 This is a different species of damselfly, a springwater dancer. In the poem "Purdah" by Sylvia Plath she describes the dazzling beauty and sinister strength. She could have been describing the sleek lethality and beauty of this little hunter of bugs.

 Mushrooms are the fruiting body of a delicate filigree of white fibers. These fibers called mycelium gather together. and the fibers inside those fibers, called hyphae, change composition into what ends up as the cap. stem and gills of the mushroom. How the hyphael mass becomes mushroom tissue is complex. Each fungal cell represses and encourages certain genes that describe how to grow. This mushroom evokes the same shape as the classic "Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath. The themes of confusion and sense of identity would be familiar to the cells of this fungi, if they dwelt on such things.

The prospect of easy pickings encourages the local turkey flock to come out of hiding and forage for lazy insects, fall plant produce, and other gleanings. The fall is a time of distractions, from balloon traffic and sandhill cranes, most of us look for diversions and celebrations of deeds to divert us from the drudgery and strain of normal life. Sylvia Plath once found a baby bird and was able to distract herself from the constant stress of writing and her anxiety of inadequacy by nursing it back to health. Eventually her husband killed it by gas when they both realized they needed to move on. Apparently she wrote this was a "moving moment"

Cottonwoods are both the blessing and curse of living in Corrales. They are the shade and the beauty of this area but come with responsibilities and compromises. This picture shows the burn from shorting eletrical wires in high winds. The limbs of cottonwoods dry out and fall often. Luckily, healthy cottonwoods are quite wet and do not easily catch fire. But as our bosque dries in a prolonged drought, the acequias are empty for longer, and more people remove the forests that once covered the soils we are more at risk from our own actions than ever.

Sylvia Plath's last poem, unfinished, is "Edge" and is as raw as this pruned and burned limb after remediation by PNM. Corrales's identity is affected by the past, but also the future as our village moves into an era of tourism and hope for better times. We should be mindful of the possible wreckage, as we forget what makes this village a worthwhile habitation in the first place.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Term

"A taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper"

Thoreau

One of the nicest things about contemplating nature is that there is so much to see in nature that we can be free to find patterns to anything we choose. This can mean both good and ill, so some perspective is necessary.

 

 That light can be split into patterns through infinite minute droplets and the right light angle is mind boggling. That it will make a double rainbow takes things just a bit further.

 

 The sunset and other examples of the complex interplay of light have long fascinated all people at some point. A magical picture is created simply by having sunlight, moisture, and dust.

 The sunflower is also the product of sunlight, water and soil. These large compound flowers in the aster family turn their face to the sun during the day. They use hydraulics and some pretty complex biochemistry to achieve this. Likely this keeps the flower face warm, helping the seeds mature faster, encouraging passive water transport, attracting more pollinators, and lengthening their growing season.

 

 Datura flowers in the summer, and into the fall. These flowers are not likely to be present for too much longer. Most people only care about the mildly poisonous nature of the plant, but it is a fascinating plant that it worth some serious consideration. Literally, as some manage to get a rather dubious hallucinogenic experience from certain preparations of this plant.

 

 garden spiders thrive in the weird, dusty environment created by the ravenna grass by the Corrales river banks. I admit this spider looks fearsome, but also impressively beautiful in this photo. Like all spiders this one is very shy and retreats at all perceived threats. Even if it did bite, the venom is totally innocuous and it does not deserve to be killed for the perceived danger.

 

 This child of the earth is also fearsome looking, but everything about it is designed for a vegetarian lifestyle underground and it is no danger to anyone except maybe a plant root.

 

the carrot beetle is quite scary if you are a midwestern farmer. These beetles have adapted to the threat of pesticides by explosive breeding and then migrating away before the expensive  pesticide can be applied.

  

 

the desert stink bug is very common and impressively understudied. For those who are interested in the noxious defensive chemicals; here is the researched list:

1-nonene (3·2%), 1-undecene (<0·5%), n-hexanal (15·6%), n-heptanal (0·9%), n-octanal (4·5%), trans-2-hexenal (2·0%), trans-2-heptenal (1·5%), trans-2-nonenal (28·6%), trans-2-decenal (3·4%), n-3-nonanone (0·5%), n-1-nonen-3-one (16·8%), methyl-1,4-benzoquinone (22·0%), and 1-hexanol (<0·5%).

Reads like a chemical weapons factory, but in fact is likely just whatever byproduct of metabolism that is smelly and irritating.

 

 The season for cicadas is finishing. Their shed exoskeletons are still going to be present, hanging from plants and the chitin can last several years, but the adults will have died off, leaving behind small eggs in slits on the bark of trees.

 

 All insects are busy right now in the last throes of activity. These are some species of long horn flower beetles. Most of these species are borers as larva, but most are not destructive. The ones that are, have been recently introduced to north America and it takes a while for a detente to be established with native species as they figure out their niche. This species is Spotted Tylosis.

 

 These insects are present for only a very short period of time. This weird insect only lives as an adult for 1 day, and while scary looking, it is the larva, living in clear, cold streams, that is the fearsome insect predator. This insect also is attracted to the odourant added to natural gas, that probably explains why this one was found far out in the desert, next to a natural gas generator.

 

 The orange sulphur is better known as the alfalfa butterfly and is pretty widespread across North America except for the south eastern US. This in likely because less alfalfa is grown there.

 

 The Arizona sister butterfly is migrating along the Sandia mountains currently. A very colorful butterfly that often stops in muddy fields to imbibe salts and complex proteins in a weird process called puddling.

 

 This rather large moth is called a sweetheart underwing. This species is usually found in the North eastern US but appears here briefly on their way to who knows where. Their rather drab appearance hides the startling underwings that flash a bright pink or red when they fly and serves to disorient possible predators.

 

 This is also a strange species for New Mexico, the genus is commonly called a winter moth, and the caterpillar phase is apparently slug like, but I have never seen one of those. The thick fur is raised on the thorax to reduce the heat built up by the flight muscles located just below.

     

This moth appears briefly each year and pupates in dog food bins kept outside. A meal worm species indicates your dog food is more vegetarian than most people think. Similar species are called pantry moths because they are better at getting indoors, usually carried in as eggs inside food packages.

 

 

The world outside seems to be insanely hostile and unfavorable to humans. This is really a fallacy brought on by our own lifestyles and points of view. This triops (yes, it has three eyes) has been thriving in desert pools for over 500 million years virtually unchanged because this muddy, UV blasted hot water is the perfect nursery for producing the next generation free of predators and parasites. While it is not ideal to our monkey eyes, we are recent evolutionary upstarts. Having only existed for the last 300,000 years or so, we are in no position to judge.

 

The high desert is noted for some amazing creatures that seem to exist for only a few weeks each year. This crustacean is called a fairy shrimp and spends most of its life as an undeveloped egg the size of a grain of sand. The genetics of this species helps prove the existence of Pangea 230 million years ago. There used to be a distinct species living in Florida, but it was declared extinct in 2011 when a developer filled in the only known pool they existed in with concrete to create another Florida condo.

 

 

This strange creature is a crustacean, not a mollusc and basically looks like a shrimp inside a clam, which is basically what it is. As well as the more common dioecy mating system, these animals can use androdioecy, and selfing hermaphroditism, which is as weird as it sounds.

 

Coopers hawks are usually know as raptors that hunt small doves and other types of birds. However they have adapted to many food sources over the years. If you look closely this one has lizard in its visible talon. I have seen them eat cicadas, roadrunners, as well as the more common bird species found in the bosque. They specialize in hanging around bird feeders waiting for unwary visitors.

 

Corrales is host to a large number of hummingbirds this year. Not many people appreciate how these small, feisty birds control bird populations in the bosque. It seems like many birds like starlings, crows and raven are often harassed away from the tree line by these dive bombing perils. Many people are also surprised to find they are here because of small insects, as well as the nectar they use during the arduous migrations back to central America. 

 

 Turkey vultures are a rare visitor to Corrales and are the antithesis of the small hummingbirds. They enjoy sunning themselves in the large branches of dead trees. Consummate gliders, they loose all grace when not floating on an air current. Unless gathered in a caravan for migration ( officially a "kettle") they prefer the solitary life. As the days grow colder they can be seen in the dawn warming their bodies in the sun.

 

These vultures use smell to find carcasses to scavenge. They often use their sight to watch other vultures for behavior that sow they found food first. Dead animals are usually a rare find, so the birds have to be very spread out to search a lot of ground.  

 

 The birds of the forests tend to be much more communicative. Blue jays are notorious for being vocal and bossy as they explore everything and vocalize every concern to the whole forest. They rarely come down from the moutains, but can be seen at feeders that offer peanuts

 

The desert pools are perfect habitat for many animals including this well disguised ambush predator, a dragonfly. However as the days grow shorter there is not much insect prey that has not already hatched and flown away.

 

The pools can get very dangerous for any late stge tadpoles and most of those who hang about start to show signs of damage. Tadpole tails are used for mor than swimming, they are also an energy source and a "caudal lure" they sacrifice their tail to stay alive as the faster dragonflies attack what is moving. 

 

Most frogs metamorphose quickly and prevent  the ironic fate of being eaten by the very insects they are usually hunting in adulthood. Size matters and these small guys have to learn to blend in quickly if they want to avoid detection.

 

 

It helps to be the apex predator in a pond and usually the night is pretty safe for these amphibians who are quite impressively adapted for what should be a completely inhospitable world for a small frog.  

 

 

Most tadpoles desiccate and dry out, simply due to bad timing. Their corpses feed legions of ants and wasps who require protein to feed their own offspring.

 

There are many signs of a healthy ecosystem, and one of them is a large number of parasites, like this rather rare species of velvet ant. This wasp species lays eggs in the larva of other insects like ground dwelling bumblebees. It's lifecycle was the inspiration for the "Alien" movie series.

 

 

Coyotes visit human areas for many reasons but not usually for the obvious ones. They have an inordinate fondness for fruit and at certain times of the year they gorge on apples and grapes. Even though they appear to be barely able to digest these things.

Strange food choices is a common thing seen in the wild. This woodpecker was raiding a bird nest that had been build in a woodpecker hole. There were many small birds trying to distract it from this grisly purpose and the loud ruckus could be heard throughout the forest.

 

Reptiles have amazing instict that come built in at birth, but they still have to learn to live in a human's world. Domestic dogs and cats love to chase them and often can catch one. This usually leads to episodes of vomiting due to the high levels of salmonella on their skin.  

 

 Most predators, like this coach-whip begin as prey item for many animals. This one was caught by a small raptor, but was released quickly when the meal was interrupted by the photographer.

 

This baby snapping turtle was crushed by a car as it tried to cross the Corrales road. Vehicles take a very heavy, and mostly hidden toll on local wildlife each year.  

 

Life can be rough for many insects like this running crab spider. People usualy think of spiders as being lords of all they survey but they face many unexpected dangers. This one is doing its best to blend into the background, even contorting it's body. 

 

It wasn't enough, here is the same spider a few minutes later after it was spotted and attacked to become a living larder for the progeny of another parasitoid wasp. 

    Nature can be quite beautiful and inspiring. or dark and full of perils. We as humans and observers have to accept both points of view and appreciate the value of all in this world we move through for such a brief period of existence.