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.