[Io moth]

Every night we have a horde of nocturnal visitors disoriented by our porch light. Yesterday morning one stayed behind. I opened the front door to find a beautiful orange moth huddled up against the edge (fortunately the door opens inward). I grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots, after which I would have left him alone except that I didn’t want to leave him where he could easily be stepped on. So I started gently prodding him.



Suddenly he popped his wings open to aim two false eyes at me. In his world, a big predator would only be interested in him as a tasty morsel. In reality, I was probably saving him from a careless dog paw, but I had no way to signal him my benign intentions. I couldn’t just pick him up because of his delicate, dusty wings, but eventually I was able to encourage him out of our footpath and under the porch.

My affection for the creatures of the forest is mostly unreciprocated. For the majority I am a neutral or even threatening presence. I construct walls between human and nature in my mind and cast myself as a benefactor instead of a predator, but moths are working with a different world view.

Of course I am a benefactor to a few, select species. Mosquitoes rush to greet me. Burdocks and bitter docks flourish in the edges of our erratically maintained lawn. Then there’s my garden.

Later that day, thinking about these relationships, I entered the garden to find an interloper. An adult rabbit who had come to sample some of my plantings was frantically looking for an exit. Bemused, I slowly herded the sleek herbivore toward the gate while he flung himself repeatedly against the mesh. Finally he found a hole and burst free. Ivy, always ready for a rabbit chase, ran up and, as I turned back to survey the damage, I joked, “Get ‘im!”

Unfortunately she did. I yelled when I heard the squealing and Ivy came with the rabbit stretched out in her mouth. I think she was as surprised as I because she dropped her prize and let me pull her into the house. The rabbit was still breathing, but I left him alone. I couldn’t heal him, and the presence of another predator would only cause more distress. A little while later the rabbit’s distress was permanently gone.

I took him out in the woods, beyond where Ivy would venture by herself. I figured some scavenger will have a nice surprise, or more likely a horde of scavengers. In the forest, there’s always someone looking to benefit from another’s misfortune.

Green.
Morning stretches before me,
the day nods its head like the wild geranium scattered about
not yet ready to welcome the sun.
Birds rush to finish the chores
of warbling their territories into being -
for their next trick let them sing up some bugs.
Squirrels huff.
In the distance the human world awakens.
Dogs and traffic.
Machine hums that rise above the forest
and settle around it.
Sun glows warm yellow behind the trees,
balancing the chill in the air as a welcome friend
and not the adversary of harsh noon.

Let others believe in grand acts of creation. For me a new world emerges in fits and starts, until the forest breathes green. And as above, so below. I stepped out the other morning to fog shrouding the canopy. Dark, rain-drenched tree trunks contrasted against the bright green of sodden leaves.

Bird song drew me onward. The capacity of the forest had greatly expanded since the time of the winter flocks and the branches were alive with birds of different sizes and colors. I identified twenty species without much effort, plus there’s a handful more I know are around. The songs seemed to come in waves, for example one ovenbird would set off the rest in a cascade of singing. They proclaim to each other an exclusive right to a specific territory, yet they share these patches of the forest with different species.

All but one of the species I encountered are native to this area. Though there is some competition, they have coexisted for a long time and could continue to do so. Their modes of living are as diverse as their colors. The scarlet tanager couple courting in the spruce forest probably traveled over two continents to be here, while the black-capped chickadee singing in the distance was nearby all winter. Food is a potential source of competition, since many of the birds will be feeding insects to their young. Species can focus on different prey or on different hunting styles. Although both are flycatchers, eastern wood pewees forage lower in the canopy than great crested flycatchers.



In contrast to the action in the tree-tops, the forest floor at first appeared to be uniform greenery. Even the flowering jack-in-the-pulpits were mostly green. A closer look revealed subtle signs of diversity – leaf shapes, textures. Bloodroot hovered above the ground like cumulus clouds. The fading trout lily leaves were streaky, more like cirrus. Remnants of early spring rubbed shoulders with up-and-coming plants. Diminutive jewelweed sprouted from wet ground, and the duo of goldenrods and asters were preparing for their fall show. As is appropriate for such a meeting ground, the old world also met the new. Honeysuckle and multiflora rose claimed space, along with other invaders. This progression, more narrative than cyclic, is harder to predict.

The trees have filled out in leaves and warblers.

I’m not much of a birder, as I’ve said before. I don’t go out of my way for new species, or pester birds until I can positively identify them. I stopped trying to record my first observations of spring migrants when I realized that there are many dedicated birders in this area doing basically that. Meanwhile I find myself distracted for days by work or unrelated interests.

Let them make the efforts. There is limited scientific use for opportunistic sightings. It’s hard to show absence without a systematic effort since a bird might be where you didn’t look. Even with surveys birds don’t always vocalize or otherwise make their presence known. The other problem with data collection as a hobby is that sample size tends to be fairly low if the effort is small. The sample size of a first arrival record is often one, which may mean very little for the population as a whole.

I still notice birds everywhere I go. Spring migrants are old friends whose return signals that life is continuing on in its current version of normal. Wood thrushes sing haunting melodies that drift into our bedroom and brighten up our morning along with the sunrise. Scarlet tanagers bring splashes of tropical color to the woods and kingfishers rattle over dark ponds once again claimed for kingfisher kind. Common yellowthroats take up their stations along the pond. Their song is as welcome as the turtles returning to their logs to soak up the sun.

These things happen without me. Unlike so much in modern life, I don’t need to do anything except delight in them. Still, there is some twinge of anxiety at inaction – otherwise why all the blog posts and photos? There’s this innate conviction that having a record makes the subject more real, or more permanent. This is an attractive thought when considering a landscape which is impermanent in geologic time, and perhaps even in human time the way development and climate change might go. Perhaps it would provide some comfort if these species assemblages melted away like the glacier that stood here some 10,000 years ago.

But records are necessarily incomplete and reflect a human bias alien to so many of the beings that would be missed. I have to feel that the existence of impermanent things still has meaning, even if twenty years from now the deer eat all the trilliums or if garlic mustard, despite our best effort, smothers all the trout lilies. Otherwise what hope do any of us mortals have?

Rain has called the landscape to life. Green fills in above and below. The woods are full of warblers and the bugs, the main attraction, have come out in force. These annoying little creatures are busy turning all the new growth (and some other things) into high quality bird food. Woodpeckers, cardinals, and other winter hold-overs join in the excited chatter. Does the forest feel crowded to them or livelier, as it does to me? Perhaps it's uncomfortable for the birds which flock in the empty winter days but need to carve out their space as the canopy fills across the forest. Or maybe the bounty makes them generous.