I just read about a baby woolly mammoth that was discovered
in Russia by a
hunter last spring. Photos of mammoths are hard to come by but I did find an exceptional mammoth sculpture to show you.

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I noticed some busy little wasps creating this apartment complex just outside my studio door sometime last year, but I have a live and let live attitude about most insects that stay outside.

Besides, they’ve worked so hard on it, and the remodeling never seems to stop. The tenants haven’t bothered me, not even when I accidentally knocked the palm frond foundation over yesterday when I was moving an attached vine aside.

They are some variety of paper wasps, and despite their bad reputation as real stingers, they’ve ignored our comings and goings. Maybe they even feel safer being so close to the house. (The palmetto branches abut our studio window, right next to the back door.)

From the little bit of research I’ve done, they seem like good parents, foraging for caterpillars and so on for their developing young. You have to admire that.

A couple years ago I had a small paper wasp nest on the front porch that I happened to be looking at just as a jaybird swooped in and took it away in his beak. If I hadn’t witnessed it I never would’ve believed it.

It’s funny what ends up living in those neglected piles of oak leaves dropped weeks ago. This morning my husband and I decided to put our walking time to more profitable use and start on a little yard cleanup.

Ed discovered an ape living under all the ferns and oak sprouts- just imagine!

How did he get there? Why was he buried in the mulching plant life on the side of our driveway? And more importantly, what in the world is he made from? This toy was completely unaffected by rain, mud and the deteriorating plant life all around him.

He’s now sitting in the middle of a bird bath in the back yard, black and incongruous.

While Ed excavated the ape, I came across two fat toads. I didn’t disturb them; just kept my rake at the ready while they hopped away.

Last night I was working at the computer when I
perceived a sort of brown fluttery motion in the window just in front and to the
left. I was startled then thrilled to see a beautiful little owl on the sill
right outside!

Ed took a couple photographs, and this was the best one
of the three. Kind of embarrassing- if only my window were a little cleaner!

He perched right there, moving his round head full of
big round yellow eyes back and forth for a few minutes and then flew away.

I spent a little time today trying to figure out what
kind of owl it was. I didn’t see ear tufts, so I don’t believe it was a screech
owl. The legs weren’t terribly long, leaving out burrowing
owls.

If anyone can identify it, I’d be
pleased!

 

My husband planned the perfect February 14^th
outing this year. We drove about 60 miles to the Myakka
State Park where we strolled the
day away in natural Florida
splendor.

We started out discovering what the “canopy walk” was all
about. When I later described it to my daughter in law, she said it sounded
like an Ewok village, which was absolutely right.

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Here we are in Austin, Texas
again. Home of the famous Armadillo Christmas Bazaar. Also home of many other
unique things, like marvelous home-grown live music, Mexican free tail bats,
and very loud black birds.

I don’t know what kind of birds these are, but they make up
for unimpressively average black bird looks with exotic whoops, sliding notes
and loud un-crow like jungle bird calls.

I’ll have to check
out the species when I’m not working every day for 12 hours at the art show. (NO, I’m not exaggerating.)

Their music lends a distinctive “flavor” to my daily walk to
the Convention center. But the perching trees I walk under make me a little
nervous.

My first look at a snakebird was in the pond next to the
apartment I used to live in here in Clearwater.

The pond was big, and I made a daily walk out of treading
the perimeter. This was heaven for me-the area was a sanctuary for all kinds of
birds, frogs, snakes and, one thrilling afternoon, a river otter! I always kept
my eyes wide open and my attention outward when I strolled around that pond.

I couldn’t quite tell what I was seeing that particular morning. Maybe it was the way the sun caught the water, breaking up images before they reached my eyes. It looked like the head of a snake sailing across the surface of the water. Then it disappeared. What the heck?!

I kept watching the general area until it reappeared, this time in closer focus. Now I could see the sharp yellow beak of a bird!

I didn’t have a computer back then, but I did have lots of reference books for my jewelry making work and I lost no time finding out what this bird was all about.

It was called an Anhinga, colloquially called a “snakebird”. They are underwater fish hunters. They’re found in tropical and sub-tropical environments, near smooth water, which makes it easy for them to stalk their prey.

After Anhingas have been fishing, they find a comfortable branch to hang out their laundry (their wings) to dry. Other members of their family (the cormorants) dry their wings in the same way. If you’ve ever traveled over “Alligator Alley” in Florida, you’ve probably seen dozens of Anhingas relaxing in the trees, wings outstretched,
contemplating their last fish dinner.

Ed and I passed by a patch of trees along an estuary a couple of days ago and listened while a group of Snakebirds chattered away, their calls sounding like something out of an old Tarzan movie. There were 6 or so perched in the trees, chattering with shrill rattles and clicks. It made me feel like I live in the most exotic of environments!

I’ve always been fascinated by horseshoe crabs, those prehistoric relatives of the spider that glide through the sand on multitudinous legs. I’d see one occasionally on a Florida beach, and it was always an event.

Years ago the kids found and brought home the fragile molting of a perfect baby horseshoe crab. Oddly enough, I stumbled upon it the day after the following incident, packed away unprotected in a box, amazingly undamaged.
I’m so happy we walked to the water that day, and not down the bike trail or up to Publix or anywhere else at all. It was a lucky thing, otherwise we would’ve missed the penultimate horseshoe crab event.
Ed and I perched ourselves atop the concrete wall that separates dry land from wet at the end of the neighborhood. Ed looked into the water, shouted “HEY!” so I looked where he was looking. It took me a few seconds to adjust my eyes to the murky water and rocks and…what was I seeing?
Dozens of horse shoe crab couples preparing for the newest generation. The males were the smaller of the two crabs, and some of the females were about a foot in diameter. They were lodged precariously between rocks, quietly participating in their continued existence.
We hot-footed it home for the digital camera, and as soon as we work out how to get our blog to show photographs again you can see what we saw that morning!

Probably a little more fun for me than the beetle, as he was unfortunately deceased.
Ed and I came upon this impressive corpse on our walk the other day. I thought I’d do a little research and found out that our discovery is a member of the scarab family. To be precise, this particular rhinoceros beetle is known as a triceratops beetle, because it sports three horns.

The triceratops beetle is found throughout the US, but they aren’t seen that often. I could probably count the number of times I’ve witnessed this impressive bug on one hand. No more than two hands, that’s for sure.
Rhinoceros beetles are carnivorous, dining on succulent worms, crickets, stick bugs and the like. It doesn’t sound all that appealing, but when you compare their cuisine to that of their Middle Eastern relatives, it’s not so bad. They don’t call them dung beetles for nothing.
One of my animal encyclopedias said that the horns are not particularly effective as weapons. When males fight, more often than not they just scoop up the opponent with a horn, carry him a little ways off and unceremoniously drop him. They sometimes do the same thing with the female. Maybe they do it just because they can.
In Asia, the rhinoceros beetle is often kept as a pet. It seems like the kind of bug I would’ve kept as a youngster, but perhaps whenever I found one it was an inconvenient time, like a family picnic in the woods, or school recess.
Now that I’m grown up I can’t run around collecting bugs and putting them in jars. I have to participate in more sophisticated activities.
Like making bug jewelry.

One of the best things about taking early morning walks in Clearwater is the birds.
There might be people who travel hundreds, maybe thousands of miles just to catch a glimpse of the birds I take for granted, like the storks that have made themselves at home on my neighbor’s lawn.
Three, four and sometimes five of them sit regally, if inelegantly on her back lawn, backwards knees bent under their tail feathers. Their presence there is mysterious, and I find myself imagining an ancient roosting tree cut down right smack dab where some contractor decided he needed to build a house 30 years ago. Somehow it seems the only plausible explanation.
To me, there is something sweet about a stork’s face. Their naked head seems more pitiful than ugly, their expression resigned rather than predatory.
But then again, I’m not a fish.
It’s hard not to be anthropomorphic observing animals. I grew up in a family where the current cat or dog resident seemed to be more tolerated than we kids were. At least my mom never took a willow switch to the Dalmatian, or sent the tabby cat to her room to ponder the inedibility of a pork and beans dinner. (To this day that dish gives me epicurean shivers.)
For some reason, I wasn’t jealous of what seemed to be preferential treatment. Instead, I fell in love with animals. “Ugly”, savage, weird looking or beautiful, it matters not. Animals are my passion in life. (AFTER my children, husband and grandchildren, of course.)
One of these days I’ll even design a stork pin or pendant for women who belong to those most honorable of professions- midwifery and obstetrics. The local inspiration is certainly there.