This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://roxanarobinson.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://roxanarobinson.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

Raccoon

August 19, 2009. Maine.

Last night, around midnight, our lights were out, but I wasn't asleep.
The night was very quiet, there was no wind. So when I heard something outside on the deck it was very distinct. It was some kind of movement, soft but large. Not an insect, banging against the screen, something else. It sounded like something brushing against the shingles. I sat up, listening, and when I heard it again I got up and moved quietly across the room. I leaned down into the open window that overlooked the deck and switched on the outside light.

On the deck were two raccoons, one large, one small, both of them staring at me through their dark masks, like two robbers caught at the teller's window at the bank.

The mother was on her hind legs, her front paws neatly crooked in front of her, like a housewife's over her midriff. Her dark fur was full and bushy, standing out around her like a luxuriant halo. Her belly was pale, and her face and ears and paws were very dark. She stood up as tall as she could get, watching me. She craned her neck, moving her head very slightly from side to side. She gave a quiet, open-mouthed hiss: "Hahh." It was a small, precise sound. It was meant in defense, but it was not frightening. It seemed more like the chanting of a spell, like some kind of rune or wild magic. Standing upright, the mother looked like a strange, small, beautiful person, with her delicate curled hands, her elegant masked face, her graceful shifting movement.

The cub had slid sideways, moving underneath the bench on the outer edge of the deck. From there he peered out at me, his round innocent eyes shining in the light. The mother stood still, weaving slightly from side to side, like a Javanese dancer. We stared at each other and then she gave another quiet "Hahh," another small piece of raccoon magic. Then she dropped onto all fours and rumbled over to the bench, where she slid underneath it, next to the cub. Then the two of them moved like dark ripples over the edge of the deck, their thick cloudy fur lit up by the overhead light. The two of them moved quickly but noiselessly, in that digressive, indirect gait that raccoons have, a sort of purposeful but mystifying amble. They pattered up the mossy ledge and up into the trees, and after that they were lost in the darkness.

Pileated

The trail around Witch Hole Pond swoops mildly up and down, along the pond, through the woods. I was on skis, making my way slowly up a little wooded rise. The wind had dropped, and deep snow lay everywhere, on the pond, the trees, the carriage road, muffling all sound. There was only the faint hiss beneath my skis. And something else: a modest tapping.

I looked up into the trees. At this time of year there isn't much motion or color in the woods, besides the snowy branches moving in the wind, the deep cerulean sky beyond.

So he was pretty obvious, despite his discretion. The pileated woodpecker is a huge bird, nearly two feet long, with spectacular plumage. He's mostly dull black, but he has bold white stripes down his neck, and a showy black stripe along his cheek. An absurdly long chisel-shaped beak: he looks like a bird drawn by a child. On top of his head is a flaming scarlet crest, high and sharply pointed, like a medieval jester's hat. And there is something slightly foolish about him: he's a bit gawky, clambering jerkily around the trunk of a tree, fluttering away furtively if you get too close. Pileateds live almost entirely under the forest cover, almost never flying out into the open. They're shy. Usually, if you stop during a hike, hearing the tap-tap, tap-tap, and if you look around for the big black and white bird, he'll slide quickly around to the other side of the trunk, peering out to see if you're still there. If you are, he'll flap away, ducking through the branches, looking too big to fly between them. Maybe he'll give his dry, tuneless, clucking call.

But this one was bold. Maybe it was the wintry silence, the glittering snow, the still, cold, electric air. The sense of deep frozen quiet that February brings. Anyway he ignored me. He was perched halfway up a white pine, making a modest tap-tap, tap-tap, his big angular head nodding. The movement seemed offhand, as though he were just thinking about something. But these little taps were serious: pileated woodpeckers are the superheroes. This modest tapping was like someone holding a pickax by the throat, thudding it over and over. Pileated woodpeckers can drum at a speed of fifteen miles an hour, twenty times a second, and they produce a hole the size of a shoe-box with ease.

The pileated likes ants, particularly carpenter ants. He hops along a tree trunk, leaning close to it, sniffing for formic acid and listening carefully for anty sounds. He's good at this. During the summer, ants run along the top of the bark, or just underneath it, and the woodpecker picks them off one at a time. During the winter, carpenter ants are dormant. The entire dozy swarm settles all together in the heart of a tree. There they lie until spring, when they will wake up and start consuming the tree, unless they're discovered first by a wily woodpecker.

My pileated was after a swarm. He was hammering away with his chisel-shaped bill, sending out messy showers of bark and chips, and opening up a huge gaping hole of pale pinewood. He turned often to look at me, then back at the tree to chip away some more. Finally he hit something, down in the center of the tree. He stuck his head deep into the cavity, making little jerky movements, nodding and nosing. He was using his incredibly long tongue, which is agile and muscular, sipping up one sleepy ant after another.

He paused, pecked, paused, listened. He cocked his showy wild-striped head, then thrust it in again greedily, deep inside the cavity, to feast. He tossed out chips, dove in again, then turned to look at me, gulping down his breakfast.

I watched him for a while, drumming, dipping, shifting. Finally I started on quietly, leaving him there to feast in peace. But my movement scared him, and the tiny crunch of my poles in the snow, the rustling of my jacket were too much for him.

He drew his head back and opened his big black wings and flew off, low, through the branches, like a clumsy bomber. Furtive and quick, he vanished among the trees, calling his harsh, brief note.

Then there was silence, just the faint whisper of wind against the snow.

Catbird

Catbird

Up on the hillside, by the swimming pool there was a big summer border. It was about thirty feet long and eight feet deep, and there I put the plants I had never wanted – or dared – to put in the lower gardens by the house. Up in the summer border I put yellow plants – the buttery oenethera, and a sunny yarrow - and bright red plants – a tiny crimson potentilla – and once I even planted an apricot-colored David Austen rose, though I never went all the way to orange.

I also put huge plants up there, ones that would have overpowered the modest borders behind the house. I put in towering Joe Pye weeds, and a fancy statuesque silver plant - something argentea?? --- that soared majestically upwards for one season and then lay moping flatly in the bed until I threw it out. I planted a huge whispering clump of miscanthus in the far corner, and in the middle a colony of tall soft blurry filipendula rubrus, and a sprawling blue perovskia. Just beyond the border was a big purple buddleia.

The summer border was in full sun, and it came into bloom in July and August, after the sweeter pinks and blues of the June borders, which were down by the house. The summer border was bolder and wilder, out under the open sky, backed by our sloping meadow, facing, beyond the pool, the deep woods.

I liked working up there. It felt quite distant from civilisation; it was out of sight and out of sound of the house. I'd go up to work in the garden and listen to the birds. There were a lot of birds up there. Several families of house wrens lived nearby, one of them nesting in one of the little lanterns that hung on either side of the pool house door. That wren spent her days hunting insects in the summer border. She was incredibly conscientious. Whenever I arrived and walked over to the border, she would suddenly fly out of the tall plants at the back, the phlox or filipendula, scolding me at the top of her lungs for the interruption. She sat on the split-rail fence and complained, in a tiny, shrill, energetic, voluble stream. It didn’t really feel like abuse, it felt more like an exclamation. It felt as though we were sharing something, and as though she needed to express an opinion.

There were cardinals and robins, tree swallows, skimming over the meadow. Sometimes I saw the brilliant flash of a baltimore oriole, high in one of the hickory trees, but I never saw the nest.

The split-rail fence ran all the way around the pool. On the far side of the pool, beyond the fence, the ground sloped down through the woods, and down into a sort of boggy shrubby series of thickets. The thickets began just beyond the fence, huge overgrown wild honeysuckle bushes. Some of these had the usual cream-colored blossoms, but one of them, very large, was pink. I looked forward each spring for this to bloom, when the whole enormous rounded mass of the bush looked as though it was covered in delicate rosy-cream butterflies. It was a lovely presence, a sort of gift from the woods, as it never needed pruning or watering or feeding, and always blossomed in that spectacularly generous way.

A catbird nested in it. Or at least I think she did. I saw her slipping in and out of it, but by the time she built her nest the bush was too densely leafed-out for me to see the nest itself. In any case there were catbirds up there, around the summer border and the pool house. Sometimes they’d sit on the fence-posts and watch me; sometimes they’d sing their modest repertoire of other birds’ songs, from deep in the bushes. I knew it was them, singing.

I like catbirds, with their neat grey suits, their black trim, their elegant graphics. I like the way they move, which is quiet but confident, like someone on a diplomatic mission. And catbirds, oddly enough, like us. That catbird would come out of her honeysuckle bush when I came up to the border, and she would perch on a fencepost, watching. She was a curious, observant bird, though why she wanted to watch me pulling out weeds I don’t know. She had her own life, though, and her own thoughts.

Once I was walking through the little gate in the fence, toward the pool, and I felt something brush suddenly against the back of my head. I was thirty feet away from the house, and there was no vine or tree near. But something had made contact, something had swept deliberately against my hair, against my skull. It didn’t feel hostile, but it was startling, a tiny shock. Intimate. I turned around and saw the catbird sitting on the gatepost, her head cocked, watching me, her eye bright and black. She had her reasons for that swift, delicate encounter. I don’t know what they were.

I think about that sometimes, that soft brushing sweep against my hair. Turning to see her, surprised, and finding her vibrant eye upon me.

November 6, 2008

Disruption

It's nearly high tide, and the cove is glassy. The water is a flat silver mirror, smooth and still. It looks as though it's never been touched by the wind, or an oar, or by the daily churning surge of the tide. It's motionless.

The trees on the far shore - firs and pines, with a few bright-leaved hardwoods - are reflected with magical precision. They look like a doubled row, spreading both up into the air and down into the water, their trunks meeting seamlessly at the shoreline. It's perfectly, perfectly calm.

I've come out onto the deck. On the water below me, on this side of the cove, I become aware of a small disruption. Through the trees I can see a skein of fine lines on the water, like a web, radiating outward. It comes from the southeast corner - the opposite end from the cove's mouth, where it leads to the sea. There's no stream in that corner, and I wonder what could have started this disturbance. A tiny puff of air, turning the flat surface into a net of ripples? But why would it start in that wooded corner?

It doesn't stop, this mysterious rippling. It spreads out across the cove, and as I watch I think I see something on the water. My view is partly obscured, by trees and bushes, and I go down the steps and head quietly for the shore. The path through the woods is covered with a fresh fall of needles, already an autumnal reddish-buff, and they muffle my footsteps. I'm watching the water as I walk, and by now the whole cove is criss-crossed with a network of ripples. Who is doing this? How has someone shattered the smooth glassy surface so silently, so mysteriously, so completely? The upside down trees are now shattered into liquid shards, clashing loosely in the glimmering wash.

Heading down the slope I glimpse something moving toward the far side of the cove. When I reach the shore I stop, just inside the fringe of shoreline bushes, and lift my binoculars.

What's out there is a female merganser. Her head is rusty red, her body mostly grey, with a soft whitish streak along her waterline and a bright white patch near her tail.

She carries her rufous head high, her long red bill slanted slightly upward. On the crown of her head is a wild crest, and its long feathers stick out wildly, radiating like a ragged sunburst. She looks as though she's just gotten out of bed, as though she's trying out a Mohawk. She's steaming along in the water, paddling like mad. It's she, with her messy hair and ragged wake, who has unsettled the entire cove. Now all of it is rocking quietly, the fretwork of ripples sliding across the whole of the little inlet.

She's heading fast for the opposite side of the cove, getting further away every second. I step closer to the shore, my binoculars raised. I step past the big branches of a fir tree, to see better. I'm still beneath the tree, but I'm now out in the open, and fully visible. Suddenly the merganser takes off, flapping wildly, splashing and shattering the rocking water. She flies low over the surface, noisy and urgent, her wings wide and wild, the bright patch near her tail flashing. This is no slipping silently out of sight, this is an emrgency exit, panicky, cacaphonous, tumultuous.

In a few moments the cove is empty, and I step out of cover, onto the shoreline. By now the whole surface is distressed. Now it looks like ragged scumbled water anywhere - uneasy, unsettled and in flux, a zillion tiny shards of rocking reflection. And there's no-one here, no other birds, no ducks, no creatures. I stand, disappointed, at the edge of the water. It was that crazy merganser, with her wild messy hairdo, who did all this. That's who left the cove in such turmoil, and uninhabited.

But it was really me. I know that. If I hadn't been there, she wouldn't have left.

Maine, October 2008.

Busy

Before it rises and turns onto the shoulder of the hill, Town Street meanders through overgrown meadowland, now woods. On the uphill side it's boggy. Actually it's more than boggy: it's a shallow pond, and in it is a handsome new home with a water view. Beavers have arrived.
The beaver (castor canadensis) is an engaging creature - all right, a rodent - with a sleek fur coat and a friendly, unthreatening manner. He has an inquisitive nose, a dextrous pair of forepaws, and a cool set of extra eyelids, transparent ones, like underwater goggles. Beavers are peaceful and intelligent, and they mate for life. In the animal world they are stars of cognitive behaviour: they reason, use tools, and build complex structures. They are remarkably adept and inventive engineers. In the winter, for example, they lower the water level so they can surface under the ice to breathe, without risk from predators. They are visionaries, and their projects are mighty: in northern Alberta there's a beaver dam 2,790 feet long.
They are wonderful animals on someone else's land, though on yours they might seem problematic. Beavers alter the landscape more than any other creature except man. They are unstoppable. Tireless, resourceful and determined, beavers want things their way, and that way is a big pond with a lodge in the middle and a dam along the downstream edge. It may not be what you had in mind, but before you consider eviction, consider the beaver's place in the world.
The beaver is a naturalist's dream: everything he does is good for the planet. Castor canadensis is a keystone species, creating rich habitat for fish, ducks, wading birds, turtles, amphibians and frogs. But beavers do more than that. They're like benevolent super-creatures, in charge of a system that sustains life on earth.
In natural hydrology, beavers are huge. Beaver dams, and the ponds' wide, absorbent edges, and the wetlands that surround them, provide natural flood protection. Beavers' quiet pondwaters allow young creatures of many species to thrive, and rich organic matter to settle. Their wetlands are portals to the aquifer, which provides us with groundwater. Beaver dams filter the streamwater that passes over them, producing bacteria which feed on the phosphates and nitrates from agricultural runoff. Miraculously, these bacteria devour pesticides and herbicides. And, as if all this were not enough, beavers have a sense of humor. They are known to enjoy playing practical jokes.
Okay, they cut down a lot of trees, and they put the pond where they want it, not where you do. If these are problems for you, help is available: get "Coexisting with Beavers," which offers solutions like the Beaver Deceiver and the Castor Master. Go on the web to www.beaversww.org
It's not in the Yankee spirit to let someone else move onto your land and develop it for his own purposes, but the beaver's purposes are admirable. He'll take down that scrubby woodlot and create a clean, glimmering, exquisite pond, filled with thriving wildlife. An earthly paradise on your property: isn't this an offer you can't refuse?
This region is rich in beavers. Recently, at their pond on Cream Hill Road, I noted mallards, Canada geese, a handsome grey heron and about a zillion spring peepers. Also a small dark head moving across the water, tugging a v-shaped wave, swimming steadily toward the rushes. Someone was hard at work, saving the planet.
May, 2008

Cattails

At the corner of Rattlesnake Road and Cream Hill Road lies a sweep of open water, surrounded by reedy marshland. Historically, this kind of place had a bad reputation: bogs, swamps and marshes are breeding grounds for mosquitoes, as everyone knows, and everyone hates mosquitoes. And bogs offer a kind of irritating passive resistance - they're too shallow to swim in, too deep to walk through. Difficult to navigate, they're murky and secretive, full of darting creatures, thick reedy foliage and fine clouds of mud. We've never liked them. For a thousand years marshes have been routinely drained to eliminate mosquitoes, and make arable land. Recently, though, we've begun to learn the value in the natural hydrology system: bogs are loamy sinks, that allow water to seep deep into the aquifers on which we all depend. Now we've become more tolerant of them. And now we know that they're good, we can see that they're beautiful, too. Tall standing grasses edging quiet, dreaming water, a wide sheet of sky: still water has its own appeal.
Something that has always liked bogs is the cattail, which grows with cheerful abandon along the water's edge beside Rattlesnake Road. The common cattail
Typha latifolia , is a handsome plant, with tall, flexible, sword-shaped leaves that bend casually away from the root. At the end of a stiff round stalk is a thick brown cigar-like club, surmounted by a bare spike. Cattails are monoeicious, so each plant contains both male and female parts, and is self-pollinating. The plushy brown cigar is the female part of the flower, the bare spike, the male part. The male flower ripens early to an insignificant pair of stamens that quickly disappear, but the female part is robust and long-lasting, and gives the plant its common name.
Now, in the fall, the stalk is dry and limber, and holding one is oddly satisfying. It feels like a scepter, the brown club a modest, sold weight. It's pleasant to wave it, as though it were a sparkler, inscribing its journey through the air.
Actually, it is a bit like a sparkler, dispersing pollinated seeds like tiny points of light. The slightest touch on that dry plush will make it yield a finely shredded white substance, like a pillow leaking down. Fine white filaments radiate from the tiny seeds, like a miniature starburst. Floating airily on the breeze, these will drift for miles. They'll settle anywhere, but what they need is bogland - quiet, shallow water - and sun.
Unlike the non-natives - purple loose-strife, and phragmites - that threaten them, cattails offer habitat for lots of native creatures. They're a favorite of another local favorite, the red-winged blackbird. Red-wings, with their handsome graphics (neat red, yellow and orange bars at the top of the glossy black wings, like the insignia for an Italian rcing club) arrive early in the spring, nesting in cattails when they can. Red-wings' cheerful buzzing whistle, their bold pale gold eyes and the vivid sheen of their plumage remind us each year that spring is back, and the landscape is waking up.
And, like the answer to another of the ingeniouis natural puzzles that surround us, it turns out that red-wings don't hate mosquitoes like everyone else. In fact, they love them. Boglands, cat-tails, red-wings, mosquitoes - there's no end to it. Can it be that eveyrthing is good?
November, 2007