I’ve decided to take this blog back to it’s origins: show and tell. So, what’s captured my interest this week? Dragonflies, for one thing. And how could they not, since a particularly large variety has been gathering in great numbers along the shores of Lake Michigan for the past few days. I take this as a good sign, given the even greater numbers of mosquitos that have gathered in the same areas this summer.

I first sighted the dragonflies out the window while I consumed my lunch. The breakroom at work is tiny, but two of the walls are floor-to ceiling windows. As you might imagine, this room can become a bit stuffy in the summer. It’s worth it, though, for the views. The ever shifting lake spreads out before me as I eat my daily leftovers. Some days, it’s colored with the foreboding grays and browns of a highland loch. Other days, it sings with turquoise and a near Bahamian blue, as if doing its best impression of those faraway waters. And other days, the waters are pale and misty, fading off before reaching any visible horizon into the equally pale and misty sky. On the clearest of days, the silhouettes of the Chicago skyline are just visible in the far distance. Other days, hawks or even turkey vultures soar by looking for their next meal. And a few days ago, the dragonflies arrived.

Dragonflies origins stretch back beyond those of the dinosaurs by 100 million years or more. Perhaps it is this ancient origin that gives them the aspect that frightens children. When a dragonfly flew by my 4-year old the other day, he screamed in fear that it would bite him. Every region seems to have tales about them: They’ll stitch shut your mouth if you swear, lie or curse. They’ll poke out or stitch shut your eyes. They’ll poke out your ear drums. Are you catching a theme here? Sometiems, it is believed that devils or hobgoblins use them, as steeds, as balance weights, even as awls. Perhaps strangest of all is the belief that they follow injured snakes and stitch up their wounds.

Looking out of the breakroom window, I watched their mesmerizing, chaotic dance. As far as I could look to the north and south, I could see them. They zipped around in a vast cloud that reached from the ground to a spot well above my 4th floor perch. In my imaginings, they took on the aspect of a vast (and poorly organized) helicopter air force. Perhaps they hoped to take back the land that they had lost to the vertebrates so long ago. Whatever their sinister plans, they didn’t seem interested in going after any of the oblivious people below. No mouths were stitched shut, no eyes poked out. For the time being, at least, we appear safe from these darting hordes.

Thanks to hisgett for use of the dragonfly photo!

Colors of Winter

Even on a January day where temperatures didn't break 15 deg F, the woods are filled with color... if you take the time to look. (I took all of these photos today in Johnson Park in Racine).

This being the start of a new year, I thought I'd share a few resolutions of mine. In addition to the traditional resolutions (lose weight, be more understanding, get out of debt, don't yell at the kids as much, stop shooting heroin, etc.), I'm doing some frequency resolutions. It's a way to help me remember to do the things that make me feel happier and more centered - good for me, and good for those around me.

Without further ado, my frequency resolutions:

1. Get out into nature every week. (Geocaching is my favorite tool for this. It gives me a destination.)

2. Create something every week (f'rinstance, a fimo sculpture, a fancy dinner, a chapter in a book, or... a photo collage!)

3. Dinner with friends every month (With family events, the kids school and sports, and projects around the house, I sometimes find that I haven't seen any of my friends from outside of work and family for a month or even two. It's completely unacceptable).

4. Volunteer somewhere every quarter (Ideally, I'd do this more often, but I've gotten completely out of the volunteering habit, and this is a baby step to get back into it.)

Spring is sprung!

Boy oh, is it ever spring! Every form of critter is out and about over the past couple of days.

The vultures are nesting at work (I kid you not. Witness the photos. This has to be the worst work omen ever.). The house finches are nesting behind one of my trellises (see nest). The racoons are leaving muddly little tracks across my driveway (see pic). The "early vernal miner bees" are mining their early vernal burrows (sorry no pic yet, how about a link?) The bunnies are out, chewing the tops off of the crocusses. The dutch irises have been blooming for a week or two already, and the serbian squill is blooming itself into a brilliant blue sea.

Next up: daffodils and grape hyacinths.

Geez, I love spring.!

OK, that's it!

I’ve held my tongue long enough. Dark forces are afoot in this land, wolfish forces masquerading as green sheep. “How do you know this, Fishmonger?” you’ll be asking. “Whatever can we do about this menace?” you’ll ask, your voice quavering. And well that you should. But fear not, for The Fishmonger will tell you. Oh yes, I will tell.

These Dark Forces to which I referred take the form of – wait for it- people telling you to conserve paper for the good of the (I have to laugh - ha! ha!) environment! I laugh because I know (as do they) that nothing could be better for the environment than routine production of paper.

First a brief aside. I am not, of course, talking about paper produced from wood from old-growth forests. I am not talking about this paper because, as far as I am aware, NO SUCH PAPER EXISTS! Why would any sane person reduce a majestic old-growth tree to paper, when much more profitable avenues for the disposal of such trees (for instance, turning it into large boards and timbers) exist.

Yes, paper is made of junk trees. Or, more likely, farmed trees. These are trees grown as an agricultural commodity, like wheat, or beets, or ginseng. Cutting down trees planted for the purposes of paper production is no more wasteful of the resource than harvesting wheat for the purposes of making flour. If you are one of those few individuals who feel that wheat should be left to grow and shed its kernels in the natural order of things… let’s just say that I have nothing more to say to you on this topic. Go away. Now.

For the rest of us who are, perhaps, saner (though I don’t know to what degree), I will proceed by asking a question: what is the most pressing environmental issue of the day? Well, I might argue with you that it is the mysterious deaths of amphibians, or the sudden loss of countless honey bees. But the general consensus seems to be that the most pressing environment issue of the day is global warming. And this global warming is generally laid at the foot of greenhouse gasses, especially carbon dioxide. In fact, there exist a multitude of website that will help you calculate the amount of carbon dioxide that your existence puts into the atmosphere, and even plant trees as a means of offsetting that. You see trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and fix it as part of their substance. This would be useful if trees didn’t then decay (through rot or fire) and release that same carbon back intot he atmosphere.

What is needed is a means to sequester carbon. Some have proposed fertilizing the ocean so that algae will grow, then sink to the ocean depths where it will not decompose for ages. I propose that a similarly useful means of sequestering carbon is to bury it in a modern sanitary landfill. It is well known that modern landfills provide very little opportunity for decomposition of dry materials. Food scraps may decompose, but newspapers buried 60 years ago show little or no decomposition. Therefore, the means to combat global warming is obvious. Print out lots of unnecessary documents, then throw them out moments later. The paperless society would doom us! We need to use paper, and lots of it, then throw it away. Sure, our watersheds will be ruined, but our climate will be saved! Paper or plastic? Paper, please! Let’s not save our trees, let’s cut them down, make them into paper and bury them! Dump a log, save the planet!

(PS: information presented as fact in this blog post has likely been completely made up, in the tradition of america's government and news sources. Thank you.)

More Cowbird!

AFter an excellent plant-shopping trip to Monches Farm this weekend, (Mom and I both managed to stay within $10 of our gift certificate amounts)we headed back to Mom and Dad's (and Grandma and Grandpa's) place for a while. While chatting on the deck, I learned that the bird nest near their door had been invaded! Check out this photo (also at right). There are four bluish eggs with a few dark spatters (these are the housefinch eggs). Then, there is a slightly larger egg that isn't blueish and is covered with brown speckles. This, apparently, is a cowbird egg!

If all goes as the dastardly cowbird has planned, her egg will hatch first, to get a head start of the growing. The greedly little chick will then eat up more than it's share of the food that its adopted mother brings back to the nest, and will grow to take up much of the nest. Eventually, the housefinch chicks will likely die from a combination of insufficient food, and a lack of nest space.

Mom was told that it's illegal to interfere with the cowbird's scheme, but I've not been able to confirm or deny it. Any birders out there know the situation?

UPDATE!: Apparently, under some federal Migratory Birds Treaty Act, the cowbird is a protected species. The list is here. Bad luck for the finches, eh?