SCAVENGER HUNT

From afar it’s pure power and grace. The  bird is massive. It weighs 1 to 2 kilos and stands 2-1/2 feet tall. That wingspan is 6 feet. 


Up close, the turkey vulture or buzzard is more like nauseating. It’s about that face: it’s red; it’s bald; it’s gnarly. He does take after his namesake a bit. Still, “buzzard with all the trimmings” is going to be a hard sell.

Actual turkey

Turkey vulture

Buzzards travel and even roost in groups called venues of vultures. We often see 10-12 circling, an unsettling image at our age. Eagles flap their wings much more often; vultures coast through the sky. They ride thermals to gain altitude. Having once ridden in a glider, I can attest to how fun that is. These guys don't seem like party animals, however; and actually, they're cruising for carrion.

Turkey buzzards have a terrific sense of smell. They ride the thermals, sniffing the air for gases rising from unfortunate former beasts below. They can't sing for their suppers; all they can manage is to grunt and snort a bit but nothing melodious.

Vultures prefer to eat herbivores. I had never thought of them being all that fussy. Of course they will stoop to eat carnivores when necessary. 

As you can imagine, when you eat decaying animals, you pick up a few nasty bugs with your dinner. That’s why it’s handy to have that bald vulture face. I remember seeing Cheerios stuck my husband’s beard, and dead flesh would likely be a lot worse. Perching in trees with wings spread, the buzzards dry off, and that reduces some of those bacterial hitchhikers. They also use this pose to warm themselves in the sun.

It’s tough to tell a male from a female vulture, and frankly, for me, that falls well into the category of leave well enough alone anyway.

Planning on challenging a turkey vulture anytime soon? I’m betting on the vulture. The way he defends his family is by vomiting. Consider the buzzard's diet--disgusting even before it's consumed. Now imagine him regurgitating that in front of you, the enemy. The stench of hurled carrion fends off most predators. It also burns the eyes. It's good advice to live by: never tempt a vulture to vomit.

Who out there thinks this has gotten as disgusting as it possibly can get? Noop. Not even close. Vultures eliminate on their own legs. This serves a good purpose, though not enough to tantalize most of us to adopt the practice. Their urine and feces cool the legs (get a fan, stupid) and also kill the nasty bacteria that vultures have to step in all the time.

I will leave you with some positive thoughts about vultures. They are beautiful when soaring across the sky. They are willing to remove road kill so we don't have to do that. And my otherwise smart dogs race around and around the meadows far below them, barking at them. It saves a lot of time and energy if you can get a turkey buzzard to walk your dogs. 

Carrion, oh loyal and much maligned clean-up crew. Carry on.

To see Turkey vultures drying their wings:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSs8kbUHEfA&feature=related


or


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L1mvBwNpS4&feature=related

HANG ONTO YOUR HAT

In town, the rain seems to drop straight down from the sky above. In the country, you can see it coming from miles away. It starts as grey smudges in the far western sky. Eventually a few drops hit the window, and within minutes sheets of rain smack into the house. Gale-force winds carry struggling birds off their intended course.

Thunderstorms and blizzards are a welcome reminder of how powerful we are not. They can rearrange one's priorities in a matter of seconds. When a huge tree in our woods snapped in half like a toothpick, its canopy dropped into our front yard. I opened the front door and faced a wall of green leaves and branches. I had a pretty good idea what I'd be doing for the next few days. Ironing was off the table. 

We’re just a little shy on tornado sirens out here, but  five years ago there were rumblings on the radio about a tornado bearing down on Iowa County. As we listened to weather reports grow more and more ominous, we realized the twister did indeed have us in its cross hairs and was just minutes away.

One thing I’ve never mastered is herding everyone into the basement. I might wrestle one dog down, but two dogs and a husband are still upstairs. Get a second dog down, the first dog shoots back up, and the husband just has to finish typing his last sentence. Miraculously get all three dogs down, one tears back up. Husband finally comes down but runs back up to fill his travel mug. Never did get everyone down there.

The sky went from blue to coal black and back to blue again, but nothing happened, so we ventured out onto the deck. Pewter-colored clouds had passed just a little north of us and were racing toward Iowa City. We dropped our jaws as we saw the storm drop ugly black funnels onto the homes of our former neighbors in town. 


Parts of Iowa City were wiped out. The storm hop-scotched through town, capriciously choosing victims. None of them were human, thank heavens, but it was forever before we could get in touch with anyone.

I am one of those people who hears storm warnings and immediately heads outside. I love the taste of agitated ions in the air. I love having to hold onto the railing to stay in York Township. Lying in the hammock on the screened porch during a rainstorm is as close to a religious experience as I care to have. 


In July 2008, a mega-cyclone removed just 2 shingles from our roof, but a mile north it relocated entire barns and huge combines from the north side of the road to the south side.There’s some comfort in the unpredictability of wild weather; its capriciousness takes a little pressure off believing you can control everything. This one had winds exceeding 100 mph; you're lucky if you can control your bodily functions when that happens.

Country storms are not for sissies

To see the Iowa City tornado:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElhLVSEpQxA&feature=related

  The worms crawl in,  

 The worms crawl out; 

 The ants play Pinochle 

       On your snout....     
    

Why is it that a rat is horrifying, but if you glue on long ears and a puffy tail, it’s all “hippity, hoppity, Easter’s on its way?” What exactly makes a rat creepy and a rabbit cuddly?

Is something creepy because it causes you harm? Not necessarily. Mosquitoes hurt you and can cause serious diseases, but they aren’t creepy. Maggots won’t bite you and can actually help you, but can we all agree that maggots are undeniably creepy?

Creepiness isn’t necessarily a permanent condition; what’s creepy today may not be creepy tomorrow. Apparently we can accommodate to it. When I first moved out here, I removed ticks with tongs; now I grab them with bare fingers. But accommodation isn’t a given; snail slime is still creepy and always will be.

When I decided to figure out why some things creep me out and others do not, my Urge-to-Classify genes kicked in, and I coughed up the-

Creepiness Rating System

I. Motation 

        A.  Mode of Moving affects creepiness.

          Slithering gives most of us pause, hopping not so much. So, snakes
          are creepy and bunnies are cuddly. Slithering feels like sneaking up
         on something.

          The worm is harmless, but it slithers, too, in its own way. When it
          elongates and then contracts between my fingers. a shiver runs up
          my spine.

Researchers have found that we have an innate ability to detect the presence of a slithering snake and to be leery of it, so recognizing their creepiness is hard-wired into us.

         B. Speed of Moving

Bats slice through the air, ripping back and forth faster than the eye can follow. When something does that, it is beyond our control or containment. It feels as though it could turn and be on us before we can react. That’s creepy.

         C. Rate of acceleration

        

If something can go from zero to right-in-my-face in 2 seconds, I freak out. A mouse across the room is not alarming. A mouse that looks me in the eye and then darts for my pant leg is creepy.

Creepy movements get a rating of 8 ICKs (Indicators of  Creepiness per Kilogram)

II. No Accounting for Taste

        

A willingness to partake of carrion is disgusting to most of us. (If it’s not, let’s talk about that soon.) Flies, vultures, eagles, maggots, hyenas, and other bottom feeders like their meat well aged.

Crow eating a catfish that an eagle pulled out of a hole in the ice

         Carrion eating gets 9 ICKs on the Creepiness Rating Scale.

III. Quiet 

Many creepy beasts are quiet. A swooshing sound by the ear is much eerier than squawking. Something that moves without making much noise seems to be stalking.

Silence gets 4 ICKs.

IV. Unattractiveness

             As in all things, it seems the handsome guys get a free ride.

No one is creeped out by a swan or a fox, but if you have a bald, red, gnarly face like a vulture,  people just won’t be comfortable in your company. Have cute little eyebrows like a raccoon, you skate through life; maybe you can’t get across the road, but you are beloved. Have no discernible features like a maggot, and you're not such a treasure.

Shapes matter. Long, skinny things like snakes or possum tails and irregular things such as turkey snoods put us on edge. Shapes not seen often in nature, like the triangular face of the mantis, give us the willies.

How adorable.....

Unattractiveness gets 5 ICKs.

V. Invasiveness

It’s a given: if it can slide or bore its way into you––

10 ICKs will be given.

VI. Inescapability

Permission to come aboard, Ma'am?

Can’t remove it because it grabs you or holds on or because it’s sticky? Or does it flit and flop all around you, following you no matter which way you go? 

I love frogs. I was amused when one hopped onto my kayak as I paddled by his log. I was less amused when he turned toward me, eyed the well I was sitting in, and tensed his hind leg muscles to jump. He was about to join me and climb around on my bare legs at will. There'd be no escaping him without tipping over. Note: These are not little toadies. Two of these bullfrogs would fill up your glove compartment.

10 ICKs granted.

VII. Surprise factor  

           I like bats. I put up a bat house on the garage, for heaven's sake. But 

           when I reach for the door knob and one zooms out of the light 

           fixture right into my face, I’m not feeling the love.

        

Surprising me gets 9 ICKs.

VII. Things out of place

Love the bird in the sky. Hate the birds in the bedroom smacking against the inside of the window. Snake in the grass, right and proper. Snake in the water, yucky.
When things are in an unexpected place, it's creepy. Like ants playing Pinochle on your snout.

           Mislocation gets 7 ICKs.

VIII. Texture  

           Things can be tactiley creepy: scaly things, slimy things, wet
            things, warty things. 

           Untoward experiences have seeped into our genes and made us 

            react instinctively to snail slime and lizard scales.

                                        
                   Slimy, scaly textures get 9 ICKs.

IX. Means of expression

How a critter communicates affects our reactions. The sweet trill of a wren, the bobbing head and cooing of a mourning dove–these elicit smiles. The darting tongue of a snake? No smiles.

Tongue wagging:  8 ICKs.
Red tongue: 1 bonus ICK.

X.  The Unknown

            Some things we encounter are just never identified.

10 ICKs to this fellow.

For more on our genetic relationship to snakes:
http://www.livescience.com/2348-fear-snakes.html

Mike

DESTINY

I was rounding the last curve on the Black Diamond Road on my way home. On the right side of the road was the old barn with “East Pittsburg” painted on the side. On the left was a hand-written cardboard sign. It was the kind of sign that causes my husband to sigh deeply and say, “Oh, boy.” Luckily, he wasn’t with me.

“Free Kittens,” it said.  My inner five-year old stopped the car.

We weren’t in the market for a cat. Lila Ruby had been more cat than anyone needs in a lifetime. She was long gone. Spencer wasn’t that amusing except for having 15 toes on his front feet. And Bruce had that mild allergy to cats.

Still----kitties. I do love kitties. I’d just take a look.

In the mile and a half between there and home, I named her Lily and reassured her as best I could; she had just left her mother for the first time. She was only 6 weeks old and fit nicely in the palm of my hand. I opened the car door in the driveway and said, “Here’s your new home, Lily Cat.” With that, the afternoon from hell began.

First, a digression. A few weeks after Lily arrived, my son carried her to me and flipped her over. “Mom, you’re a nurse, right? This is no Lily.” So Lily became Mike. Back to afternoon from hell.

Mike the cat leapt from my hands, jumped out of the car, and disappeared into the woods. By the end the summer we don’t go into the woods much because it’s very thick and deep. You can barely see your feet let alone a tiny kitten. And it was a 90-degree day in August. Mike couldn’t have weighed a pound, and he hadn’t been weaned. I knew he’d dehydrate in a short time. Even though I was wearing shorts and flip-flops, I chased him into the woods. Greenbriers and gooseberry thorns tore at my legs, but I was terrified about that cat.

I meowed, and he meowed back. I followed those little sounds well into the woods but couldn’t see him. Then his meows seemed to be coming from every direction. Catbirds were mimicking me! So much for following his voice; I lost his trail.

I searched for an hour, but a 20-acre, dark, overgrown woods was impossible. The biggest problem was that the entire forest floor was covered with May Apples. Those interesting plants form a false floor across the woods. At the top of each tall stem is a wide and occlusive umbrella of leaves. Hidden under that umbrella is a large waxy flower. You could hide a cougar under those things, let alone a tiny kitten.

I searched until my legs were scratched and bleeding, then went home. I was overheated and thirsty. The first thing I did was try to call a friend to come help me search, although by now I was quite sure Mike had succumbed to the heat. I called everyone I knew, and no one was home. So I suited up in long pants and mosquito repellant.

I looked for another 2 hours in a fairly hysterical state, but 20 acres is 20 acres. I sat down in defeat and a big puddle of guilt. I had ripped a baby from its mother and sent it to its death in a few short minutes. I slunked home.

After supper, I realized I couldn’t go to bed knowing that cat was out there in the woods, possibly alive. Flashlight in hand, I started out again. Being in the woods at night was as creepy, as you might guess.

After an hour, I'd made it to the far north edge of the woods. I sat down on a log, defeated. For no particular reason I took a stick and lifted the leaf of a nearby May Apple. And there sat Mike, stretching to his full 6 inches tall. Since this seemed impossible, I thought the heat was getting to me.

The kitten was terrified and ready to bolt again. I tempted him with a little stick, moving it in front of his toes. He watched it warily, then could not resist; I know a little something about cats. He took one little swipe. Then another. He rolled onto his back. As soon as he was engaged, I grabbed and caught one little toe. He struggled mightily, biting, scratching, kicking. Nothing could have made me let go, even as he hollowed out my forearm. With a death-grip on that kitten. I walked down the driveway toward home, the most relieved person in the world. He’d been missing for 6 hours, but he seemed okay.

Mike up on the beam

Mike nee Lily slept on the pillow by my right ear that night, a place he occupied the rest of his life. He was a small cat, bowlegged and wiry. He was an entertaining fellow who ran across the beams in the rafters of the house and brought me little mouse heads that rolled down the deck in the wind.

Here’s to Mike. In a 20 acre patch of May Apples (that’s 12 square blocks), he chose the only one I looked under that night.

Mike-a very excellent cat

       FOOTSTEPS    

I am grateful for the gifts bestowed by the countryside, but it’s important to acknowledge that I don’t always return the favor.

Some good comes of intruding on nature, of poking one’s nose into nests and pools and even the occasional tryst.  If you share your adventures, you may remind others to value the wilderness and care for it. If you notice problems, you might be able to repair them and even prevent others.

But our very presence does damage. It disrupts animals. It transports seeds and plants to places they may do harm. It may actually maim and kill.

Fences can be deadly. Two taut wires twisted around a fawn’s leg held her tight. We wanted to help her, but she was scared to death of us. She screamed and kicked and thrashed. Eventually we freed her, but her leg was dislocated. She ran amazingly fast on 3 legs and disappeared beyond the pond. The vet said the leg might snap back into place, but I think he was being kind. Fences are not one of man’s greatest inventions if you’re a wild animal.

Yesterday I watched a painted turtle up in the woods. She was pawing at the ground, so I figured she was covering her eggs. I watched for half an hour. When I walked closer, I saw that she was caught in a fence and was struggling to get free. I pried her loose, happy she wasn’t a snapper. If someone hadn’t put in that fence a century ago, it would never have happened. On the other hand if I hadn’t been walking in the woods, she would still be there.

Our fields had always been mowed by local farmers. We let them go wild, and the very next year, ground-nesters returned like magic. Dickcissels and meadowlarks sang their hearts out. But when I mow walking paths through the deep grasses, I also mow snakes, butterflies, and even a frog or two. Not a good feeling.

You can make planks out of our weeds out here. I was hacking at some scrub bushes that were too close to the house.   I cut a branch and just one second too late saw a warbler nest. I tried to prop it up but mama left the area.

You can’t really know the impact you have. It’s easy to step on turtle eggs or baby mice and never know it. It’s easy to distress a rabbit when you don’t even know you’re standing by her babies.

Nature takes balance. I enjoy it, notice it, learn about it. Respect it. Repair it. But I also know that not every creature is thrilled to see me coming.

                                  LAST STOP

                                O              O      

                                         

As beautiful as the countryside is, there is a relentless effort to trash it. On almost every farm, there are wonderful ravines full of old cars and washing machines. Rusted out farm machinery fills rolling pastures. Trees grow through abandoned tractor windows. One nearby gulley is filled with twisted metal, an old mobile home long since buried and grown over. One summer a fox raised her kits in a cave under its corrugated side panel.

In the field behind us there was an old school bus. It was buried in the ground up to the bottom step. There’s no access to that field, and it’s a good half-mile off the road. I have no idea how it got to its final resting place.

Our little seven-year old friend spotted that bus in an instant. We set out through the marsh. When we stepped inside, it was clear someone had actually lived in there. It had a refrigerator, chairs, dishes, old bus seats, and broken glass throughout. The arrangement had to be the result of a rollover.

This was a little boy’s dream. He sat in the moss covered driver’s seat and turned the huge steering wheel. He shifted, checked the gauges, pulled knobs. He stood on top of the bus, king of the swamp.

Turns out the bottom field wasn’t the final resting place for that bus. One day it simply disappeared. It didn’t sink into the earth like the cow did. (See entry for 2/22.)  It would have taken a crane to lift it, but the crane would have to be airlifted in. I believe I’d have noticed that. And the bus was such a rust-bucket that surely it would fall to pieces under its own weight. The more obvious question, of course, is who wanted that pile of rubble? This carjacker must have been smoking pokeweed.

A few weeks later I was driving along a country road and spotted the bus in a farmyard 2 miles away. It was above ground, but it didn’t look any better. That bus did not need restoring; it needed resurrecting. If they get ‘er done, it will be the triumph of hope over impossibility. 

IT’S A BIRD!

 IT’S A - BIRD?

Do you look at a 737 and wonder how it’s possible to get such a thing up in the air? The wild turkey has even worse aerodynamic qualities. My old dog, Obe, once stepped on a turkey in the field. It screamed and took to the air, and that’s putting it generously. It lumbered into the air, heading for the woods. Turkeys are very slow to achieve a cruising altitude, and Obe grabbed its foot a couple of times. It escaped to see another turkey season.

You’d hope that if you can’t run fast or get off the ground efficiently, you’d be extra smart. Turkeys, consider the dinosaur. Heed the brain-to-body size issue.

We have wilderness all around us, but one turkey laid her eggs right by the house. I knew our dogs would use those turkey babies (poults) for dog treats.

So here I go again, this time building a turkey preserve. (See Feb. 23 entry.) I dragged a fence out there and staked it. It had to be quite large; turkeys have a wingspan of 5-6 feet. But I was realistic-with a brain the size of a chestnut, we weren't going to have any precision landings in that pen. She abandoned her eggs. One of them still sits by our Haviland china.

The Song of the Turkey is never going to catch on, either. Their gobbling sounds like they’re falling down stairs.

So-not great flyers, not great singers. No grip whatsoever on location, location, location. Good thing they’re attractive; well, good thing they're unusual.

Turkeys have both waddles and snoods. (Sounds like a country duo from the 60s, doesn't it?) Take the waddle. It’s a chunk of tissue that hangs below the beak. It’s also called a dewlap. And a caruncle. Everything about this bird is unattractive, even its parts list. Even weirder is the turkey snood. That’s the nasty-looking piece of skin that hangs from the bird’s forehead, waving in front of its eyes. It’s a cockscomb, and it’s used as a garnish in France. In a cream sauce. With turkey or chicken kidneys. Honest. The turkey may not be too bright or graceful, but unlike people in France, you would never ever see one eating creamed snood.

To see songs about turkeys:

http://festivals.iloveindia.com/thanks-giving/songs-poems/short-turkey-songs.html

To hear a turkey sing:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wild_Turkey/id

PRINCESS SUMMER-FALL-WINTER-SPRING

There must be a gene that compels kids to build forts, hideouts, and tree houses, to throw a blanket over a card table in a pinch or hide behind the long dresses in the closet. I myself moved into a well-house when I was peeved. I was 3-yrs. old.

I suppose most kids outgrow this compulsion when they get an actual house or apartment. Not me. When we moved out of town, there was this flat spot along the south fence that was begging for it. So I ordered it. It was my own tipi. At last.

This was no sissy tipi; it was made by the people who made the ones in Dances with Wolves. They work out of Bend, Oregon.

A very puzzled looking UPS driver backed up to our garage and unloaded 16 lodge pole pines, each one 16 ft. long. There also was a very large box with the rest of the tipi ingredients. I read that two Native American women could put one of these things up in 1-2 hrs. Piece of cake.

The first step is raising the poles. Thing is, they go in a very particular order. And in a very specific position. At exact angles. That seemed easy enough. Bruce and I got started, and when all of that was accomplished, we noticed one little problem. The bottoms of the poles were not at the assigned distances apart. We moved one pole. That threw off all the angles and began an afternoon that made one yearn for a card table fort. Next day we completed the task and wound the rope around the poles near the top to secure them.

Next came the canvas. Spread out in the field, it was the size of Philadelphia and weighed about the same. The tipi was going to have a 16-foot diameter if we managed to get it up. One attaches the canvas to the last pole and then rolls the canvas around it. Next step is to raise that pole into place. Of course that pole with the canvas attached is not easy to lift into a specific notch 16 feet in the air. Two Native American women? Come on!

We wrapped the canvas around the frame, which was not coincidentally shaped like a tipi. It was as beautiful as I’d imagined. The canvas had to be laced together, and this was akin to lacing Kate Smith into Kate Moss’s corset. This had to be done while standing on the top of an 8 foot stepladder, and yes, I know those other two women did not have a step ladder. This is a delicate moment in the life of a tipi. It’s fully upright but not yet staked and tethered to the ground.  It is a bad time for a wind to come up. The one that did was not just any wind; it was a terrific gust, and it lifted the tipi straight up like Apollo 13. The ladder was half in and half out of the tipi so it went right along for the ride. And on the ladder, one old squaw from Iowa County rose into the air about 8 feet before crashing down on the concrete base.

 The tipi did eventually go up, and it lasted a long time. It was beautifully painted with buffalo all around. One white buffalo was added as a symbol of peace and harmony. A soaring eagle was painted near the top and was silhouetted by the setting sun.

Little friend Jake and I burned our smudge sticks made from homegrown oregano and lavender  wrapped with dental floss. We had a secret box with treasures in it. We had a not-so-authentic Tupperware box full of books on Indian life and a not-so-authentic futon with an Indian blanket on it.

We shared the tipi with countless mice, a few reptiles, and on many occasions felt as though we were starring in  Dances with Mosquitoes. But there was nothing like seeing the sun rise in the door, just as it’s supposed to do.

And then the flood came and the tipi blew down. We couldn’t reach it for weeks and the canvas succumbed.

Truth is, I can’t quite let it go. A little piece remains in our front yard, decorated with red, white, and blue lights, an irony not lost on anyone.

I haven’t ruled out another such fort. Seems to me the older you get, the wiser it is to have a hideout handy.

The Avian Alphabet

5 Days of Iowa County Birds

 Almost A to Z

W is for Warblers, Waxwings, and Wrens

(See April 18th entry for Woodpeckers)

Warbler nest

Brand New Yellow-throat Warblers

Myrtle (or Yellow-rumped) Warbler

 

Yellow-throat Warbler

Palm Warbler

Black and White Warbler

Cedar Waxwing

Wren

Y is for Yellow-billed Cuckoo and Yellow Crowned Kinglet

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Yellow Crowned Kinglet

If we get a U or X or Z,
You're going to hear 
A loud "Whoopee!!"