BLOWIN' IN THE WIND

When I was 11, I gathered all the empty bottles I could find along the road, turned them in at the store for the 2-cent refund, and bought a grape Nehi. Then I bicycled down the narrow road toward Noah’s Landing. It was a dirt path that ran between two swamps. There was no shoulder and the road was at the same level as the swamp, so it looked like a ribbon floating on the water. Stuffed under the waistband of my jeans were a small spiral notebook, a pencil, and a bottle opener.

I hop-scotched across soggy islands of grass to a good climbing tree in the middle of the marsh, and found a strong limb to perch on. When the pop was open and the notebook and pencil were on my lap, I became a scientist. At least I felt like a scientist. I sketched the birds, made charts and graphs of their comings and goings. After an afternoon of data gathering, I had a notebook full of incomplete and inaccurate information but a heart full of happiness. I was saturated with my favorite subject–biology. I also was saturated with swamp water, and I have no idea why I didn’t contract encephalitis.

Fifty-five years later, I am still sitting in a swamp, trying to organize and categorize information. I have gained more appreciation of nature, the mystery of it all, but arranging things along the x and y axes is still very satisfying.

There’s nothing more beautiful than the sun shining through milkweed seeds. I can never resist sending some of those paratroopers flying. But how do they fit into the big picture? The mind goes to seed dispersal systems. Well, my mind does. And exploring systems only adds to the beauty,  to my amazement.

How do seeds get where they need to go? What mechanisms are there? Don't you hear a list just begging to be created?

Some seeds go blowin’ in the wind like the milkweeds. The little parachute is called a pappus. A Maple seed helicopter has a blade pappus.






Some seeds just give in to Newton’s notions and plop to the ground. Rounder ones may roll away, some falling into streams or rivers. Others stay put, and still others are buried or hidden by animals.

Some seeds float to their final destination. This includes water plant seeds but also those that float, such as coconuts. We grow very few coconuts in Iowa. Coconuts in the front garden might be one benefit of global warming. Some adventuresome seeds travel the ocean by this means.

Some seeds are hitchhikers, traveling in or on animals, including us. Our two little Johhny Appleseeds come in covered with burr-encrusted seeds all the time. The nasty sharp sticker seeds that stick in my socks and ankles are carried unintentionally, but intentional planting has a place on this chart as well

Stella, the Seed Collector

Norah dispersing seeds

And now that the sparrows are nesting in the cow once again, we are well aware of how they carry and “deposit” seeds on our deck. 

Soon-to-be blue blobs on the deck

Dung beetles drag seeds right along with the dung

Some seeds are shot right out into the world. Pods explode and send forth their young ‘uns. The pod dries out, and that has the same effect as hitting one of those tubes of crescent rolls on the edge of the counter.

Some seed capsules have small holes and seeds shake out when the plant blows in the wind or is brushed.

Wistfully the 11-yr.-old in me wishes she had another chance at 7th grade biology. She sees a seed dispersal mechanism chart in her head, blissfully unfettered by actual information. It’s just another way of appreciating the order amidst the chaos in the countryside.

ODANATA

THE TRIP FROM HERE TO THERE

Drifting through the weeds and reeds around the shoreline, you will see dry, crispy dragonflies hanging on stems. These are the skins shed by their nymphs. Wouldn't it be great if we could just unzip our skin and step out all fresh and new like that?

Dragonfly moms lay their eggs underwater, in still water such as our pond. They lay eggs near the end of summer or early autumn in our temperate area. depending upon water temperature, they will hatch in a few days or even winter over and hatch the next spring. It's a darn good thing we don't have to wonder whether our human babies will be born in a few weeks or next year; there would be hordes of women in Baby-on-Board tee shirts going postal all over the world.

The hatched egg becomes a nymph. It remains in the water and goes through numerous stages, each time molting and leaving little suits of armor for me to collect and keep in a box. Yes, my inner ten-year-old boy does do that. This process can take up to 3-4 years.

When a full-fledged dragonfly finally emerges, its wings are very soft. Then a fluid flows out through the "veins" in the wings, stiffening them for flight. The fluid dries up. Those hardened veins remain, making the wings look like stained glass windows. 

The new dragon will spend a few weeks maturing and improving the intensity of its colors.

Since they live only a few months after maturing, they get right down to the business at hand: making more dragonflies.And they are not at all bashful–they mate while flying around in public. There are mating dragons and damsels on every surface in and around the pond.

For heaven's sake, you guys--get a room!

It's not easy to identify dragon- and damselflies. They vary by gender and stage of development. 

A pond bursting with dragonflies is better than a fireworks display. Some types fly really high, some skim the water surface. Some are skittish, some curious. They fly forward at amazing speeds-above the speed limit in town. They fly backwards and sideways.  They dip down for a sip of pond water on the fly. A dragonfly often stops right in front of you and stares. They can hover in one spot.

So, no, dragonflies do not sew your lips shut. But they do eat a ton of mosquitoes, so remember to thank them for serving the country. 

Mating dragonflies not paying attention to an approaching snapping turtle

To watch an amazing video about the dragonfly life cycle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezq_JWd1Sd8

(If you get the general bug site, click on dragonflies in the right-hand column.)

THE SUMMER OF ODANATA

A 7-year-old girl sits on the dock with her feet in the lake, and a slow-moving damselfly lights on her bare knee. Its eyes are round; the facets of its wings flash tiny rainbows. A somber voice from behind  says, “That’s a darning needle. If you aren’t careful, it will sew your lips shut!” The little girl clamps her hand over her mouth and doesn’t stop running until the lake is out of sight. Thus ended a very brief interest in damselflies and dragonflies.

Six decades later, the old little girl is sitting in her kayak in the eye of a dragonfly vortex. Thousands of dragons and damsels swirling around the pond and meadows. It was an Odanata Phantasmagoria Show! I reveled in my good luck.

Who will blink first?

Eastern Pondhawk

Green, red, orange, red, black, blue. Tiny and ponderous. Plain, striped, spotted. The air is full of them zooming, dipping down for a sip of water, mating on the fly. Grass blades bend under their weight. They light on the nose of my kayak, on my hands, and horrors––on my knee!

I always thought dragonflies were the big, manly males and damselflies were the diminutive females of the same insect. They actually belong to different suborders of the order Odanata. Generally speaking, if it rests with its wings out to the side horizontally and is on the burly side, it’s a dragon. If it folds its wings back along its body and is more delicate, it’s a damsel.

Twelve-spotted Skimmer

Green Darner

It’s amazing to sit among the Odanata and know that they were darting around before there were dinosaurs. They have been flitting around the earth for 290 million years, although flitting might be a stretch; some had a wingspan of almost 30 inches, ten times the size of those on our pond.

Amberwing

We have plenty of Odanata every year, but one particular year there were swarms over the pond, the meadows, even our vegetable garden. There were 6 or 8 damsels to a blade of grass. They literally were bouncing off of us as we walked.

Bluet

People ask me if it gets lonely living in the country. The answer is––never. Not with a couple of thousand of my closest friends dropping by.

Tomorrow: The Amazing Life-cycle of the Odanata