A Microclimate Alive in March

 

Japanese Andromeda, Pieris japonica

Last Saturday balmy weather conditions greeted us on arrival at Halibut Point. Temperatures were in the mid-fifties with very little wind. Down in the hollow where the power plant used to be we found a particularly warm south-facing spot, rimmed protectively on the ocean side by the granite walls of the old quarry train track. In this sheltered arena I spent a long enchantment watching the season's early bug activity on a flowering Japanese Andromeda. This is an exotic shrub, a beautiful introduction that most likely was planted by the Webster family when they owned this place in the '50s and '60s.

Winter Ant, Prenolepis imparis

As I stood there Winter Ants ascended the shrub's branches and foraged over the flowers for whatever it is they find sustaining on the outside of the petals. Their delicate limbs accomplish feats of strength and complexity out of proportion to their tiny structure. This insect species is active outside its nest only during the conditions of late winter and early spring.

Cluster Fly, Pollenia sp

A number of rather housefly-looking individuals zoomed in and out of the scene. They proved to be in the Pollenia genus of Cluster Flies when I queried the BugGuide website. I was informed that ultimate identification to the species level would require examination of the underparts by microscope. Not being a trophy taker for science or other paths of curiosity, I have to be satisfied at the level of genus if not genius.

Kelp Fly, Coelopa frigida

This fearsome-looking fellow turns out to be a Kelp Fly which normally lives, dines, and breeds on the shoreline accumulations of rotting seaweed. It had the genius, I suppose, to take a sojourn from its rough and tumble home to this sanctuary.

Kelp Fly inside a flower

The Kelp Fly was the only insect to actually enter one of the andromeda flower corollas while I was watching. Perhaps it has inborn knowledge or special desires at this time of year.

Versute Sharpshooter, Graphocephala versuta

A harlequin-patterned leafhopper was the most colorful observation during my vigil. Later research revealed that the name 'sharpshooter' comes from the fine stream of droplets it squirts from the back end of its digestive system, and that 'versute' derives from the Latin for 'cunning.'

Quite possibly there is some hilarity behind this naming in the annals of entomologic taxonomy.

Birch Catkin Bug, Kleidocerys resedae

Another early season adventurer is the Birch Catkin Bug, which overwinters in the old fruiting capsules of our native birches and of ericaceous shrubs like the Japanese Andromeda, which it happily found in this unlikely place.

 Digging into the natural history of this bug revealed that, when it emerges from hibernation at this time of year and sets forth to propagate, it emits mating calls using a strigil found on one of the hind wing veins. Perhaps I missed the music because of impaired hearing. Nevertheless there was the novelty of 'strigil' to follow, where I made acquaintance with "a comblike structure on the forelegs of some insects, used chiefly for grooming." In the quiet erudition of classical science this usage comes again from the Latin in reference to "an instrument of bone, metal, etc. used by the ancient Greeks and Romans for scraping the skin during a bath."

 And then there is our fine word "stridulate" which I will give you the pleasure of looking up, if necessary.

Black-capped Chickadee

In the prosaic cycle of life and death at Halibut Point a chickadee appeared alongside me to nourish itself on the emerging insects.

Two days later the temperature crashed thirty-five degrees, postponing my amusements and, perhaps fatally, the avant-garde renaissance of bug life. Or maybe they'll take it in stride, at small sacrifice.

Atmospherics

 

One morning's excursion to Halibut Point this week began with the landscape shrouded in fog. The interplay of earth, air, and water promised eerie possibilities.

Some vistas seemed to lose their tops and bottoms in the shroud. The mist muted colors into its own grayness, the occasional warm tones like glowing embers.

While the rising sun began to clarify the sky overhead the air below held its heavy vapors in the hollow of the quarry. Mysterious patterns emerged and subsided at the watery edge.

The quarry seemed filled with mercury, or silvered like a mirror.

Was it the light, the air, or a damp film on the surfaces themselves that saturated the colors? The effect sharpened, waned, sharpened again as the sun dueled with the fog.

Blue skies or a light breeze would have spoiled the scene. An envelope of pale stillness perfected it. 

Dapper Ducks

 

American Wigeon pair

On Monday of this week a pair of American Wigeons stopped to refuel at Folly Cove on their way to breeding grounds in northwestern areas of the continent. Bright daylight emphasized the subtle gradations in their markings from cinnamon to sepia. The earth tones contrasted with their sky blue bills, tipped ebony.

The drake

Occasionally the drake veered to an angle where sunlight revealed the pride of his plumage, a peacock-green iridescent sweep above and behind each eye saying, Do-you-dare? to potential brides. His gleaming white cap and forehead blaze guaranteed notice.

Two Black Duck drakes and a Wigeon

Festive coloration adorns the male only in his season of attracting a mate. After breeding he molts to sensible camouflage plumage, to resemble these drab Black Ducks that must be wondering what the fuss is all about, and why court trouble with ostentation?

 Human preferences play no part in the matter, except gratify our sense of delight. Mr. and Mrs. Wigeon have certainly done that.

Change of State

A change of state for physical matter marks a transitional behavior point as it absorbs or loses energy over time. Going from one state to another involves a sudden, discontinuous gain or release of energy. The process is entirely reversible. 

Changes of state resemble moods.

Energy cycles into Halibut Point with sunlight, weather, and seasonal rhythms, all in response to solar relationships that especially affect the state of water in its variations as solid, liquid, and vapor. 

In geologic time the mineral elements of Halibut Point, currently frozen into granite, have and will again liquidify when exposed to temperature extremes near the earth's core, and even sublimate directly into gases.

Icicles make theater of water's performance through the script of energy.

In the most remarkable change of state of all, organic life harnesses energy to convert primal substances into the tissues that define itself. The plant flourishes in its season of growth and retreats to its vital core in a change of state to survive hibernation.

Because of water's unusual property of expanding when it changes state in freezing, it is less dense as a solid than as a liquid. Ice floats on water.

Sometimes the elements compose into forms that produce a change of state in the observer, and a sense of beauty comes of their unity.

The Edge of Life

Mid-winter traces of the vital force follow their opportunities on the surface of stone at Halibut Point.

Moss

How is it that a singular boulder hosts this verdant colony? Whether algae or moss, it glows with the evidence of organic life finding solar energy and specific nutrients on a unique rock, perhaps brought by a glacier from far away, with its modern history in a pasture wall, a compilation of chemistry and desire.

Lichen

During an interlude between frost and snow a lichen proceeds with fruiting in its own calendar niche, anchored to castoff grout as a peculiar symbiosis of photosynthesizing algae and moisture-retentive fungus, soon to cast fertile spores to the wind for the miniscule prospect of engendering new life afar.

Bacteria

When the temperature and light are just right seepage through the granite evidences a bridge from inert minerals to organic life in the embodiment of cyanobacteria among the shapes and colors that transform a quarry surface into patterns of intrigue we call beauty.

Liminata

The edge of life shimmies with alternate currents of awareness accepting and relinquishing motive forms between states of being, organizing the dynamics of identity over the terrain of conscious boundaries flowing adroitly past inquisitive ends and beginnings.