Frogs in the Fridge, Frogs in the Marsh

Beaver Marsh Bullfrog

The Earliest Frogs
I used to love visiting my dad's office in the basement of the Science Building at NCCU. I was just a little boy, maybe eight or nine when I saw something there I had never seen before. It was a whole box of live frogs. They had just arrived from Carolina Biological Supply. The box, full of round air holes, was still sealed but I could hear them scrambling around inside. 

I could not wait for that box to be opened. I can't be sure what kind of frogs they were. Maybe small bullfrogs, maybe leopard or green frogs. I just know they were mostly green and brown and not very large. There must have been twenty or more of them in the box. A few were dead. That made me sad for two reasons. First of all I didn't like to see animals suffer and die. Second, the chances that I might get to keep one of them as a pet diminished with every dead body in the box. The others seemed to be doing well. Some seemed to be thriving. Dad put the box on a table near a refrigerator he kept in the lab next to his office. That cold place was going to be their new home. He pulled out one of the vegetable drawers, filled it with some damp wood shavings and put all of the living frogs in the drawer. He said the cold and dark would slow them down and keep them from eating each other. Then I understood why some of them looked so big and robust. He wrapped the dead ones in wax paper and put them in the freezer. All of them were destined for dissection and temporary preservation in formaldehyde. I still remember the smells of the lab.

I didn't know it at the time but my own turn with the frogs would come a few years later when I got to Mr Davis' biology class at Hillside High School. Yes, we did the whole drill of pithing, pinning and dissecting. I'll spare you the details but you probably know anyway.

Swim Like a Frog
Johnny McLendon, son of the famous NCCU basketball coach, John B. McLendon, and I were sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house playing with a frog we had caught earlier that day. We had him in a tub of water from which there was no escape. All he could do was swim around as we amused ourselves by making waves in the water and occasionally putting him on the ground so we could catch him again. I know now that it was no way to treat anything but that is who we were at ten.

Johnny's dad happened by on his way to work at the gymnasium. He stopped to see what mischief we were up to. This time we were innocent. Then, the coach and teacher that he was, recognized a teachable moment. He asked if we noticed how the frog swam with just his legs. He called attention to the webbed feet that looked like swim fins. He pointed out how long he could glide in the water by keeping his arms by his side and his legs straight behind.. It was the "frog kick."  "People can swim like that," he told us.  "Come on down to the pool this afternoon and I'll show you. You can swim just like that frog."

A Long Time Ago

Later that afternoon Johnny and I rounded up the Handy boys, Maurice and Butch and headed for the pool. We took our trunks just in case we might get invited to actually get in the water. It wasn't everyday that they let kids in the pool. Mostly we stood outside the wall looking longingly at the cool water. This, however, was a lucky day. Coach beckoned us in. I won't go through all the details. But I will say that after some amazing demonstrations and some masterful teaching we could all do a passable frog kick. I think that is when I first knew I could swim, I mean really swim. In a way my very first swimming lesson came from a frog. In later life, though, I had to unlearn that first lesson as the biomechanics of the frog kick became better understood. Now in competitive circles it is better known as the whip kick, a better reflection of what is really going on. Well, even though I now do it the correct way, it is still the frog kick to me. Thanks Coach!

Tadpoles
Ms Glenn's eight grade science room at Whitted School always had at least one aquarium. I remember especially the angel fish that she kept. I always thought they moved very stiffly despite their very graceful appearance. I can say that for my money they were not graceful at all. They just never seemed to really glide. But compared to the bumbling bullfrog tadpoles that she kept in the same tank, angel fish were ballerinas extraordinaire. I think that in the aquatic world there are no clumsier critters than bullfrog tadpoles. They waddled to swim and seemed to bump into everything in the tank. Their tiny mouths pouting in front of those enormous heads constantly nibbled at some unseen algae film. What was remarkable about them, or so it seemed at the time, is that they never grew up. My memory may be tricking me but I could swear Ms Glenn had those same three tadpoles in that tank for a whole year or more. Sure, they developed those little tadpole legs but they never became frogs. It remains one of the mysteries of my childhood.

Those bullfrog tadpoles were so much different from the tiny black toad tadpoles I used to catch. They would thrive on fish food, become tiny toads in a few weeks, climb up on the rocks I provided, and inevitably escape only to be found dried up and dead and full of dust somewhere on the floor of my bedroom.

So there is some history with me, frogs, and toads. They don't have the same place in my heart as turtles but they are pretty high up there.

The Beaver Marsh Bullfrogs

Wander along the edge of the Beaver Marsh Preserve in Durham, NC and one will always hear some scampering and splashing as small frogs leap into the water to safety. Sometimes the splashes seem especially loud meaning you have disturbed one of the local bullfrogs. They almost always see you before you see them. It is no doubt how they avoid becoming meals for herons, snakes, and even raccoons  who also frequent the edges of the marsh.

The Culvert

There is one place at the marsh where people are not likely to wander and herons are not likely to land. It is a little pool, fed by a large drainage culvert and runoff from the roadway through a couple of openings in the curb. It is behind a fence and heavily overgrown with vegetation, making at almost impenetrable. At the least it is uninviting. But that little pool seems to support a surprisingly large community of bullfrogs. They are the quintessential "big (relatively speaking) frogs in a little pond."

Into the Secret Life of Frogs

I stumbled upon this little place during one my routine trash pick-ups at the marsh. As I reached in under some brush with my tongs to pick up a plastic bag, I heard a big splash.  I froze then slowly moved closer to the edge of the culvert for a closer look. There they were. Two large bullfrogs still sitting on the bank of a little pool, seemingly not phased by the sudden escape of their companion or my presence. I watched motionless for a while then slowly pulled back. They didn't buy it. Both took the leap into the pool. One thing for sure. Next time I would bring my camera.

A Camera Sniper's View

As it turns out, bringing the camera was one thing. Getting the pictures was something else altogether. The first couple of times I approached the pool, there was a flurry of splashes as everybody scrambled to get back in the water. Once they jumped in, that was it for at least a couple of hours. This was going to take some time. The first lesson was that I would get nowhere approaching the pool standing up. Maybe I was too much like a heron to them or perhaps just anything big was enough to spook them. Maybe they expect to be harassed by some of the local kids. Who knows? For me, there was only one way. I had to crawl like a sniper, camera in hand, over the curb to the edge of the culvert, moving as slowly as I could until I could get a view of the pool. Eiko and Koma would have been proud. The truck drivers who passed by just gave me a knowing wave and kept on going

If it Fits, Eat it.

At first I thought the little pool might be home to two or three large bullfrogs, mostly the ones I had seen earlier. After a few visits I understood that there were at least half a dozen of them that hung out in that small space. It was surprising because I know them to be aggressively territorial, especially the males. They are also cannibalistic. In fact they will eat just about anything moving thing they can catch and stuff into their wide mouths including insects, fish, small birds, snakes, and other frogs. They are eating machines who occupy a place pretty high on the food chain. Well, to truncate this story, I never figured out what these frogs were finding to eat in that small place but nearly all of them appeared to be well fed. One even appeared to have eaten too much. Her belly was distended and she still had traces of something around her mouth. There was a story there but I had missed the action so all I could do was imagine some poor critter crossing the path of this voracious mouth. Ambush. One highly accurate, open-mouthed, engulfing leap and it was captured. Then the front legs start to stuff the meal in alternating with right and left pushes until the final gulp. Gone. I still don't know what they are eating.

Stand-off

Once while focusing on a larger frog sitting on the bank of the pond I saw a smaller one swim up to the bank from underwater. It was a moment of high drama. For the little one, it had to be an "Oh S--t" moment. Imagine coming up for air only to be confronted by something almost big enough to eat you and fast enough to try. For the larger frog it was measuring time. "Can I really get that one in my mouth and if so, can I turn slowly enough so that I don't spook him?" The smaller frog's calculation was different. "Should I make a break for it or just sit here motionless and hope she looses interest? If I break for it, which way should I go, back to the water or over land?" It was high drama and I dared not move a muscle. The three of us stayed frozen for the longest time. The larger one made the first move. It was an almost imperceptible turn to the right. That was it. In a flash the little one scrambled onto the land behind the larger on and in two bounds was out of sight. In the meantime the larger on had quickly turned toward a target that was no longer there. Not fast enough. End of story. At least I knew one thing. They will eat each other.

Over the Summer the area became more and more impenetrable as the vines and shrubs thickened. My visits became less frequent as I became less willing to navigate the terrain. Now it is even more difficult because of a new fence around the culvert. Nevertheless, it remains one of my favorite places to check on when I visit the marsh. It still holds mysteries to solve and stories to tell. There will be more to come.

In the meantime Here is a little slide show of some my images of bullfrogs of the beaver marsh. It will open in another window on your browser. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed capturing them.

The Magicicadas of Brood XIX

I didn't hear the phone. Or maybe I heard it and assumed it was my friend Alfred from Liberia who frequently calls at odd hours, ignoring the time difference between there and here. No matter. I missed the call that would certainly have gotten me out of bed at 2:30 in the morning and out of the house, camera in hand, to witness something I had never seen before.

Photo Malik Lee

My youngest son, Malik, was frantically trying to reach me to tell me about something he had never seen before either, the emergence of the Brood XIX cicadas right there in his back yard. He could hardly contain himself but in between the calls, he did have the presence of mind to grab his camera and start shooting. It was exactly what I would have done. Some of his pix are included in this blog along with my own.

The ground was full of the holes they had come out of and little brown cicada nymphs were crawling up every vertical surface they could find; tree trunks, vines, deck posts, chimneys, brick walls, lamp posts, anything that would get them off the ground. There they could shed those confining exoskeletons and free themselves to be those amazing flying, singing, adult red-eyed creatures that we only get to see every thirteen years. These very cicadas had been deep underground all this time, since 1998, feeding on the sap in tree roots, growing into adolescence, and waiting for just the right moment. Now was the time.

Photos: Malik Lee

The shedding of that exoskeleton takes time during which the young adults are soft and vulnerable. It is something best done under cover of darkness to avoid predators and dehydration (or worse) from sunlight. They may look a bit strange, even alien at times, especially up close with spooky bottom lighting. But eventually the whole insect emerges with bright red eyes and very little visible pigment, It looks like a ghostly representation of its future adult self . Mark Doljes has posted an nice time lapse video of the whole process.

Photo: Malik Lee

 I was more excited for Malik than I was for myself because I knew that it would be something he would remember and recount for a long time. For him it would be one of those "Do you remember where you were when . . . ?" moments. I knew he could now count himself among the very few people who had actually witnessed the synchronized emergence of swarms of  those fascinating insects.

It was made all the more special because of the opportunity it gave my grandsons, Julius and Langston (Jules and Yaya). At first there was some fear to overcome. Those were "bugs" after all, and probably meant to be feared, disdained, avoided, or probably killed for daring to exist in the same space as humans. It was special to see it turn into fascination and maybe even respect. I hope this is just the beginning of a special relationship of curiosity and respect between them and the natural world. Cicadas are probably a good start. They don't bite, sting, or carry infectious diseases. Very cool little beasties.

I have always been fascinated by the cast-off shells of the emerging nymphs. They always looked much tougher than they actually are. As a child, I never really connected them to cicadas or any other bug that I knew of. When I found them, I imagined them to be rugged little suits of armor that were durable and somehow useful. Maybe they could decorate something or be used to make jewelry. How about making a slide for one of those bolo ties that I thought were so cool. It was never to be. The little shells were always too light, too thin, and way too fragile to be used for anything that my young mind could conceive. But, never give up. I still pick them up whenever I see them . . . and to this day they remain too light, too thin, and way too fragile. They do have this going for them. The tiny spines on the tips of their legs will cling to almost anything. Perfect temporary adornments to Summer t-shirts.

The cicadas we normally see and hear in this part of the country are called annual cicadas or dog day cicadas. They are the ones that, thanks to my dad, I knew as Grandpa Cricket when I was growing up. It is a story I have told in a previous blog. Some of them emerge and mature every year. They do spend long periods of time underground as nymphs but not as long as the magicicadas and they don't have a synchronous emergence. The males are much larger and their calls are individually loud. The late afternoon chorus is composed of easily distinguishable individuals, each taking his turn in that unmistakable rising and falling call.

Adult Male Dog Day Cicada and Adult Male Brood XIX Magicicada

 The Brood XIX cicadas are different. They come out all together every thirteen years. The males are smaller and not as loud. Their numbers are so great that distinguishing individuals (at least for humans) is difficult. The chorus envelopes the ear with an ocean of cicada love songs that sounds like something from a B-grade Sci Fi movie.  Here is a sample recorded in mid May near the Eno River State Park in Durham.


Here is a version of the same scene with some of the closer cicadas and and other chirpers filtered out. To my ear it is more like what I heard in the park.


While this year's Brood XIX cicadas were a special treat for me, it is still the dog day cicada  that holds that special place in my heart. I count on seeing and hearing them every year, much later in the Summer,  even as they signal the beginning of the end of warm weather and the coming of another dreaded Winter. It was the dog day cicada, Grandpa Cricket,  that first taught me about the complex web of life that we know as nature. Things are never as simple as they seem. There is always more for us to observe, another set of things to be discovered, and another story to be told .

Nevertheless there was something special about the Brood XIX this year. I was aware of the 1998 emergence but I didn't experience it directly. This time, I actually saw some of the brood and I paid close attention to them . I photographed them and recorded their sounds.  I helped to introduce my grandchildren to them and I shared my youngest son's fascination with them. I can think forward to the next time they come. The grandkids will be teenagers, Malik will be in his fifties, and I . . .? Well, . . . thirteen years is a long time!

The Last Mantis

 

I have to say that for me there is something totally fascinating about praying mantises. I never tire of seeing them as I always do in late Summer and early Fall. Take a look at this one. On the one hand they are kind of comical. On the other hand they seem alien, almost like they are not from this planet. They are slow moving but capable of flight. They are clumsy afoot in their chosen habitats but swift of "hand" when it comes to capturing prey. They are masters of stealth and camouflage but easily seen once the eye is trained to look for them. So, permit me one more entry about mantises. Actually this one is about a particular praying mantis whom I got to know over the course of a few weeks, right outside my front door. I call her "The Last Mantis." The story is not pretty and a few of the images may be upsetting to some. Click on any image to see a larger version. Reader/viewer discretion is advised.

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The Last Mantis

As the season stretched toward Winter without showing the slightest hint of what is to come, I continued to watch this one praying mantis just outside my front door where she had taken up residence in a large boxwood bush. Normally by this time of year all of them are gone. The females have deposited their last eggs into those tough brown egg cases and cold weather has weakened or killed them. Sightings are rare. The Last Mantis had already outlived her expected time. Her lifespan was extended into early November by the unseasonably warm temperatures of this year's Fall. For weeks, I had counted on seeing her in the same bush almost every morning as she basked in the early sun.

Sometimes it was not all that clear who was watching whom. At first when I approached, she would immediately turn and look at me with that typical mantis stare; the one that says, "I am watching you and I hope that's enough to keep you from getting too close." After a while, though, she seemed to get used to my presence and more often than not she just ignored me. Most days I did nothing more than just stand and look at her for a while. On a few occasions, I brought my camera out with me just to capture a few shots of whatever she was up to at the time. Sometimes she was moving slowly toward some other position. Other times she was eating. Mostly, though, she just seemed to be sitting there waiting and watching.

I suppose one could say she was hunting, but for her the hunt was not much of an active stalking, at least not at first. It was more like being in the right place at the right time. It meant being someplace where there was some reasonable likelihood that another insect would land nearby or perhaps crawl within striking range of those extremely quick forelegs. If something landed a bit too far away she would creep toward it but speed-of-leg was not her strength. It was the speed of those forelegs that really did the trick. She hung out in the upper parts of that boxwood where her favorite perch was at least four feet above the ground. That was something of a puzzle for me. Why was she so high in the bush when all of the good stuff seemed to be on the ground?

On several occasions, I had seen The Last Mantis consuming either a cricket or a grasshopper. No surprise that she would catch and eat them. The surprise was where she caught them. For some time I had wondered why I never saw the mantises down on the ground in the very thick grass where, it seems, all the grasshoppers and crickets lived. Instead mantises seemed to prefer the higher perches in bushes and heavier brush, at least during this time of year. Perhaps it has something to do with preferred egg laying sites. Whatever the choice, it did seem to work. Enough grasshoppers, crickets, and other insects ventured toward the upward reaches of the bushes to make large and presumably tasty meals for the mantises that waited there.

--- The Last Days ----

One day in late October, The Last Mantis managed to catch a really huge grasshopper,  much bigger than she could normally hope for in that bush and much larger than anything I had seen her tackle before. As it turns out, this largest meal was probably be her last, at least as far as I know.

Normally they eat from one end to the other. Everything goes down. This time it would be different. She removed one hind leg and ate the juiciest part of the large muscle before just dropping the rest of it to the ground. Then she moved to the soft body parts in the abdomen and thorax and ate her fill there. A little fly who, at any another time might, itself, have been a tasty morsel for the mantis, now sat right in front of her watching the feast, perhaps hoping to share some of the leftovers.

But this was not going to be a windfall for the fly, not that day. As I watched, The Last Mantis suddenly lifted her head from the open cavity, released her grip, and dropped what was left of the grasshopper to the ground. She was done. It was time for some preening to remove the spatters of the meal. I watched as she carefully wiped and licked every part of her face, eyes, forelimbs and anything else that had been soiled during the capture, struggle, and subsequent meal. She reminded me of a cat. The meticulous preening seemed such a counterpoint to the rather brutal scenario that preceded it.

Within seconds of hitting the ground, the grasshopper was discovered by dozens of ants who may already have been alerted by the earlier droppings from the meal. It was amazing. They dispatched the entire corpse in less than an hour. It was like it never happened. The ground was absolutely cleaned of any trace.

As for The Last Mantis, after cleaning herself all over, she just hung in the same place for a long time, upside down, her quick and powerful forelimbs just drooping, as if they were limp. She was looking down, almost reaching, toward the fallen grasshopper, now teeming with ants. She seemed to watch as they consumed the remains particle by particle. It was as if she were contemplating her own future; a future that would come sooner rather than later.

A few days later it got very cold. Nighttime temperatures fell into the thirties. I knew what that would mean for The Last Mantis but on the following days I went looking for her anyway. Nothing. I probed the bushes, gently pulling the branches apart so I could peer into the lower areas. To be honest, at this point I was looking for her remains, hoping to take her inside for some last photographs. Nothing. She was gone. Perhaps a bird picked her off or perhaps she dropped to the ground and the ants took her away. In any case I know I will never see her again.  She is now a memory, a collection of photographs, and another source of deep gratitude for my many experiences that come from just watching.

Oh, there is one more thing. In rambling through the branches of the bush looking for her body, I discovered one more fresh egg case left there by The Last Mantis. She had not wasted the nutrients she took in during her final days. Something to look forward to next Spring.

Praying for Mantises

I don't remember much about praying mantises from my childhood. I have to think that I didn't see very many of them if I saw any at all. Surely anything that fascinates me so much as an adult would have grabbed my attention as a curious youngster. Oh, and rest assured I was curious if nothing else. I examined everything and brought way too much of it home. Many of my childhood fascinations have followed me into adulthood. Since I cannot remember them from childhood, I have to assume that praying mantises came relatively late into my life. Oddly, though, I don't remember when that might have happened. But  it did happen and for a long time since they have occupied a prominent place in my consciousness, especially at certain times of the year.

It is usually in the late Summer and early Fall. I go into a state of high vigilance as I go on the lookout for one of those most interesting of insects, the praying mantises. When the weather is hot and the vegetation is lush in mid season, I almost never see them. It is not that they are not there. It is that they are secretive, stealthy hunters who are well camouflaged in the vegetation they use for ambush. They are busy eating and growing in the run up to the mating season when their normally solitary existence begins to change to something more social. Once the Summer starts to fade into Fall, I know I can count on seeing one or two of them, usually females, somewhere in my yard.  Nevertheless, there is always an element of suspense to my annual search. I never know for sure when and where I will have that first sighting. I just know I can't wait.

Perhaps I should call it a hunt even though that sounds too predatory for the way I feel. If I am the hunter or predator in this case, it is only with my eyes and my camera. My shot does not ring out with the explosion of gunpowder and my target does not fall fatally wounded from a high tech projectile hurled from ambush. I do not stuff their murdered bodies and mount them in my den for all to see and I don't eat them. I am only after the image and maybe the connection with this most interesting creature, not the body and not the soul. I have to trust that those are simply wrong who believe that by capturing an image I am imprisoning a soul .

The first sighting of an adult mantis is always a thrill. This year it was a real bonanza. There were three different mantises in one bush at the same time. They were in a place I always check because at least one seems to show up there every year. I worried that these three might encounter each other and that some sort of conflict might ensue. Nothing happened that I could see. The three of them stayed there for most of the last part of Summer. They were all females and it was egg laying time. Conflict with others was probably the last thing on their minds.

Finding that first mantis is one thing. Getting the photograph I want is another. Don't get me wrong. It is very easy to get a picture of a mantis  once you have found the insect. They are very cooperative in that way. It is almost as if they can't wait to pose for the camera. And that is precisely the problem. Getting a candid shot of a mantis is a bit of a challenge because the are difficult to sneak up on.  Here I have spotted one deeply concealed in a bush but I can get only one shot off before she turns  and looks me straight in the eye. So much for mantis candids.

 They are very wary but show little or no fear of humans. If they do feel threatened, they either move away or turn toward the threat and show a threatening posture of their own. Even though they can fly, that doesn't seem to be their first impulse when confronted.

This one has assumed a threat/defense posture which is telling me that I have gotten too close and should back off. Students of the martial arts, especially Kung Fu, will recognize the classic raised arms of the Praying Mantis Style. If one persists in getting too close, some mantises might actually attack by jumping toward the threat. That despite the fact that they represent absolutely no real danger to humans. They have no stingers and the grasping forelegs that are deadly to smaller insects can barely penetrate human skin. Nevertheless, the quick strike of a defensive mantis can be an intimidating experience, even for old school nature lovers like myself. I am forever grateful that they do not get much bigger. A two-foot mantis would be something to contend with.


Both of the adult mantises in this entry (one brown and one green) are female and both are heavy with eggs. Hence the large abdomens. In late Summer they lay their eggs in foamy secretion that forms a surprisingly tough bell-shaped case once it is dry. The foam comes out as a very wet, bubbly, sticky foam not unlike that expandable foam used by builders to insulate and fill cavities in home construction. It hardens quickly to form a tough, almost impenetrable place for the eggs to develop. The small case shown below was deposited late in the season by the very same female shown above in threat posture.  The case is small as she was nearing the end of her egg supply and the end of her life cycle. Her last few eggs were probably laid in the smaller, incomplete case just to the right. She will spend the remaining days in a weakened state and vulnerable to predation by other creatures seeking provisions for the upcoming Winter.

If all goes well and some pesky parasitic wasp doesn't find the egg case right away, the little ones are safe for now. Over the cold months of Fall and Winter, they begin their slow development, accelerating when there are warm spells and slowing down during the coldest periods.

(I once made the mistake of bringing one of these egg cases home after finding it during a fall hike. I left it out on a warm window sill in my kitchen. You can guess what happened. One day in December I noticed lots of little grayish "ants" crawling all around the egg case and well beyond. They weren't ants at all. They were what seemed like hundreds of little praying matises busy trying to make a life for themselves. Sadly none of them survived. The few I managed to capture just ate each other until only one or two remained. They did grow a bit but finally succumbed despite my best efforts to feed them fruit flies and some small bugs that I managed to find outside in Winter.)

By Springtime they are ready for the world and the end of anything even close to safety. The little ones hatch as soon as it starts to get warm in early Spring. They emerge by the dozens, maybe hundreds, from the egg cases and begin life as formidable little hunters. Barely over a quarter of an inch long, they come out as nymphs, fully formed preying mantises except for the wings. They are complete with over-sized eyes and those lightning fast front legs that have inspired martial artists for centuries. They emerge as minuscule but very effective little predators.  The little ones will attack and eat anything that moves as they disperse quickly from the egg case. Often that means attacking and eating any of their kin they happen to encounter. For many of them, life is a simple zero sum game to be played out first with siblings and later with other small creatures. Eat or be eaten is the rule. One is either the diner or the dinner. It is just that simple. These two youngsters are in just such a standoff. In this mini-drama, the one on the left must decide whether to turn and face the advancing sibling or leap for the closest branch. In this case discretion proved to be the better part of valor. He made the leap.

Most mantises don't survive their infancy. Those that do have made it through a gauntlet of spiders, wasps, birds, big raindrops, their own kin, and lots of other potential misfortunes. At least they do not have to worry about adult mantises. None of those will have survived the previous Fall or Winter. The big ones are all gone. Some of the new ones will grow up to be adults in their own rights and take their places among some of the top predators of the insect world.

Here is one of the adult females at work gathering in the last bits of nutrients for the season. She has caught a grasshopper. This is the same mantis that was looking so threatening in one of the photos above. For now she is getting just enough nutrition to see her through the physically demanding process of laying her eggs. While it might be difficult to tell them apart by color and some elements of structure, there is no mistaking their different roles. Mantis and grasshopper are diner and dinner respectively. It may not be pretty but it is what there is to be seen. So I watch and learn and share, another carryover from childhood.

And so it goes every season with little variation. I plan to be there again in the Spring to watch it unfold all over again. Maybe next time I will get lucky and see something I have never seen before. That, after all, is why I keep looking. If I am really fortunate I'll have my camera close at hand. In any case, you know I will share.

Grandpa Cricket: Cicadas and Childhood

For me there is a certain melancholy that comes with this time of year. It is triggered mostly by the daily choruses of the male cicadas looking for mates. The adults are nearing the end of their long life cycles, some as long as seventeen years. They are spending the short summer as adult flying creatures, preparing to mate, secure the next generation, and die with the coming of Fall. Those cicada songs portend the end of my beloved Summer and the beginning of the darkness of Fall and Winter. It is the annual cycle that lifts me up and puts me down with every orbit of earth around the sun. Whatever it is for them is one thing. For me, the cicadas sing a song of coming darkness.

My introduction to cicadas came long before I knew what they were and long before I ever saw one. As a little boy I was mesmerized by that sound. I can still remember running around with a jar, catching lightning bugs on late Summer evenings . I recall being focused on the little flashing things that I could see while ignoring the chorus of things that I couldn't see as the daylight faded away. But sometimes the raspy voices would penetrate my consciousness and there they would be! Those invisible, loud singers who started as soloists then built into some kind of mysterious and magnificent choral crescendo of textured sound. Who were they? How big must they be to make so much noise? Where were they? Why couldn't I see them?

My dad supplied the only answer I had for a long time. "Listen," he would say as one of them started up. "It's Grandpa Cricket." That was all the information I had and all the information I needed. My little four-year-old mind took over and constructed Grandpa Cricket out of just the name, the big sound, and an overactive imagination. Grandpa Cricket was huge,  mysterious, formless, and probably had an appetite for little boys who strayed too far from their parents on late Summer evenings. My dad allowed the fantasy. In some way it helped keep me in check. I am sure he was amused to no end but he never let on. As far as I was concerned, Grandpa Cricket was real and at least as big as I imagined. He was real because my dad, the biologist, had told me so. That was good enough.

  Newly Emerged                Mature 

It was years before I ever saw Grandpa Cricket in person. Even as I picked up those strange brown cicada nymph casings, I did not make the connection. I think I must have been twelve or thirteen years old before I learned about the life cycle and associated Grandpa Cricket with those large flying bugs with the clear wings, huge eyes, and greenish frosty looking exoskeletons who were not really crickets after all. I had even handled a few of the mostly dead or dying ones I found lying about during the late Summer.

Nymph Skeleton and Adult Remains

My very first focused encounter with an active cicada turned out to be my most exciting. I was maybe fourteen years old at the time. I heard a cicada calling from a nearby large bush and decided to try to find him. I wanted to get close enough to watch him make that noise. I wanted to be close enough to see every detail of that elusive big bug. So began the dance. I would move toward the sound. The sound would stop. I would freeze in place and wait. The sound would begin again and I would move again, closer and closer. It would stop. So would I. Sometimes I could barely move before it stopped but I was a determined cicada stalker. After what seemed like a lifetime of juvenile stealth, I was close enough for the sound to be almost deafening. But I still could not find the cicada. Something about his sound made it impossible for me to pin down his location, even though I knew I was within a few feet of my quarry.

I may have been having trouble finding the cicada but somebody else had no trouble at all. Something streaked past my head and into my field of view! Wham! My eyes followed it to where it landed and there right before me was Grandpa Cricket! But he had company. That streak was a large wasp, heavy bodied with bold yellow stripes on the abdomen. It had flown right past my head to attack the cicada. The two of them were locked in a struggle that was going to have only one outcome. The wasp stung the cicada who let out one last weakened crackly call then fell silent and motionless. After a short time, the wasp took off carrying the cicada into the air! They vanished as suddenly as the wasp had appeared. The once mighty Grandpa Cricket was gone, carried away by a creature smaller than himself but impressive enough. Grandpa Cricket's magic power over me was gone too, at least most of it. A bit still lives inside that little boy who still lives inside of me.

Grandma Cricket still looks pretty formidable

In the age long before the internet and long before Google, I set out to find out about that flying streak that had taken down the mighty ghost of my childhood. I was not ready for what I found.The flying predator does not kill her prey to eat. In fact she doesn't kill it at all, at least not right away and not directly. She is known as the  cicada killer wasp. As with many such wasps, they sting their prey, not to feed themselves but to feed their as yet unborn young. Cicada killer females are specialized predators. They sting cicadas to paralyze them, not to kill them. They bury the living cicada in a nesting chamber they have dug in the ground. They lay a single egg on the hapless cicada who remains sealed in the chamber until the young wasp larva hatches. The youngster feeds on the cicada throughout his early development until he becomes an overwintering pupa. The following Spring it emerges as an adult and begins the cycle all over again. Adult wasps don't eat cicadas. They are vegans like lots of wasps and seem satisfied with flower nectars alone.

Just recently as I was having one of my frequent walkabouts in the backyard I came upon a cicada in the grasp of a cicada killer. Unbelievable! There it was again. Just what I had been writing about in this blog. Now I could have the perfect photo to go with the rest. I ran for my camera but by the time I got back to the scene the wasp had gone. The cicada was still there, motionless but abandoned. I was so disappointed but not surprised. Sometimes the wasps  will abandon prey if it seems too much trouble to get it to the nesting site. I waited at a distance for almost two hours to see if she would return and claim her prize. She never came back. I guess I will have to publish this one without my own picture of one of the stars of the show.

As for the cicada, not to worry. Nothing goes to waste in nature. The ants had already begun to investigate. If they had not come along, a bird certainly would have. It was fresh protein. It was also a fresh opportunity for me. I shooed the ants away and brought the cicada inside for a more formal photo, this time of Grandma Cricket. She is still here. I thought about returning her to the outside to meet her already sealed fate. But then I began to imagine that she might be aware of what is happening. Being eaten by bird might make for a quick and merciful end. Being slowly dismantled by a swarm of tiny ants seems like a pretty horrible way to go. Perhaps neither is as bad as being a long term meal for the offspring of the creature that paralyzed you in the first place. Maybe nature is more merciful than I think. Maybe with the paralysis comes complete unconsciousness. I hope so. In any case, for now she is here, uneaten but not going anywhere.

Female Cicada: Alive but Paralyzed by Cicada Killer Wasp

Many years ago and miles away from here, I had another encounter with the cicada killer wasp. It changed my whole outlook on the insect world. But that story will have to wait for another time. In the meantime, before it is too late in the season, go outside this Summer and listen carefully to that chorus of the cicadas. Imagine yourself to be a little boy who had been told that those voices have a name: Grandpa Cricket. If you listen carefully, you may hear one of them emit a short stutter of a call, one that sounds like it has been interrupted or choked off. Chances are that one has just met a cicada killer (or perhaps a hungry bird).


August 14, 2010 Update:

While Grandma Cricket might have remained alive but paralyzed in the confines of the cicada killer's nest, she did not survive the week here with me. Now I am wondering what keeps them on life support during the period of confinement before they are eaten by the young wasps. In any case, I have sought to immortalize her with one last photo before I release her to the elements.

Panoramic View of Cicada. Click on Image to Enlarge

Who Else Lives Here?

The place I call home is home to others as well. Not all of them are cute, furry, or feathery. Once one gets past the bunnies, squirrels, and birds, there is much more to see.  I try to pay attention to the seldom seen beings and their stories when I can. This is a small collection of some of those episodes from my yard.  All of the images are from right here on Nelson Street. It is amazing how many dramas are played out on a small scale right under our noses. They are all parts of the ordinary cycles of life and death amongst the small creatures that for the most part escape our notice. For them almost every encounter is a zero sum game that has a definite winner and a definite loser. We can start with one I have rarely seen, let alone photographed.

This female parasitic wasp has captured, stung, and paralyzed a caterpillar. She will drag it into a nesting hole she has dug in the ground.
There she will entomb the caterpillar and lay a single egg. The caterpillar will remain alive but paralyzed and sealed in the hole until the young wasp hatches. You can guess what it eats until it is ready to emerge and begin the cycle all over again.


Had that unfortunate caterpillar escaped the sting of the wasp and lived to complete its normal life cycle, it might have grown up look something like this beauty just out of the chrysalis.


Then there is the magnificent black and yellow mud dauber as seen here from underneath. I caught this lovely one inside my house and couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a closer look. After keeping her in the fridge long enough to slow her down, I placed her on my scanner and got this image. She was later released unharmed. Mud daubers, another of the parasitic wasps, build those crusty clay nests that seem to show up under eaves, mailboxes and other protected places in our homes that we do not clean very often. They sting and paralyze (but not kill) mostly spiders which they stuff into cylindrical clay tubes. Once they have enough spiders in a tube, they lay a single egg on one of the spiders and seal the tube with clay. She may create multiple tubes, each containing one egg and enough spiders to do the job. Then the whole thing is plastered over to make it look like a clay blob. When the young ones hatch, -- well you know the story by now. I will do a more detailed blog on the mud daubers later.

Speaking of spiders, I don't necessarily recommend allowing black widow spiders to hang around in places that you frequent, but they do make interesting neighbors, worth paying attention to.

This one has just captured a June bug in her web. If all goes according to plan, she will wrap her prey with silk bindings, paralyze him with venom, inject digestive juices into the body, and leave the chemicals to do their work of turning the insides of the bug into a juicy pulp. Then she will return, suck out the nutritious bug juices, and discard the empty shell of a carcass.

June bugs are probably not a favorite prey for the spider. It would be a big meal but they  have too much strength and too much armor. This captive has already wrecked the web with his struggles. He eventually escaped before she could wrap him up. As it turns out, this arachnid mother  had more than a few mouths to feed. Shortly after the June bug escaped, dozens of miniature black widow spiders emerged from an egg sac that had been hanging hidden under a nearby rock.

There is no way such a small area can accommodate that many black widow spiders. Most won't survive anyway since they are cannibalistic at that age. Others will fly away attached to a fine thread of silk blown by the wind. My guess is that some of them will wind up in one of those clay tubes that the mud daubers prepare.

My favorite predator neighbors are the preying mantises that show up every year. They deserve their own blog entry which is forthcoming. For now just consider this beauty looking back at me as I invade her space. Imagine being a fly and coming face to face with this.



That's it for now. In future postings I'll talk in more detail about other specific animals or plants that inhabit this little corner of the ecosystem and share some of my photos of them. For now I hope you have enjoyed these little sketches.

Time at the Tracks

After much hesitation, I have finally resolved to begin a blog. I use the word "resolve" advisedly since, well, you know. Sometimes these things just do not have legs. For now let's just say I will try.

Recently I have been spending lots of time at a couple of sites in Durham, NC where I have been photographing railroad tracks. The two sites, one in East Durham near the old grain silos, the other near the new train station in downtown Durham, are both abandoned. The tracks have not been used in years. Ties are rotting, hardware is rusting, and vegetation is slowly reclaiming the tracks. 

I go there because of an almost lifelong fascination with railroad tracks. My childhood wanderings often led me to the railroad tracks, either along some  neglected and rusty remote spur surrounded by woodlands or across the dangerous territory of an active urban switch yard. The engines and cars were thrilling to see up close but it was the mechanics of the track that always fascinated me. 

This current project is about those tracks, the old ones. The images are close examinations of what made the tracks work and survive. While it is a series about technology, it is also a series about human imagination. The images reflect the  sculptural elements inherent in engineering solutions to technological problems. They also show the interplay between industrial production of components and manual installation of those same components. It is industrial perfection vs. human imperfection. In some sense there are ghosts of dead industries present in the images, references to defunct US manufacturers and former steel cities. Some of the older spikes might show hammer blows from some long-gone Gandy dancer while others show the precise marks of hydraulic drivers, the new robotic dancers that sing no songs but have work rhythms nevertheless. It is about  progress and decay. 

I have made a little slide show of some of the earliest images. You can find it at the Track Pix page on my website. This is only the beginning of a longer project that I hope will result in a show someday. For now the collection of images is growing and the project is taking on a life of its own.

In addition to making photographs of what I am seeing, I am also picking up little pieces of discards from years of track maintenance and track neglect. There are the railroad spikes, tie plates, track bolts, track anchors, and other odds and ends that I just pick up and bring home. Some of them have become parts of an ongoing sculptural exercise in my front yard. At some point these will be incorporated into a formal showing of photos and sculptures in some gallery or other public venue. That was a hint to any curators out there who might like to take this on.

As much as anything, this is about childhood vision. I am going back to a place I loved and seeing it all over again, through he same eyes, naive, full of wonder and fascination, but now with a sense of perspective. All the time I am hoping a real train will happen by while I am there. It never happens. Not on these tracks.

Like many kids, I had toy trains (after a certain age we started calling them "model" trains because "toys" were not cool) and all of the interest in trains that came with that youthful territory. In the real world though, I was always most fascinated with the tracks themselves. Sure the Locomotives and various cars were great, but for me the infrastructure was the most interesting part. I just loved the tracks. I used to walk along the very tracks that were recently torn up to make way for the American Tobacco Trail. I loved to walk them, even the trestle that crossed South Roxboro Street, a dangerous enterprise that has its own set of stories.  Now that is where I ride my bike. The area is built up on all sides of the trail now. It is truly an urban trail. The temptation to leave it and wander around in the wilderness is gone.

Back in the day the tracks made their way through undeveloped territory, across streams, through woods and small farms, across roadways, and even through little neighborhoods. It was far from the urban area that is now that part of Durham City/County. One could stay on the tracks and see all sorts of wildlife from snakes sunning themselves on the rocky ballast to the occasional fox or deer who always seemed surprised to see a human on foot in their territory. The tracks were something like a main trail from which one could have any number of adventures. A little detour into the woods or along a stream would always lead back to the tracks. They were the marker, the way back home.