ANOTHER nature post because I have nothing else to talk about...
School is school and I love the subject matter... it's just that this program is too good to have people in it like Rainbow Unicorn Fart Girl for me to laugh at and/or bang my head against the wall over. If you want, I'll tell you about the final paper I wrote for my one class about the Sin Nombre hantavirus. If you don't want, I won't. I think it's cool, but I think lots of things are cool that nobody else does.
The only other things I have to talk about at the moment are being frustrated with Brat, who apparently WANTS to be diabetic (or thinks it would be easier than, for instance, walking), or being frustrated with myself because my Honey works so hard and he works so much and I just sit here and do school stuff and try to clean occasionally. I'm not going to write more posts being hateful and critical of myself, though, because even if I didn't plan things to end up this way, this is where they are, and no amount of self-punishment is going to change any of it.
So instead I'll talk about trees.
Like this tree. I've posted pictures of it before, but every year it gets more hollow in the middle. It's still alive... all the branches are dead, but there are still twigs at the top with needles on them (it's a pine). I walk past it often, because this is one of my favorite parts of the trail. Sometimes when I see it, it reminds me that humans are the only organisms on this planet who worry about the future; everything else just lives, and it doesn't matter if tomorrow might be the day that hollowed-out trunk finally snaps... today it's still standing. Other times, I see it and it reminds me of how long you can keep going even after everything inside you has been stripped and rotted away. And I have to remind myself that the things I feel like I've lost are things I had to lose, and that unlike this tree I can fill those hollow spaces again with stronger stuff, stuff that won't crumble when the wind shakes it.
This picture isn't upside down... it's just a strange angle. And I can only assume woodpeckers did this because the edges are quite precise, and you can see where they tore into what was probably either an ant's nest or a batch of hibernating grubs, then followed a straight line up the trunk to pursue whatever they were after. The wood is in chips and shreds on the ground. This winter was very harsh, and most of our woodpeckers don't migrate, so I seem to be seeing a lot of damage to trees this spring where instead of pecking smaller holes to get at a particular grub, they've carved out big chunks from trees like this (already fungus-damaged, which is why the insects are there) to get everything they could possibly find.
These are not the usual tree-growing white fungi I show you pictures of, because those are polypores, and they last many years on their host tree. These ones have gills (polypores, as the name implies, have no gills but are full of tiny holes underneath) and look very soft; something has already eaten bits of them. This tree looks fairly healthy otherwise but the presence of fruiting bodies on a living tree is never a good sign, although it may take many years for the fungi to do noticeable damage.
These are pink, even though they don't look like it in the picture. I'm not even going to attempt to come up with a name because these are SOME sort of Aster, and asters are the biggest plant family next to orchids, and a lot of them look just like this, so I don't fuss and just call them all asters. I put these in for Looloo, even if she's still gone on her crooze.
I saw the same thing on the same kind of tree the last few years. By the end of the summer many of the leaves are shriveled beyond recognition. They are obviously some kind of gall, because I can't see a fungus or bacteria doing this sort of thing, but I can't imagine what kind of insect lays this many eggs on every leaf of every one of these trees. I'm going to ask the park rangers about it next time there is actually someone at their office... but I've been waiting three years for THAT to happen.
A lovely dryad's saddle that hasn't even been attacked by flies yet. Their markings are beautiful, especially when they're new. They seem to love stumps of fallen trees more than anything, but dead trees on the ground will suffice as well.
These ones are not so lovely and have been around a bit longer. Like most fruiting bodies, these ones last just long enough to disperse spores and they they're gone.
Our multiflora roses, one of the invasives that farmers dislike the most, due to the fact that they pop up in any untended field and are nearly impossible to eradicate. On the other hand, it's not their fault... they were imported on purpose to control soil erosion, which they are good at doing (there were native plants that could have done the same job, though). They also do provide habitat for wildlife.
Another sort of lumpy gilled mushroom cluster on the side of an otherwise healthy-looking tree. This one is odd for the way it looks as if it's just plastered onto the bark, but it can't be, because a fruiting body doesn't show up unless the mass of the fungus that grew it has plenty to eat underneath.
People grow columbines in their gardens in all sorts of amazing colors, but this is the natural/wild type, at least in this area, and I think their delicate pinks and yellows are prettier than all the brighter garden ones. They are very popular among bees and there were several docile bumblebees meandering around my head and waiting for me to leave so they could get back to them.
As I side note, I love bumblebees... all bees are useful and critically important, but I have a fondness for bumblebees because of their generally placid nature and their soft, fuzzy bodies. The fuzz is not just for looks... bumblebees are active at much lower temperatures than honeybees and are key pollinators of many flowers that emerge while it's still too cold for their un-fuzzy cousins. Their nests are quite small compared to honeybees... usually between 50 and 100 individuals. Unlike honeybees, bumblebees CAN sting repeatedly if they wish to, because there are no barbs on their stingers. On the other hand, it's unlikely that they will even sting you once unless you step on one or are breaking open a nest. Even if you're close enough to a nest that other bees would be swarming you and stinging, bumblebees will just start to lazily "bounce" you. This behavior, bumping into an intruder repeatedly, is a warning, and if you are intelligent enough to heed it, you probably won't get stung. If, after having several large bees bounce off you repeatedly, you do not get the hint, you deserve what you get. I feel absolutely no fear of sticking my camera or my face into flowers where bumblebees are foraging. They will usually ignore you; if particularlly annoyed they may bounce off your head once or twice before getting back to their flowers.
While grasses are wind-pollinated and don't bother with color or petals to attract insects, their delicate flowers are still quite lovely if you look closely. They are designed to be efficient at catching drifting airborn pollen and have nothing interesting to offer pollinators.
This tree is NOT still alive and the fungus decaying it has obviously managed to convert a good part of what used to be "tree" into fungus mass, because these fruiting bodies are growing enthusiastically. Wood decayers are hard to identify unless you're going to cut them open and take them home to check spore colors and patterns (you do this by leaving them on a piece of paper under a bowl or other cover overnight and looking at the spores that are left on the paper the next day; spore color can be a key identification tool).
More very busy woodpeckers. I'd blame this ona larger animal, except that upon closer inspection you find that the work is very precise (they avoided the bases of old branches where the wood is knotted, for example).
In closer view, this has to be the work of woodpeckers... you can see the chambers in the wood where the insects were living and the neat way that the birds worked right around the branch stumps. I'm not sure how many insects they actually find when they tear up a tree like this, but it is a natural part of the life cycle of all parties involved... the trees don't like it, I'm sure, but the woodpeckers wouldn't be there if the trees were not already damaged by insect infestation, and the insects are often (not always) there because the wood is weakened by fungi or other disease. Woodpeckers will return to these trees to forage for more insects, and other insects will take advantage of the new nooks and crannies, and fungi will attack the exposed surface, and the very hard stuff that is wood will gradually be broken down enough to be used by other organisms. Without a process in place to deal with damaged or dying trees, the forest would be full of them, and there would be less room for healthy ones.
Gratuitous lake picture.
More of THESE things, on the same kind of tree. I think it might be some kind of fruit tree, but I'm not sure, and I'd really like to know what is doing this, because it's quite impressive.
A much larger gall. This one was probably attached to a leaf at one point, and it wasn't always hollow... it used to be full of tiny hairs that the larva inside forced the plant to produce so it could nibble on the hairs and steal nutrients from the leaf. They are as thin as a dried-up leaf now, and I don't find them un-crushed very often.
This tree is apparently made of harder stuff, or is not as decayed as the oher ones, because the woodpeckers have been much more specific in their attacks and have made very deep holes, but not torn off so much bark and wood. None of these holes appear to be in use as nests but the creators may come back later and enlarge one, or another species such as a tree swallow may move in.
Another lake picture. The season I love and live for is finally here and my lake is alive again and I feel like I'm fully alive again.
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