Dogbane and the Hummer

I wasn’t expecting this lovely pink streaked, bell shaped flower to have so bland a name as dogbane (Apocynum androsaemifolium).
It seems the plant derives its name from its shady reputation rather than the delicate bell shaped flowers that hang from its stems. “Apocynum” is the Greek word for “away dog”. Back in the 1700’s extracts of this plant were said to have been used as poisons to rid the countryside of wild dogs. In recent times, however, though the plant is still very toxic to both animals and humans, derivatives from this plant family have saved lives through use in many pharmaceuticals.
I spotted this dogbane along the roadside one afternoon and walked back the next morning to get a closer look. My walk turned out to be more of a challenge than I expected. After a night of rain, the clay road had turned to mud and readily stuck to the bottom of my shoes like ever increasing mounds of concrete. I suddenly understood why adobe is so widely used as a building material in the west.

As I stopped to shake loose some of the mud, I heard the familiar chirp of a humming bird as she flew past my head. It so happened that I had stopped very near her favorite perch. So when I returned from photographing the flower, she was still there.
Hummingbirds are known for ‘hawking’, that is, hunting from a perch, flying out to grab an insect, then returning to a perch to repeat this again and again. And this is exactly what she was doing. In fact, as I stood photographing her, I became keenly aware of a different kind of buzzing around my head--I was attracting some of the mosquitoes that she was busily hunting. Best guess ID: female broad-tailed hummingbird. All hummingbird females lack the brilliant markings of the males, but their subtleness is also what makes them so beautiful. The rufous tint in her feathers along side that irridescent green is just exquisite. Also notice the delicate spotting under her throat.

Cordilleran flycatcher—the one note songster

Each morning as we ate our breakfast, meditated, walked and wrote,
a small olive brown flycatcher with a promient oval eye ring, perched outside the meditation hall and persistently rang out a one-note version of his song, 'tweep'.

I found him on a perch in this same area each morning, which was also the scene we looked out upon as we walked in meditation around the deck. This was a meditative writing workshop, a sit, walk, write workshop with Natalie Goldberg and Sean Murphy at Rose Mountain retreat near the Santa Fe National Forest in the Pecos wilderness of New Mexico. The photo below shows the deck where we most often walked. We take our feet for granted. At least, I have. Our feet ground us and balance us and they feel. I am not a barefoot person in general, but this slow walking, this meditative way of experiencing the moment in movement, grounded me in my feet. I felt the cold puddles of water after the rain, the firm cracked surface of the boards, the forgiving lump of a tiny pine cone, the uneven board edges that moved, the nails that my feet rolled over without injury. This walking grounded us to the earth and back into our senses after our minds had been quieted through sitting mediation. Aware walking--one of many profound experiences.

There is more to a flycatcher's song than just one little note but this was the note he repeated over and over again, spaced out and persistent. You can hear it with less pause beween notes at the end of Cornell’s recording of the Cordilleran flycatcher. Bird identification for some species is complicated, especially from a distance. It is the song and the location of the bird that often settles the matter. In the case of the western flycatcher, the species has been divided into two kinds according to breeding location and feather details that can’t be seen casually. And so, I will offer this identification as my best guess.

Our little flycatcher friend was all fluffed up the morning of these photos because we had thunderstorms and rain during the night and the morning air was brisk. In fact, we were all fluffed up a bit.

Northern Flicker—Red Shafted

I flushed a pair of northern flickers during my first short walk along a logging trail up the mountain from camp. Thankfully it was short walk.

We had just been introduced to camp, settled our belongings in our tent cabins and were free for about an hour before dinner. During my walk, I found a downed log and sat among the pines and aspen to feel the silence. The silence is powerful in this place. We don’t realize how much noise we encounter in our everyday lives until we step into a pristine wilderness of this kind. Even the ground was silenced with a cushion of fallen needles.

The walk seemed simple enough--up and down. But I learned an early lesson about marking your trail. Boulders, trees and logging roads all look the same after a while. A later hike with others showed me I had taken the wrong fork. Except for the persistence of the dinner bell which I used for orientation, I’m not sure how long I might have wandered before finding camp again, not to mention the embarrassment of having others search for me on my very first day on the mountain. As it was, I was a little late but happily present for dinner.I encountered this red-shafted northern flicker early that same morning. I had stopped to get a better look at another woodpecker which naturally took flight. Before I could continue, the flicker landed near me (to appease me, of course) and flew to an even closer perch while I photographed him.

Northern flickers prefer feeding on the ground even though they also climb trees. According to Cornell, ants are one of their favorite foods. This woodpecker's large size surprised me, maybe because it was the closest I have ever been to a flicker of any variety. They range in size from 11-12 inches, the red-shafted variety being found in the west while the yellow-shafted form is familiar to us in the east.

The distinctive characteristics of the red-shafted form are the red mustache (male), the reddish central feather shaft and the salmon red tint under wings and tail, which is seen in flight. (In the yellow variety, the same areas are yellow instead, except for the mustache which is black.)

In camp we often heard their high pitched calls even when we didn’t see them.

New Mexico--Western Tanager

It seems that no matter where you find them, tanagers are a delightful surprise. I met this beautiful western tanager in the Pecos Wilderness area of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of north central New Mexico.

I have just returned from a solo 3000-mile journey across the west and back, which I can say, surpassed all expectations.

A journey of this kind shakes you out of your complacence, defies any sort of expectations and pushes you head first into the unknown, rattling even those aspects of yourself you thought you knew well. Responsibility lies in choices, in being in the moment no matter what the conditions, in discovering what you enjoy and what you don’t (which may change with new insight) and in making sure you have a safe place to lay your head at night and enough gas in your auto tank to get to the next stop--simple requirements but not always easy.Seeing this western tanager was one of many moments I enjoyed with nature on this journey. In fact, every encounter I had with wildlife was a fun experience, a surprising dip into a fresh and unfamiliar world. The western tanager is a brilliantly colored woodland song bird whose voice I heard frequently in the early mornings when rising. The birds at this 8000 ft elevation generally sang during the first hour of daylight at five a.m. and after that the forest was often profoundly silent. Our host at Rose Mountain , Andy Gold, explained that at these arid elevations, larger territories are required for species survival and fewer individuals are found in any given area than what you might find in the Appalachians. These early morning photos were made possible because this tanager visited Rose Mountain’s garden pool for a drink.

Creativity

“Do not doubt that you are born to create. Do not believe for a minute that the realm of art belongs only to others. Do not believe what you have been told or think you heard: that you are incapable, unimaginative, not artistic…. If you have believed these things and woven your garment from doubt and fear, disrobe and look within. Find what brings you joy and go there. That is your place to create, to move with the spirit, for the Muse lingers near the home of your joy.

Creativity is of the inner realm. Each of us becomes our own expert….In our creating, we ourselves are created, added to, enlightened. What matters is the movement, the union with spirit, that subtle drive that wakes us from our sleep, takes us from our dreams, and invites us to become the dream expressed.”
--Jan Phillips, Marry Your Muse

Scarlet Tanager

While I’m writing in the mornings, I open the window beside my chair so I can listen to the birds sing. We had several bursts of cooling showers last night which made the birds seem even livelier and more vocal this morning. Over the course of fifteen minutes I heard robins, eastern bluebirds, Carolina wrens, crows, a wood thrush, a phoebe, goldfinch, my towhee, chimney swifts, titmice, chickadees and a few others that were familiar but unidentified.

This morning I also had to step outside and take a peek. Today’s surprise was a male scarlet tanager hopping around and feeding in the lower canopy. And the rest of the surprise is we are well into the breeding season for this bird. He is clearly a seldom seen resident. I have very likely mistaken his song for a robin from time to time.

One of the interesting things I read about these birds is that the female, yellow with dark wings, also sings a less bold version of the male’s song, often in response to his song.

I caught this fuzzy photo of a female in early May. The female selects the nesting site and incubates the eggs, while the male feeds her and shares in the feeding of the young. My birder's handbook says a scarlet tanager can live as long as ten years. That's interesting to think about.

Self-doubt

“When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” --Audre Lorde
Aster
Isn’t that a wonderful description of power—the strength to serve your own vision? It’s not about being powerful in relation to the world, it’s being powerful in relation to yourself--the courage to be who you are, to live your own dreams and follow your own heart. And yes, to write that novel, to paint that image, to dance that dance or walk that trail, to put your heart out there.

Self-doubt is one of the most powerful fears we face. In fact it is fast becoming one of my favorite emotions. It tells me that I’m on the edge of what I know. I’m on the edge of my comfort. That if I go any further, I might be on shaky ground. And that may be exactly the ground I need to be on to get closer to my truth. Self-doubt brings us to a decision point and no matter what we chose next, we will be gaining ground.

Transformation

We live in two worlds, our inner world and the world outside of us. One of our greatest challenges in life is bringing these two worlds together.
For some reason that thought brought to mind caterpillars and butterflies, maybe because their life cycle is so full of transformations. This photo is of an Eastern ten caterpillar. I had no idea how striking this caterpillar was until I looked more closely through the lens. These are the guys that hatch in the spring and weave those silky bag tents in the crotch of tree limbs. Stephen Lyn Bales, naturalist and author, refers to the tent caterpillar as “bird fodder”.

Our transformations are barely noticeable at first but not necessarily less dramatic. At some point, when all the tiny changes link together, we begin to shout change--changes in choices like friends and clothes, changes in laughter and attitude, changes in what we like to do, the way we walk and even where we like to walk.
Bringing our two worlds together frees up creative energy and when that happens, anything can happen.