You Scratch My Back and I'll ...

 Symbosis is a deal struck between two animals or plants, or plants and animals which benefits both, such as the bee gathering pollen and fertilizing the flower and fish which safely live with sea anemones, eating small invertegrates that would otherwise harm the anemones.   Volumes could be written about ants and their symbiosis with aphids and others.  There are symbiotic relationsships between certain bacteria and us.  They live in our intestines to help us digest food and some vitamins and on our skins to kill viruses.  The list is endless.

The other day I got to thinking about symbiosis and the birds and animals in our backyards.  They gather around our houses in great numbers because we feed them - intentionally or not.  Sometimes we leave scraps around the house which they eat and then they hang around.  The clover in our yards,which this rabbit in my yard is enjoying, is in abundance not usually found in woods.

This rabbit and another live underneath my back deck.  I can get quite close to them and they don't seem scared unless I make a quick movement.  I wonder what they think of this lumbering, slow creature who doesn't seem like a predator.

This is very unscientific but I can see an abstract kind of symbosis between us and these animals and birds.  Certainly they gain more as far as survival goes, but they do give something to us - beauty and appreciation of where we stand in this earth journey we are all in. This is not to be taken lightly.  I personally believe that it should be one of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, along with air, food, water, sleep, shelter - appreciation of the world around us. 

I can't imagine what life would be like without this plethora of other life around us.  If we but take the time to investigate and look, really look, at what is all around us, the rewards are tremendous.  And everything we discover leads to a new and sometimes even better discovery.

Our appreciation of "other" life give us positive insights about our relationships with other people, too.  It is human nature to communicate to others what we find enjoyable and we get a special feeling when they act upon that.  It is one of the reasons we teach our children, or should, to appreciate the world outside our door.

I grew up in a working family that didn't stress this kind of thing, rather concentrating more on our basic needs and I sort of had an epiphany later in life when I was hunting and fishing and had a lot of time to think.  Sadly, many people go about their lives not noticing the wonders that are around them all of the time.  I want my eulogy to include,"He saw beauty and it gave him immense joy and pleasure."

In college freshman English we were required to memorize John Keats' first lines to "A Thing of Beauty is a Joy For Ever."  He said it better than any I have ever read or heard:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

"a sleep full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing..."  What more do we really need?

A Phoebe's Morning Ritual

Under the upstairs deck off the bedroom phoebes nest every year.  They keep their same nest but renovate it with some fresh twigs and such.  They have gotten to be such a regular couple, I would worry if they didn't show up some spring.

About five years ago in the late spring I heard a noise under the deck and I went out to see what the racket was about.  Birds always sound different when they are excited.  A black rat snake had crawled up to the nest and was eating one of the baby birds and the others in the nest had flown out and on the ground.

As I said previously I never kill snakes if it is to be avoided, but in this case I was mad!  I ran and got my Daisy Red Ryder BB gun and shot the snake.  It fell with the bird, which was dying, on the patio.  I really regretted it because the rat snake was doing what black rat snakes do - catching prey, but I had been watching the babies and had gotten to enjoy them.  Apparently the other birds were ready to leave the nest because they were flyers, of a sort.  In a half hour or so they were gone.  I am sure they made it.  No doubt, the one I photographed this morning is a relative.

The eastern phoebe,  Sayornis phoeba, is a rather nondescript little bird - not very many distinguishing marks other than a black beek, which its look-alike, the eastern wood-pewee doesn't have.  The two are hard to tell apart on sight.  However, the pewee has a song that says, pee-a-wee, while the phoebe's is a fee-bee.  So each of the birds tell you what it is.

Both are wonderfully beneficial in that they are voracious insect-eaters.  They don't go for seeds you put out and I don't remember seeing either at a suet feeder.

This phoebe that I photographed this morning gave me a wonderful show of its morning ritual getting rid of mites and  just general  grooming itself and I caught it in the act.  Remember I said I used the "shotgun approach?"  I must have shot 25 pictures of it, but most weren't good.
These here are pretty good, in my opinion, of a phoebe at its morning ritual.

First the neck scratch...

Then under the wing...

Don't forget the leading wing feathers...

 The throat...

Well, off to work.

Arachne the Weaver

In Greek mythology, there was a mortal woman named Arachne who was so arrogant about her weaving skills, which were great, that she challenged Athena, goddess of knowledge and weaving, among other things, to a contest to see who was the better weaver. 

When the contest was finished, Arachne had woven a tapestry so beautiful that Athena, tore it to pieces and turned Arachne into a spider, doomed for all time to weave webs to catch her dinner.  In Greek, "arachne" means spider.   What a lovely story, which explains why the spider weaves so beautiful a web.  The Greeks seemed to have a great answer for everything.

Basement Spider

This arachnid pictured here I found in my den near the basement steps, just lying there all spread out and looking enormous.  Spiders, like snakes, for a lot of people, effect a kind of excited fear when they first see them.  Neither my wife, Zelma, nor I have ever been particularly afraid of spiders, but my son, Robert, I am sure is an arachnophobe.  So it must be nature over nurture.

This spider at first glance, seemed to be around about eight inches across.  But in reality it is about four inches from the tip of one leg across to the opposite one.  I have formula for determining the size of spiders, snakes, and fish when someone is telling about having seen, killed, or caught one - divide by two.  This particular one is a basement spider, and I have seen quite a few in my basement.  Apparently she one was of the adventurous kind who just had to know what was upstairs. 

Spiders are beautiful things and they are astounding in their ability to survive.  They are found all the way from the tropics to warmer climes north (and south) to very cold areas.  Some have actually been found on freezing mountain tops in snow.
              
I never kill spiders because they never bother me and I think they do a lot of good: they have to eat, and what they eat probably makes my life a little better.  They usually just lie there flat against the wall looking impressive.  Of course, there are cobwebs.  (interestingly "cob" meant spider in Old English).  But I believe other spiders made them. This one can jump, I learned when I lifted it off the carpet with an envelope.  It seems the basement spiders are the lie-in-wait-and-pounce kind of arachnids. I admire their patience.

A Hoard of Formicidae

June, wonderful June, the month of my birth, the definition of summer, the  promise fulfilled that winter will end.  Persephone, the vegetation goddess, has come up from her cruel husband, Hades, from her underworld home to spread seeds of hope and revitalization in her suddenly bright world.

I think of spring and early summer as a joyous time.  Unlike some, I don't worry about the hot months to come - bring them on!  I'll take them over freezing January and February any time.

Ants on Cotton Ball

Summer brings other things which, if you are caught unawares, will wreak havoc in you kitchen, bedroom - all  over your house.  They are armies on the march searching for any sweet treasure they can filch, and their appetites are insatiable.  This little army is marching across my window sill just above my computer, and I must fight it, and I have discovered a weapon that I will share with you.

Ants belong to the family, Formicidae, but I have no idea what species these that march across my window sill are.  I grew up calling all tiny ants "pissants," a word from the 14th century which has been corrupted into, "piss ant."  The former word had no relation to urine, but someone put a space between the syllables and it stuck.

 Over the years I have tried about everything available to kill ants and haven't found anything that did the job.  Yes, it discouraged them if I sprayed around all doors and windows, but they would come back with a vengeance when the poison wore off.  So I did some research.

I had heard that boric acid mixed with sugar and water would actually kill them, so I tried it.  I mixed a teaspoon of boric acid (Twenty Mule Team Borax, the laundry additive, to be exact) with five teaspoons of sugar in a quarter of a cup of water and then soaked a cotton ball in it.  I squeezed most of it out and set it on the window sill.

As you can see in the photos, they were drawn to it like I am drawn to blackberry patches in July.  I never actually saw any dead ants, but they were gone the next day, and I assume they had carried some of this ambrosia back to the queen to get on her good side and as a result, destroyed a dynasty.  Good riddance.