Flamingo Friday: Preening Frenzy (II)

Is it just me, or is this bird the color of orange sherbert?

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Two Good Shots: A Different Element

The giant hermit crab is one of the few members of the invertebrate house who has remained a steady presence over the couple of years, now, that I’ve lived in DC. Giant Pacific octopi and common cuttlefish, their life cycles sadly brief, have come and gone; the spotted spiny lobster (presumably) died, and the sea nettles and ctenophores are barely in the tanks before they disappear and are replaced (or, in the case of the ctenophores, no longer replaced).

But the giant hermit crab is still there, gripping its enormous whelk shell with its unseen, curly abdomen, ascending and descending its set of steps and crouching meditatively above the gravel floor of its tank, staring out into the aquarium and contemplating the vastness of the universe or perhaps just eating algae off of rocks.

Its relatively slow pace and willingness to hang around when I press my camera lens to the glass has allowed me to get some pictures of it that I’m very pleased with. I like to think they capture a little of the mystery of these invertebrates, their inviolability, even in this captive state, as they navigate the marine medium that is so foreign to us overly evolved, terrestrial beings. It pleases me to watch the hermit crab move through its dark water flecked with tiny bubbles like distant stars and thinking about the many ways in which its senses and perceptions differ from mine. I only hope that it, unlike so many of the zoo’s invertebrates, will continue to inspire me for years to come.

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Bamboo--My Favorite!

As I have said many times before and will no doubt continue to say many times, I love pandas for the absolute delight they take in eating. Here is a species whose members must eat voraciously, prodigiously, every day, in order to overcome the inefficiencies of their digestive system. How easily could they become bitter and unhappy, brooding and protesting their lot in the life! And yet instead, they are perpetually thrilled by the opportunity to eat more bamboo.

Each time I visit the zoo, I watch the pandas approach what could be perceived as an onerous task with the glee of a gourmand, and their excitement and good cheer is infectious.

There must be some kind of moral in there, but I’m not going to try to find it. I’m just going to go get some of my favorite foods, so I can enjoy them as much as a panda would.

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Flamingo Friday: Preening Frenzy (I)

The preening was done by the flamingos, of course, but the frenzy was all mine; I became quite obsessed with the colors and textures revealed during the birds’ preening sessions and may have taken approximately 6 million photos of them—so this will be the first of many preening installments for Flamingo Friday.

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Flash Mobs

I wasn’t sure I’d see them this far south. Part of it is that I know when to expect them in Boston—early summer and late fall—and knew where to look as well. But they appear so quickly, so fleetingly, and without warning, that if you’re not in the right place at the right time you can miss them completely.

And then, over Presidents’ Day weekend in Delaware, there they were--full of energy and noise, crowding the branches of the still-bare trees and devouring whatever berries and other delicacies were on offer.

I’m talking, of course, about cedar waxwings, those dashing, bandit-masked birds whose presence is made even more precious by its relative infrequency.

I saw them here in DC soon after I’d spotted them in Delaware; they flitted through the branches of nearby trees every morning for about a week, trilling their high, piercing, half-pure and half-metallic “srreeee” calls. Each morning, as I headed to work, the sight and sound of them lifted my heart.

I don’t know what it is about them that I find so enchanting and delightful. Part of it is their multitude; cedar waxwings always fly in flocks, so there’s the pleasure of seeing not just one or two but twenty, forty, eighty, of them.

Part of it is that they’re just so very pretty, with their crests, their black bandit masks, their soft caramel-beige feathers that look as smooth as if they were made of brushed silk, the bright lines of red on their wings and the dab of gold at the tips of their tails. Part of it is their call, that high, eerie, thrilling sound.

And part of it is their joyful gluttony as they gobble down berries with a cheerful single-mindedness.

Come to think of it, I guess I do know why I find them so enchanting. But mere description is never enough to truly justify, or elicit in you the reader, the feeling of exuberance they inspire in me.

I’ll just hope you have the opportunity to see them for yourselves, and that this passion of mine, unlike that for pigeons, is one that is more universally shared.

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I Have God-Like Powers (And Other Zoo-Walk-Induced Delusions)

[no one else could have captured this photograph
of a woodpecker on a cherry tree]

The only real drawback to walking through the zoo on beautiful spring mornings is that I’m often distracted from the captive inhabitants by the wild residents. This morning, my observation of lemurs was derailed by the sight of two kinds of woodpeckers hopping in their frenetic, jerking way up tree-trunks and flitting from branch to branch while emitting a series of nasal hoots. One was a red-“bellied” woodpecker—of which I did not get a picture, alas, since then I could prove that the only red on this bird is along its scarlet nape rather than its not-even-rosy belly. The other was either a downy or a hairy woodpecker (if anyone wants to make the tricky identification for me, feel free).

I also saw myriad white-crowned sparrows, many grackles gathering nesting materials, plenty of black-crowned night herons doing the same (not exactly difficult to spot those guys, of course), an infinitude of robins, their red chests swelling with territorial indignation, cardinals arrowing through the trees as they uttered their piercing cheeps, and several ducks (mallard and wood). Although I’m sure that some of the other visitors noticed at least a few of these, I became fairly well convinced that none of them had noticed as many as I had, and—as I glanced left and right and up, spying birds almost as soon as I heard their trills—I began to feel that my powers of observation reached very nearly divine levels.

[There's no evidence that any
other people noticed this heron
ever]

Just a few days ago I’d been complaining to a friend that the problem with zoos is that they can instill in some visitors a feeling of entitlement rather than privilege—that the visitors come to feel they have a right to see the animals, and moreover that they are somehow above the rest of nature—invincible, untouchable.

It’s a good thing I’m not one of those kinds of people.

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Flamingo Friday: …Or That’s What It Could Be

A few weeks ago I was watching the flamingos performing their dramatic courtship rituals (flamingos never go halfway with this sort of thing)—doing wing displays and bows, head flagging, and racing back and forth across their pool en masse to draw attention to themselves as they engaged in these behaviors. All of this, mind you, was accompanied by a series of what are no doubt—to a flamingo—very romantic honking noises.

It was certainly entertaining for zoo visitors, many of whom paused to watch and exclaim over the displays (although no one else spent as much as I did trying fruitlessly to get good photos of them doing their courtship laps).

Among those to stop was a German-speaking family. I don’t speak German (except to be able to say “I am not a calculator,” which I imagine will come in very handy should I ever need to use the language), but between words in common and context I was able to figure out most of what the young boy and his parents were talking about.

As the flamingos raced past, wings flapping, heads erect, the boy exclaimed, “Look, Mama! A parade!”

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Seasonal Truths (North American edition)

That spring is on its way—is, in fact, already here in DC—that I do not deny.

In spite of the fact that it’s been something of a winter-in-quotation-marks for those of us in the semi-eastern U.S., there’s still been a distinct shift in the past week from a winter with some unseasonable blooms to a full-out sprouting, with green shoots pushing their way out of the dirt and trees casting their petaled genitalia (and their pollen, aaagh) up into the warm air that now smells like rich verdant earth and sweet flowers. Insects are swarming, birds are chirping liquid songs of love and territorial protectiveness, and sap is rising.

All of this is true, and natural (global warming aside), and good.

But no amount of fragrant spring breezes or waving branches laden with blossoms can alter another essential truth:

Just because you turn your clock forward, you are not saving any daylight. All you’ve done is agree to go to work an hour earlier every morning.

I hope that as you contemplate the ever-new beauty of returning spring you will keep that fundamental fact in mind.

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Flamingo Friday: A Quiet Moment

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Ask Not for Whom the Cow-Bell Tolls...

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Flamingo Friday: About Eight Feet

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