Sweet May Mornings

"While earth herself is adorning this sweet May morning..." ~ W Wordsworth

Already half way through this sweet month of May. Busy - busy at school with end of year events, grades, portfolios etc. BUT - still able to enjoy so many perfect days. Landscapes all abloom, beautiful weather ( tho we could use some rain at night :) ) and so many Beatrix Potter mornings in our backyard habitat. As our perennials emerge and flower theses past few weeks, we have also planted our annuals for both added color and to help nurture our pollinators. At our feeding stations we are going through seed and nectar much faster then norm and are rewarded by evidence of a number of nesting pairs. We have witnessed fledglings & juveniles for Cardinals, Purple Finches, and Downy Woodpeckers for sure. It is so interesting to watch as these babies learn the" how to's" of their species. One of the funniest sightings is to watch the young finches try to land on and feed from the nectar feeders ...... not only do they teeter precariously as they try to perch, but their thick seed cracking beaks can not "sip" any nectar - yet they keep trying. Another sweet sighting was a "dad" Downy actually feeding a fledgling on the suet feeder. Dad would grab some seed & suet, soften it up and then feed junior.
   Watching from my kitchen window or sitting quietly on the back porch and feeling connected to all of the life in the green space - even for just a few minutes - is such a source of joy as well as an immediate stress reliever.  Then there is the inspirational value, which shows up in both my writings and my Art !!
   I offer you these words from an old Welsh verse and encourage you to find some joy "amid the woods"~

"An angel mid the woods of May~
Embroidered it with radiance gay~
That gossamer with gold bedight~
Those fires of God - those gems of light. "

Metamorphosis & Earth Day

Metamorphosis ~ from the Greek word for "transformation" ~ is a biological process of marked changes in form & physical appearance from the immature to the adult. This often happens in stages like the complete metamorphosis of Lepidoptera.

Yesterday, April 21,2011, was a marker day :) Not only did it mark 32 years of marriage for me, but also it marked the completion of a metamorphosis. Yes, a BEAUTIFUL & fully formed healthy looking Black Swallowtail butterfly emerged from it's crysalis !!
This little adventure of a shared Nature journey began on Sat. April 2 when I found a caterpillar on one of the herb plants I had purchased that morning in our local Farmer's Market. As the bird activity in our backyard habitat was very high, I decided to breakout my Classroom Observatory setup and nurture the caterpillar inside. Was rewarding for me to observe the stages - from "very hungry caterpillar" to crysalis formation, and now butterfly birth.
My mantra of "Walk with Nature, Talk with Art" has been fully satisfied once again with this little experience...... AND I consider it a special gift that butterfly emerged on the earlier side of typical timeline so that it could grace my Anniversary with it's beauty!!
Today is Earth Day 2011 with a theme of "A Billion Acts of Green"and my butterfly release was one of mine. May you each find a way to "morph"today - be it reaching a goal,  completing a project, increasing your knowledge, or adding to the reduction of your personal carbon footprint in some way !!

Happy Earth Day ~ walk with nature, her paths are peace .

Making Connections

One of our Red headed Woodpeckers.

"The Earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life ~ he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself"   
 inspired by Chief Seattle 1850"s


February is National Wild Bird Feeding Month and the GBBC (Great Backyard Bird Count). The GBBC is a joint project of Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon Society where Citizen Scientists from across the Nation can participate by conducting a watch/count for a specific time frame and reporting the highest numbers of bird species observed in that time. Data is then submitted to the Cornell Lab database for use in comparison studies of bird populations over time. This year the GBBC was from Fri. Feb.18-Mon. Feb, 21. The connections I experience with Nature during the GBBC are much deeper than the more casual watching that I do year round in our backyard habitat, perhaps because of the intensity of the watching necessary for this project. The binoculars are up the entire watch time and you tend to "look" in more places/ spaces than usual, so as to not miss a thing. Consequently you observe SO much more. We participated last year as well and so we now have begun our own "database". We enjoyed our usual cast of characters, including our resident species and our Winter visitors. The highlights for this year included on Day 1 - A Great Blue Heron "fly over"; Day 3 - A Sharp-shinned Hawk hanging around for about 20 minutes ( when there was not a sighting or peep from any of our birds !!) and Day 4 - the sighting of a new species for us of a Yellow-rumped Myrtle Warbler.
Making connections means to unite, or "be in close relation with" and for me, my desire to Walk with Nature often and in many ways gives me the opportunity to respect the web.