Wednesday in the garden: Gifts of the Monarch.

Queen butterflies continue to flood my backyard with their beauty. I counted around a dozen today. It is impossible to get a completely accurate count, because they just won't stand still for it.

They are indeed lovely and I never tire of watching them.

But in addition to the Queens, I'm seeing an increase in the numbers of Monarchs passing through the garden.

The Monarchs like the almond verbena, too.

And as the Monarchs pass through on their way to Mexico, they are leaving me gifts in the form of their eggs. I've been finding caterpillars on my milkweed plants over the last few days. These two were quite large when I first saw them. When I checked on them a couple of days later, they were gone - already moved on to form their chrysalises I'm sure. 

There was a smaller sibling still on the plant.

The chrysalis of the Monarch is as striking as the butterfly or the caterpillar. In this one you can see the butterfly already almost fully formed and ready to emerge.

I'm checking the milkweed plants regularly now for Queen caterpillars as well. I'm hoping they, too, will leave me such gifts. 

Shell Game by Sara Paretsky: A review

Sara Paretsky is one of my long-time literary crushes. I've been reading her V.I. Warshawski novels since almost their beginning back in the 1980s. She has never let me down. Oh, sure, I have enjoyed some of the books more than others, but there is not a stinker among them.

One of the things that I enjoy about V.I. is that she has been allowed to age, more or less in real time. By now (and the present book takes place in the present time - the Trump era) she's getting a bit long in the tooth, not unlike many of us, but her passion for justice and for serving her clients with honor remains undimmed.

Her latest case involves a heady mix of stock scams and painstakingly detailed insurance fraud by high rollers, the scapegoating and demonizing of immigrants (particularly Middle Eastern immigrants), an out-of-control ICE, theft of archaeological treasures, Russian mobsters, kidnapping and sexual abuse of young girls, and, of course, murder.

It's the murder that initially gets V.I. involved in all the rest of this muck. The body of a murdered man with no identification on him has been found in a nature preserve area outside of Chicago. The Cook County Sheriff's Office has jurisdiction over the investigation. The only clue they find on the body is a scrap of paper bearing the name and phone number of Felix Herschel. Felix is the grand-nephew of Lotty Herschel, V.I.'s friend, doctor, and mother-figure. Sheriff's deputies take Felix to look at the body to see if he can identify it and Lotty contacts V.I. to go along.

Felix denies knowing the dead person, but he seems to be hiding something and V.I. follows him and sees him meet a young woman of Middle Eastern appearance. She turns out to be Syrian, a recent refugee from the civil war there and she is the daughter of an honored poet who is in the country illegally. Felix seems to be trying to protect them.

The dead man is eventually identified as Leroy (or Lawrence) Fausson, an archaeology student who had worked at digs in the Middle East and was captivated by the culture of that area. He often dressed as an Arab and wanted to be called Lawrence, or Elorenze, as in Lawrence of Arabia. It develops that he had probably stolen a priceless antiquity.

Meantime, in a parallel plot, V.I. is contacted by Harmony Seale, whose late mother was the sister of Warshawski's long-ago husband, Richard Yarborough. V.I. had not seen the girl since she was 5 or 6 years old, but now she is grown up and needs help. Her older sister, Reno, had recently moved to Chicago from Portland and found a job, but now she has disappeared. Harmony refuses to go to the police because she doesn't trust them. She wants V.I. to find her.

V.I. looks for clues and tries to work both the cases and at some point they begin to grow together in an intricately woven pattern. She has a problem following or developing the clues that she finds because she keeps getting attacked by two monstrously large and implacable Slavic thugs. 

Of course, V.I. is pretty implacable herself and we know she's not going to give up.

It's fairly obvious pretty early on who the prime villain is here, but that knowledge does not in any way detract from the pleasure of reading this story. The plot is meticulously worked out in the most minute detail including a lot of information about insurance and stocks that frankly goes over my head, but I'm able to follow along and get the gist and, as usual, it is the characters and their relationships that keep me turning the pages. Particularly the new and intriguing relationship between V.I. and a certain archaeologist from the Oriental Institute.

What can I say? V.I. just gets better and better. This one was definitely one of my favorites in the series.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dog Face

There were more new butterflies in the garden over the weekend. It seems the Queens I showed you on Friday were just the leading edge of this "invasion." 

There were a number of these fragile-looking butterflies fluttering around the backyard. This is the Dog Face Sulphur.

They are indeed fluttery, constantly in motion. Those wings are always going, so it was really hard to get any good pictures of them. They just wouldn't pose.

They are called Dog Face because of the pattern on their wings. That dark spot represents the dog's eye.

I was able to get some fairly clear ventral views of the small (2 - 2 3/4 inches wingspread) butterfly, but...

...this is typical of my dorsal shots. Very blurry.

Image by arizonensis.org.

So, I resorted to this image from the internet to show you the dog face pattern. Think of a poodle with its mouth slightly open. See the image on each wing?

These butterflies are supposedly around this area from March to December, but I really only see them in my garden in the fall.

Poetry Sunday: November by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

This rather sweet and evocative poem about autumn was published in 1895 by a poet I had not encountered before. Elizabeth Drew Stoddard was an American poet, born in Massachusetts in 1823. She wrote both poetry and prose. 

In her poem "November," she expresses some of my own feelings about autumn: "For autumn charms my melancholy mind" and... 

"I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods, 
    Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss; 
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,—
    The loss of beauty is not always loss!"

Indeed, the "naked, silent trees" still hold a kind of beauty for me. The loss of the beauty they embodied in spring and summer is not always a loss; it's just a change.  

November

by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

Much have I spoken of the faded leaf; 
    Long have I listened to the wailing wind, 
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds, 
    For autumn charms my melancholy mind. 
 
When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge:
    The year must perish; all the flowers are dead; 
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail 
    Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled! 
 
Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer, 
    The holly-berries and the ivy-tree:
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year’s bier, 
    These waiting mourners do not sing for me! 
 
I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods, 
    Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss; 
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,—
    The loss of beauty is not always loss!

This week in birds - # 327

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

The Whooping Cranes that winter on the Texas coast are returning to their winter home. The flock that spends its summer in Canada exceeded 500 this year for the first time since the species almost went extinct back in the mid 20th century. It's been a slow climb to reach that mark.

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Researchers from the University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society have for the first time produced a global map that sets out which countries are responsible for nature that is devoid of heavy industrial activity. They found that five countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Russia, and the United States) hold 70% of the world's remaining untouched wilderness areas. It will require global action to protect them.

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A shocking report from 59 scientists around the world was released by the World Wildlife Fund this week. The report states that humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles since 1970. The annihilation of wildlife is now a very real threat. 

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But there is good news. This tiny frog, the Pickergill's reed frog which is just about the size of your thumbnail, is making a comeback! Through a captive breeding program, its numbers have been increased from 20 to 200. It gives hope that even though we have been so adept at wiping out vast numbers of creatures, we might atone in part by using our skills to help some survive and increase.

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A different approach is being tried to help endangered Curlews in Ireland. Farmers in rural Ireland can be paid up to about $6500 a year to avoid any damaging activities and promote suitable Curlew habitat on their land.

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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke may be an endangered species himself, and wouldn't that be ironic? The man who seems to have been on a mission for the last two years to destroy America's natural heritage is the subject of numerous investigations in his own department and one of those has now been referred to the Justice Department for further action.  

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The Mandarin Duck is one of the most colorful of all the ducks, so when one unexpectedly shows up in an area, it can cause quite a stir. When that area happens to be Central Park in New York, that stir is increased a hundredfold. And that's what's happened recently. A duck like the one pictured has been delighting birders in the area. It isn't known if the bird is an escapee from captivity or if it is actually wild. It is banded, but as of this writing the band had not been deciphered. 

*~*~*~*

Seriously, China, what are you thinking? The Chinese government has legalized the medicinal trade of rhino horn and tiger parts. This is expected to stimulate demand for the poached and endangered animals that will make it even harder to protect them.  

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New research has found a startlingly large buildup of heat in Earth's oceans. This suggests that global warming is occurring at a faster rate than previously anticipated and the world probably has even less time to begin to curb its greenhouse emissions.

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And what happens when the oceans heat up? The glaciers melt. The massive glaciers in the Yukon Territory of Canada are shrinking rapidly.

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Meantime, the section of the Environmental Protection Agency's website that used to address climate change no longer exists. It was taken down over a year ago.

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Barn Swallows are birds that seem to thrive around human structures. They build their nests under our bridges or on our buildings, occasionally including the houses where we live. Now, new research indicates that these birds have, in fact, evolved along with humans, perhaps going a way toward explaining that close relationship.

*~*~*~*

It seems an impossible task but there's a lot you can do with almost $5 billion; that's the amount that has been designated for the Earth BioGenome Project, the goal of which is to sequence the DNA of every known animal, plant, and fungus in the world over the next ten years. 

*~*~*~*

The National Wilderness Society no longer exists and its founder has moved on to his natural habitat, the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation, but back in 1997, the group petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the Hawaiian Hawk from the Endangered Species List. The petition never achieved its goal, but like a zombie keeps rising up again and again. And now, with an administration that doesn't really believe an ESL should exist, it has risen again and the F&WS will attempt to delist it.

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A plan to create the world's biggest marine reserve around Antarctica has been blocked by Russia, China, and Norway.

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The swallowtails are among the most graceful and beautiful of all butterflies and, in my opinion, the world can not have too many of them, so I was happy to read of the discovery of this lovely creature:

 

This previously unknown species is the Papilio natewa and it was found on the Pacific island of Vanua Levu in Fiji. 

November Queens

I have been waiting for these ladies for quite a long time. I had not seen a Queen butterfly in my garden all year. Until today when two of the beauties finally showed up.

Queens are a member of the milkweed (Danidae) family of butterflies. Just like their larger and more famous cousin, the Monarch, Queens lay their eggs on milkweed plants and when the caterpillars hatch they feed on those plants. By doing so, they store poisonous cardiac glycosides that are found in the milky juices of the milkweed plant. These compounds are distasteful and emetic to most birds and so they garner some protection from avian predators. Unfortunately, the poison doesn't seem to have any effect on predatory wasps that are probably the caterpillars' greatest enemies.

The Queens that were visiting today spent a lot of time on my milkweed plants. With any luck, perhaps they left some of their eggs there.

They also spent quite a bit of time with the almond verbena. Butterflies in general really like this plant and the Queens were no exception.

The shape of the flowers is much like the buddleia, or butterfly bush, so perhaps it is no surprise that the butterflies love it so.

But they always returned to the milkweed. (That bug on the leaf to the right of the butterfly is a milkweed bug. My plants have a number of them at the moment, but they do no harm.)

Queens do not stage long and dramatic migrations like the Monarch. They are resident primarily in southern states, although some do wander farther north. Although these wanderers may briefly colonize an area, they cannot survive freezing weather.

In the Houston area, Queens' presence is erratic; they are common in some years but more elusive in others. This has definitely been one of their "elusive" years. But better late than never. I'm just happy they are finally here.

Throwback Thursday: What is it with these guys?

I was scrolling through some of my historical blog posts this morning when I came across this blast from the past. It was, as a matter of fact, only the second post that I had written for this new blog of mine. It made me shake my head and chuckle at how innocent we were back then. We could still be scandalized by senators who were embarrassed (and they still could be embarrassed!) by sexual or other ethical scandals. How far we've come since those days.

In today's world, with the federal executive and legislative branch mired in a sludge of complete and utter disregard for ethics regulations and the appearance of corruption, stories like this would hardly even merit a mention.

~~~ 

Sunday, December 6, 2009

What is it with these guys?

Baucus acknowledges recommending girlfriend.

So now Sen. Max Baucus joins the long list of ethics-challenged United States Senators. Names like Ensign, Vitter and Craig spring to mind, along with those two sterling characters from Oklahoma, Imhofe and Coburn. What is it with these guys anyway? (And it is always guys - so far no female senators have qualified for this Hall of Shame.)

I mean surely they have a certain amount of intelligence to have reached their high offices, and yet they appear to have no basic understanding of the idea of conflict of interest or the wrongness of using public policy and offices to further their personal interests. Baucus, for example, sees nothing wrong with recommending his lover for a high government position. He feels she shouldn't have been disqualified simply because he was "dating" her.

Well-qualified she may have been, and based on what I have read of her, she does appear to be a very talented and capable individual, but no matter how capable she might have been, the appearance of the situation stinks, and appearances matter. The old adage that "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion" applies to today's politicians as well, no matter how much many of them have forgotten it or seek to ignore it.

And so the question becomes, have they no shame? At long last, have they no shame? Apparently not.