Stalking the Wild Katydid

 One of the things I love about the Sycamore Greenway is that every visit can be  treasure hunt. Sometimes you know exactly what you are hoping to find: the orioles you hear down by the Sycamore Apartments, or that patch of Swamp Milkweed that was just about ready to bloom last week. Sometimes you go out without a plan or a map and just see what there is to see. Sometimes you get lucky and a deer ambles with halting steps across the path right in front of you, or a hawk soars overhead so low you can hear the soft whump of its wings through the air.

This week, walking through the grass alongside the Greenway set off a cascade of teeny tiny hoppers rushing ahead of my feet in a miniature buggy wave. They were the tiniest of grasshopper nymphs, most less than a centimeter long, with adorably oversized heads and expressive little antennae. There were a variety of colors: speckled brown, a lighter green with black stripes along its body, pale yellow.

How adorable is that?

I can take photos of grasshoppers all day. They are photogenic and docile (or, less charitably, perhaps a bit dumb), landing on the surface of leaves or grasses and holding still almost until the lens bumps them in the face.

But then, just for a second as I focused on yet another little grasshopper nymph--a baby katydid hopped into sight. And just as quickly, before I could refocus, it was gone. Katydids are far more discreet; you can hear their susurrations during the hot days of summer, but they are not as ubiquitous as their short-horned grasshopper relatives. They tend to hang out on the underside of leaves, and their shape and coloring is rather leaf-like as well.

But seeing that glimpse of a baby katydid gave me a mission, a new treasure to find. I had dozens of pictures of grasshoppers, but I must have a katydid. Thus commenced a good thirty minutes of crawling in the mowed grass alongside the trail, flushing waves of grasshoppers. Always grasshoppers. Walkers and bicyclists passed me (if you are reading this, I'm very sorry for the spectacle), with my rump up in the air, passing my hands along the grass trying to herd the minuscule nymphs into view.

I wasn't going to give up--there had to be katydids among all the grasshoppers. I had seen one, hadn't I? And I could occasionally hear their adult counterparts singing off in the taller grass nearby. But I was going to run out of Greenway eventually.

Then--just before the trail turns sharply to the west, I spotted an absurdly long pair of antennae waving from behind a blade of grass. Careful maneuvering revealed a delicate, almost translucent green katydid  nymph. I moved slowly, mindful of the katydid's more skittish nature, and snapped several photos. It made a few short hops but did not disappear from view for another minute, my breath held the entire time.

I got my katydid, I got some photos. I got my treasure for the day. 




My prize:

Waste Not, Want Not (or, Think Before You Buy)

A sampling of the trash collected on neighborhood ramblings.

For the past year or so I have occasionally carried a grocery bag on my walks around the neighborhood to pick up trash. This, together with semi-annual Greenway trash cleanups, paints a depressing and dire portrait of consumption gone wild.

So many plastic bottles. So many plastic bags. Straws, pop and beer cans, milk jugs, candy wrappers. So many single-use items that just end up on the street or in a landfill (or, if we are lucky, a recycling facility). We can all do our part to make sure trash goes to the proper place, but wouldn't it be more efficient to prevent it from becoming trash in the first place?

Instead of single-use bottles of water, invest in a reusable water (and, if the taste of tap water is an issue for you, a filter). Instead going to the grocery store and using the individual plastic bags for your apples, broccoli, and tomatoes, invest in reusable mesh bags, and carry them home in reusable canvas totes. In some cases the more ecological option can cost a bit more, but in many cases you will save money in the long run.

I am certainly not throwing stones--my lifestyle is hardly the greenest, though I try. I am a lazy person, and I enjoy the convenience of individually wrapped nutrition bars. One wrapper a day, a couple bucks a day...I could do better. I found a recipe for "peanut butter cup balls" that used largely the same ingredients, and I can now feel better about a couple hundred fewer wrappers going to the landfill each year, and saving myself a couple hundred bucks as well.

I buy my beans in bulk and use a slow cooker instead of buying canned beans. It's cheaper and makes far less waste. The tradeoff, as it so often is, is convenience. If I forget to start them cooking in the morning, no beans. It is an incentive to be mindful and plan ahead (though I confess to keeping a can or two of "emergency beans" in the pantry for those days I mess up).

A mesh produce bag and washable stainless steel straws.

One of my worst vices is a fondness for fast food, particularly several chain sandwich shops. So much waste! The sandwich wrapper, the bag of chips, the drink cup/lid/straw. I can't bring myself to abstain entirely, but I make small changes. I bought a set of washable straws that I carry with me and use instead of the plastic straws. I take home any extra napkins instead of tossing them. I refuse bags for carrying the stuff whenever possible. Admittedly, these tiny steps are pathetic in the grand scheme of my wasteful lifestyle, but they help me be mindful of the impact my choices have on the world.


No one can be perfect. But we can all try to be a little bit better.

The Humble Pineapple Weed

If there is one plant that is evocative of my youth, it is the humble Pineapple Weed (Matricaria discoidea). The gravel driveways of our suburban neighborhood may seem barren and inhospitable, but there were always little green bits that would struggle through and survive the dry baking of the sun, the relentless rolling of car tires and the plucking and trampling of children passing the time during the long summer days.

One of them was an odd little plant, a tiny green cone atop delicate fringed leaves. It didn't look like a flower--there were no petals, and it was green. It remained nameless for decades until, after coming across it in the hard-packed dirt alongside a trail, I was reminded of those hardy alley residents and went looking for its name in a book of weeds, and discovered it was Pineapple Weed.

The name is due to the sweet smell of its flower head when crushed. And it is a flower, difficult as it was to recognize as such. It is a composite flower, like daisies and coneflowers: what we call a "flower" in this family is actually composed of ray flowers--the colorful petals--and disc flowers, tiny petal-less flowers clustered in the center of the flower (the yellow eye or the daisy, or the spiky cone of the coneflower).

The Pineapple Weed, however, lacks the colorful ray flowers that ring others in the family. Instead it has only the minuscule disc flowers, packed together and formed in a cone. It is closely related to chamomile, and can also be used to make tea, with a variety of medicinal uses attributed to it. It is native to the northwestern US and northeastern Asia, but its scrappy nature allowed it to make its way across the continent and to many other places where humans offer a harsh, degraded plot of land.

I enjoyed the memory of these tough alley-dwellers so much that, years ago, I surreptitiously dug up a plant from a patch of gravel near some railroad tracks and potted it up on my deck using some nice, rich potting soil. It promptly died, and taught me a valuable lesson about how plants are adapted to specific environments, and that not every plant appreciates the pampering we provide to some of our more delicate garden residents.

 

Magnified flower heads of Pineapple Weed

Share the Road!

 Tooling along the Greenway on my bicycle, minding my own business, when up ahead I see a dark shape crossing the trail. My refusal to wear spectacles unless absolutely necessary renders it a moving blob, but the roundy shape and slow movement help my brain translate it to turtle!

I  hurriedly dismount, fumbling in my backpack for the camera (only later do I laugh at my haste...how fast could a turtle get away?) and snap a few shots from afar. The turtle drops to its belly and retracts its legs, leaving only a dignified head and neck stretched out to the sky. As I approach, the head, too, disappears into the shell. It is a painted turtle, as big as my face, with a smooth dark shell and yellow striping on its face and neck.

So much for minding my own business. The turtle silently judging me with its disdainful expression, I circle it like we're doing a fashion shoot. Sheltered in its shell (ha) it remains aloof even as I hunker down in front of it for a close-up right into its tiny, tubular nostrils. I move away a few meters and wait. And wait. Another cyclist passes, and a pedestrian, each eyeing me and then the turtle without a word. Still the turtle sits on its belly on the trail. The cyclist passes again, going to opposite direction, me and the turtle still in our standoff.

After what seems like forever, and with surprising alacrity, the turtle's head and limbs pop out and it starts trucking for the edge of the trail and the grass beyond. I watch, wanting to make sure it moves safely out of the way of anyone or anything that might cause trouble for it, but the silly thing turns and begins walking along the trail towards the soccer park.

I figure I have hassled the poor thing enough, but I can't resist moving it off the trail a few feet into the grass where it might be a little less vulnerable. It is heavy and warm, and I hold it carefully. In addition to its shell, the painted turtle's defenses include biting or scratching using its long claws--or urinating on its assailant.

The turtle safely deposited, I go back along my merry way. I recall another encounter, driving along I-80 and seeing a similar roundy, slow-moving shape up ahead. My heart pounding, there is not much to do at 70 miles an hour except maneuver to straddle it with my tires. Thankfully, my car did not touch the turtle, but I don't imagine it made its way safely across all the lanes to wherever it was trying to reach. Cars are enemies of painted turtle (as they are enemies of just about every creature they encounter), as the turtles may travel several miles and cross many roads as they search for mates or suitable nesting places.

I suppose my "helping" the turtle on the Greenway was a belated and wholly one-sided attempt to soothe my conscience at leaving that turtle to its fate on the interstate. So be safe out there, little critters--and be careful, drivers.