A Neighborhood of Seasons

 Birds in Flight is a striking piece of art found along the Sycamore Greenway. Less than half a mile to the north can be found another public art piece: a pair of mosaic obelisks marking the entrance to the trail near Grant Wood Elementary.

Designed and created by students from City High, and installed in 2014, the mosaics (titled Grant Wood: A Neighborhood of Seasons) were assembled with contributions from around 75 students over the course of two years. Each obelisk depicts a year of activities , faced with winter, spring, summer, and fall scenes featuring trees and trails. 

With charming detail, the scenes include bicycling and dog-walking, football and snowball fights. The flora changes through each panel, and different weather and times of day can be discerned. The colorful glass tesserae, simple colors and shapes individually, come together to create a complex and cohesive whole in the same way that each plant, each animal, each person in a community comes together to tell a story more complete than any individual can create.

• Read about the installation of the mosaics from the Press Citizen.
• Review the city's Public Art Strategic Plan.
  

A Not-So-Solitary Walk

With a fluffy, moist snow falling, a morning jaunt on the Greenway trail offers evidence of other like-minded gallivanters. The wintry covering deadens sound...but provides a fleeting history of who has passed the same way moments earlier.

First, the distinctive pattern of a rabbit, with paired hind feet bounding ahead of the single-file forefeet.

Next, a large striding bird that I can only assume to be a pheasant crossing the trail. The slender toes so different from our own, just bones with a thin covering of flesh and scales. 

A squirrel, chunky and dark against the snow, bounds quickly into the tree cover, but not without leaving its bunched prints in the slush.

Our only wild hoofed animal in Iowa makes a virtual appearance with a series of prints where a small group of deer crossed the trail. Like the pheasant, a print so different from the fleshy-padded feet of so many other mammals.

And finally, a human and its canine companion, out for a morning run in less-than-ideal weather conditions. The only set of tracks that follows the trail rather than cutting across it!

  Minuscule tracks of rodents, frenetic scratches of sparrows, the easy line of a cat sidling along. The winter reminds us that we are not alone outside, even if we never see another living thing on our journey. 

 

 

The Colorful Coralberry

Amid the brown-hued grasses and forbs of late November, a swath of red can be seen, subtle enough to overlook at a glance but defined nonetheless. I wander off the paved trail to investigate, taking advantage of the opportunity to pay closer attention to the woody plants that have so much difficulty capturing my attention throughout the rest of the year.

The current of color turns out to be abundant pinkish-red berries, clinging closely to slender woody stems with dry remnants of opposite leaves interspersed. It's a short shrub, appropriately named Coralberry (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus), native to the eastern United States. If I had happened upon this cluster of plants earlier in the summer, it likely wouldn't have drawn attention beyond its orderly arrangement of leaves; the flowers that give way to the colorful berries are small and nondescript, with clusters tucked below the leaves where they join the stems.

Coralberry is a hardy and fast-growing shrub; the berries are eaten by robins and other birds, and another common name--Buckbrush--reflects its appeal to deer. It is another small note in the symphony of species that surround us on the Greenway, so easy to overlook but so rewarding to know.

 

America Recycles...or does it?

Nest, sheathed in plastic

 Today, apparently, is America Recycles Day, a day to celebrate recycling and its importance.After several years of picking up trash along the Greenway, I see firsthand how many plastic bottles and aluminum cans find their way into the low-lying cells. How many plastic bags shred and linger among the stems, some finding their way into bird nests and squirrel dreys. How much cardboard somehow flings itself through the neighborhood to land in the Greenway. The styrofoam containers and packing materials that disintegrate into smaller and smaller bits when you try to grab them.. The building materials from nearby developments that miss their dumpster and end up as litter.

Recycling is important, no doubt. We are fortunate that our city has a robust single-stream curbside recycling program that makes it easy for residents to participate, for the reasonable cost of $6 a month (since 2016, apartments are required to provide recycling services to their residents as well). 

We all know how important it is to Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. Today is celebrating the last or those activities. What about the first one? Why do we end up with so many single-use plastic containers? Does everything we buy need to be wrapped in a sheet of plastic? What about all those plastic grocery bags? So many of these items can't be recycled even if we wanted to. What happens to them?

Think about every fast food meal, with its waxy-coated cup, plastic lid and straw, sometimes with plastic utensils and plastic-sheathed condiment packets. Think about every box shipped from an online retailer, with its air-filled plastic cushions and protective plastic bags around the contents. Think about the frozen foods you buy: frozen pizzas wrapped in plastic, frozen vegetables in their thick plastic bags. 

Is all this really necessary? Who handles the disposal of all the plastic and other materials that can't be recycled? Our municipalities, funded via fees and taxes from us. Who handled the disposal of all the recyclable materials? Our municipalities, funded via fees and taxes from us. Who creates all the waste in the first place? Industry looking for the cheapest possible packaging to maximize their profits. Note they don't cover the costs to dispose of that packaging--we do. It is no concern to them where the packaging ends up. They aren't walking our trails and picking up trash along our Greenway. We are. 

What can be done to stem the tide of single-use materials? The first step is electing leaders who understand it is a problem and prioritize working to correct it via a kind of "producer responsibility" bill. Manufacturers should think about their products from production to disposal, and include the costs of that entire process up front, rather than offloading to municipalities. If the cost to collect and recycle those single-use plastic bottles was included in the cost of those cases of flimsy bulk-purchased water bottles, maybe people would find it more cost-effective to use their own reusable bottles. Maybe if the cost to capture and recycle those styrofoam take-out containers was included in the purchase price, restaurants would find the biodegradable alternatives didn't seem quite as expensive in comparison.

Yes, recycling is wonderful. When it is available and cost-effective. But we need to shift to a mindset of responsibility to the people who actually create the waste--manufacturers and industry. As long as we allow taxpayers and fee-payers to subsidize these cheap, single-use plastics and packaging materials, we are going to continue seeing them produced, and continue finding them places they shouldn't end up. Like our Greenway.

Changing Seasons

 

The seasons change slowly on the Greenway, but in a blink of an eye. You feel the warmth of summer leaving a little more each day, sometimes quickly, returning for some time. Then one day it's gone, and you know it will be long, dark months before its return. Sure, there will be some relatively mild days of sunshine that feel balmy, but they are a slight and temporary reprieve.

From a distance, the colors alternate between green and brown annually. All the individual yellows, purples, whites, and oranges of the flowers are invisible from a distance, just like the insects and birds that make the area hum and sing. Only the shape of the landscape and the wide swathes of color remain. 

When I look back through photos, I sometimes think I spend too much time focused on those small individuals: the butterflies and the butterfly weed, the coneflowers and the wasps. The wider fields are sparse in comparison. But then I recall that each of those  interactions is an experience with another individual sharing our Greenway, a brief moment in time captured. 

Each view is necessary. The small daily snapshots that make life what it is, and the larger perspective showing where we are and where we're going. Make sure to look closely, but also make sure to look up and around once in a while too!

Iowa: A lovely place to spend the winter

 

Song Sparrow

Most people think of bird migration in terms of "flying south for the winter". All those birds whose company we enjoyed throughout their summer nesting season fatten up and begin their long, arduous journeys to warmer climes in the southern US, or Central and South America to while away the winter months.

But for some birds, those warmer climes are...here, in Iowa and the midwest. They spent their breeding season in the far north: the Canadian boreal forest and other near-arctic regions. Many of them will simply pass through our area as they head further south with the other birds, but a few hardy little birds will stick it out here, through Iowa's short, windswept days and long, freezing nights. 

Dark-eyed Junco

Meet our winter sparrows! All can be found along the Greenway trail in winter, and you can also get to know many at closer range if you have backyard feeders (Project Feederwatch is a great citizen science program that involves winter birds). All the little brown birds can be daunting to tell apart at first, but with close observation of key features it gets a little easier!

American Tree Sparrow

A perennial winter favorite--and one of the easiest sparrows to identify--is the charming Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis). There are a few geographical variations, but around here they generally have a solid gray head and body with a white belly. If you just catch them taking flight from a distance, you can see the white feathers on the outer edges of their tails.

The American Tree Sparrow (Spizelloides arborea), has a bicolored bill and dark spot on its unstreaked chest. It has a rusty cap with a matching stripe through its eye.

Fox Sparrow

Fox Sparrows (Passerella iliaca) closely resemble the more common Song Sparrow, with heavily streaked breasts. Though their color is variable, the Fox Sparrow is generally more foxy reddish brown, and the streaks on its breast are heavier, with spots shaped like chevrons. Its face also seems to me to have less, and less well-defined, white markings than the Song Sparrow.

The beautiful black-and-white striped cap of the White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys) is very distinctive, atop a fairly plain and uniformly gray face and throat. The White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) has a similarly streaked cap, but also sports a clean white throat as well as yellow mark in front of its eyes. (To complicate matters, there is also a tan-striped form where the white crown streaks are replaced with tan.)

White-crowned Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

 

In addition to these snowbirds, there are several other sparrows that spend the entire year with us. Prominent on the Greenway are the Song Sparrows (Melospiza melodia), with heavily-streaked breasts with a central dark spot. These are one of the most common sparrows you'll probably encounter on the trail.

Swamp Sparrow

Much less common but still reported year-round are Field Sparrows (Spizella pusilla), featuring a pink bill and white eyering (their facial features look soft to me, with a blushy cheek spot), and the Swamp Sparrow (Melospiza georgiana), with a more skulking habit, gray face with reddish cap, and a white throat. 

And last but not least are our two non-native sparrows. House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) should be familiar to anyone who pays attention to birds! They hang around in noisy flocks, the plumage of the winter males--black bibs, gray caps with white cheeks, and reddish-brown napes--more subdued than their summertime feathers. The females are very plain brown, with a light brown stripe above the eye.

House Sparrow (male)

House Sparrow (female)

Eurasian Tree Sparrows (Passer montanus), look similar to male House Sparrows, but they have a handsome brown cap and a distinctive black spot on their white cheeks (males and females look the same). They are less common around here than the ubiquitous House Sparrow, but there is a small flock resident near the woods on the north end of the Greenway. 

Eurasian Tree Sparrow

The Ethical Grasshopper

 The scattered grasshoppers springing away from each footstep as winter approaches bring to mind the old fable about the ant and the grasshopper. 

At base, 'tis a tale of woe (or a hard moral tale, for the formican fellow travelers) about an improvident orthopteran who, having spent the summer singing and frolicking, faced the ominous winter's advance empty-handed (empty-tarsused?). Beseeching the industrious ants for a portion of the stores they put by for winter, the grasshopper is rebuffed and left to starve in the cold. The ants, presumably, while away the winter congratulating themselves on their hard work and foresight.

Given the millennia the fable has enjoyed the attention of artists, storytellers, and politicians, the simple story has evolved a variety of morals. At base, it is about preparing for the vagaries of life and being mindful that times of plenty are inevitably followed by times of scarcity. One must prepare for bad times during the good. One must balance work and play, and devote time to each accordingly. Those who don't do so cannot expect to live off the fruits of others' labor.

Alternatively, the grasshopper has taken on the role as a symbol of the arts in some tellings: one whose work is not productive in a traditional sense but no less worthy of a place in our society. In this case, the stingy ants, with their cramped and cruel lives obsessed only with accumulating resources, become the villains. The grasshopper living joyously and for the moment, is not troubled with thoughts of scarcity or the long, dark nights of winter. The pleasure of his song is enjoyed by all, but not valued as it should be. The starving artist, undervalued and underappreciated on the margins of society.

A middle ground declares the ants in the right for their industriousness, but wrong in their uncharitable treatment of the grasshopper. Although L'Estrange seems to come down on Team Ant in his translation, the final comment embraces a merciful outlook:

[W]e have our failings, every mother's child of us, and the improvidence of my neighbour must not make me inhumane. The ant did well to reprove the grasshopper for her slothfulness; but she did ill then to refuse her a charity in her distress.

 All this is a rambling preamble for me to say, I think the grasshopper was done dirty in the fable.

You can't hold a grasshopper to an ant's standards. They are different organisms, with different niches and different behaviors to exploit those niches. The grasshopper's life is meant to end with the coming of winter. We don't blame the summer flowers for withering and passing away with the winter winds. That is the end of their life cycle, as it is for the grasshopper.

Grasshoppers generally live independently*, not in a cooperative eusocial colony where each individual is subsumed within the whole. Even if the ants had agreed to share their food, could the grasshopper survive? Does the grasshopper have the physical ability to excavate a burrow or other cavity to protect it from the winter winds and snow? Would it need to rely on the ants not only for sustenance, but shelter as well? Would it even want to suffer through those long months, unable to hop and bask in the warm sun, unable to snap their wings and munch on petals?

And what of the ant's diet? Grasshoppers are herbivores**, eating leaves and flowers though perhaps not terribly choosy about the source. Would a grasshopper be interested in what the ant has stowed away in its larder? Depending on the species, it could be fungus or honeydew, or other insects and their eggs.

I suppose the moral of the story, then, is that we must not expect different organisms to conform to the expectations of others; each has its role to play and its place in the world.

*With some exceptions: swarms of locusts, in biblical lore and throughout history, are grasshoppers whose swarming behavior is triggered by climactic conditions, when they enter a "gregarious phase". 

**Again, with some exceptions: a few species may eat flesh or feces, and even those who are regularly herbivorous are not above munching on the occasional insect carcass they stumble upon, for a boost of protein.  

Opportunity for Fortuity

 I have written previously about serendipity in Greenway outings, and am reminded of earlier days in my long ago youth when I might go for a walk outside every few months and return disappointed in having seen nothing of interest. No exciting birds, no sculptural snails, no rare flowers. I might hear tales from friends or families of having seen an exciting sight, but rarely experienced the same. 

 I have since learned that I was doing it all wrong. 

First, one must create frequent opportunities for fortuity. A short walk a couple of times a year will not do the trick. Immersion and familiarity are key; get to know a place and its habits, and then you may be rewarded with the occasional out-of-the-ordinary sighting. At the same time, keen attention is required as well. You won't see anything if you're not looking and listening (or if you're looking at and listening to, oh say a small electronic device instead of the world around you). 

Next, one must understand expectations. Not every encounter of interest may be terribly interesting to others. I've spent hundreds of hours on the Greenway and rarely spot a mammal other than deer and squirrels, one highlight being an opossum mother with two babies clinging to her back, as well as a muskrat or two. I've heard tales of bobcat in the area, but seen only standard Felis catus. So I keep my expectations small: an interesting bug; frogs and turtles; an oddly-formed flower are all serendipitous encounters.

And finally--the fortuity. Chance, luck, serendipity. Whatever you choose to call that impossible-to-plan confluence of events. Stopping to watch a downy woodpecker foraging on a low stem when a young red-eyed vireo literally drops out of a tree right in front of you and proceeds to glean insects in open branches nearby, oblivious to the eager photographer trying to appear as a tree trunk while snapping away. 

The encounter was a lucky coming-together of opportunity (taking the time to quietly watch the woodpecker for several minutes), expectation (the red-eyed vireo is hardly a rare bird, but not one I've encountered before thus terribly exciting--for me), and fortuity (what are the odds the bird would land so close, and go about its business with such disregard for me standing there?). 

Later on the same walk, a tiny tree frog nestled in a curled leaf. Opportunity: stopping to investigate a nearby patch of thistle and its pollinators. Expectation: again, hardly a rare specimen but uncommon enough to cause delight. Fortuity: if I had stopped at a different thistle patch, or stood eighteen inches to the left or right, I wouldn't have caught sight of the little motionless frog. 

 It is these chance encounters that spice regular outings and keep me going out week after week. I generally know what I will see, and yet I never know what I will see.

Those Who Thrive Where Others Fail

They are the overlooked. The ignored, the downtrodden and the unwanted. In the wrong place at the wrong time (is there ever a right place and a right time?). When they do gain attention, it is usually an exasperated sigh at the "overgrown weeds" or a judgmental shake of the head at an unkempt lawn.

But really. Look at them out there, in the blazing sun, growing out of parched, poor-quality soil. Sometimes sprouting from cracks in the sidewalk. No need for semi-daily waterings, fertilizings, herbicidings, insecticidings, and other babying. Not for these rugged individualists! Give them a week or two to get started, and they're off and running: growing, flowering, and setting seed before you can gas up the lawnmower. 

Many are non-natives, introduced as forage or for erosion control, or stowed away among some less assertive plant materials. Some are natives, able to hold their own in the harsh environment of weedy lots, urban sidewalks, and points in between. Some may pass judgment on the "invasives", with good reason. But many of them grow where other plants fear to tread, and can act as pioneers on a hostile landscape.

When you are walking around sunny neighborhoods and yards that haven't been coddled, take a moment to notice these subtle, scrappy survivors.

Prickly Lettuce (Lactuca serriola), a non-native. Clouds of small, light-yellow flowers float on branching stems several feet tall. The leaves have a line of fierce-looking spikes on the underside.

Velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti), a rather pervasive non-native whose seeds can germinate after 20 years of dormancy. The seed pods are interesting and distinctive, and the large, soft leaves may find consideration in the event of another toilet paper shortage.

Horseweed (Conyza canadensis) is a tall native topped with a plume of uninspiring flowers. The narrow leaves arranged around the stem can look a bit like the more flamboyant Liatris, but the inflorescence at the top is very different.

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa), one of those plants introduced as forage that has proved to be highly successful once it escapes the confines of cultivation. It avoids the bad reputation of some of its fellow non-natives by keeping to the poorer-quality areas and not usually crowding out desirable native plants.

Prostrate or Spotted Spurge (Chamaesyce maculata/Euphorbia maculata) is a mat-forming native that can spread over the edge of a sidewalk or curb from its central root. Tiny flowers can be found near the leaves along the stems.

Another low-growing native plant with subtle flowers is Prostrate Vervain (Verbena bracteata). Its inflorescence is a spike up to 6" long, with bracts the length of the spike and tiny purple flowers near the tip.

From the Depths

Walking along the Greenway after a heavy rain, one may be turned back at the snail crossing by an inch or so of water flowing over the trail. If it isn't too deep, or

if you have footwear that isn't easily waterlogged, it can be a small treat to wade in and examine some of the aquatic denizens that are normally hidden from view beneath watery surfaces. 

Easiest to see, and fairly common, are the small aquatic snails with their smooth, rounded shells sometimes humped above the surface, water rippling as it passes around them. Occasionally one will lose its footing (so to speak) and tumble away with the current. The tiny lives are subtle and easy to overlook; careless pedestrians may not notice anything beyond the slight crunch as they pass.

Assorted creepy-crawlies lurk below the surface, invertebrates that are hard to capture in photos (particularly with my reluctance to physically disturb them to get a better shot!): flatwormy creatures and I'm pretty sure a leech or two. 

One exciting day revealed a crayfish scuttling along the trail. I wondered which side of the trail it came from, where it normally spends its time, where it retreats as the water recedes? 

And there--is that an aquatic isopod? Relative of those endearing terrestrial roly-polies found in cool, damp places under rocks and flowerpots. Isopods are crustaceans, like crayfish, and both aquatic and terrestrial versions breathe through gills.

So the next time the trail seems to be impassable due to a miniature flood event, take the opportunity to visit with those creatures of the depths (relatively speaking) who don't often make an appearance on the Greenway.

 

My Own Mini Greenway

My garden is a mess. I'm fine with it.

Inspired by the Greenway and the diversity of plants found there, I determined to create my own little patch of native greenery in my backyard, to support the bees, birds, butterflies, and other wildlife that had been displaced by housing developments. Amid a sea of turfgrass, I painstakingly dug out a 6' x 9' rectangle and planted twelve haphazardly-chosen native forbs and grasses in a sloppy grid (no designer me, I was more interested in each plant as a specimen rather than a player in a harmonious symphony of color, scent, and texture). There was a clump of Big Bluestem, and Butterfly Milkweed in the front corner. Wild Bergamot, Culver's Root, a couple of "nativars" selected before I understood the difference between them and their wild counterparts.

The following year I replicated the rectangle with a new set of plants, and again the following year. Now I have a long, rectangular strip of a mini-semi-prairie. It's a little weedy, and very overgrown (let's just say my estimation of space requirements for individual plants was optimistic). Some plants have thrived and spread: the Gray-headed Coneflower gets a pass for being my favorite, but the Compass Plant has been making some moves as well, since establishing itself. The Wild Bergamot, on the other hand, lives up to its reputation as a rapidly-spreading mint and is "contained" with extreme prejudice.

Every week or so I will desultorily pull some less-welcome plants from the garden area: clover and crabgrass, and many of the volunteer seedlings that threaten to crown out some of the more dainty specimens. I will cut back some of the stems of Ironweed or Queen of the Prairie that are getting too close to their neighbors for comfort. But for the most part I let it be.

It was not planned for year-round color or beauty, though I try to plant flowers that will bloom throughout the growing season for early and late pollinators. There is no rhyme or reason to color or placement; it's a jumble. But I love it.

I love to circle the garden and listen to the buzz of activity as the bees and wasps circle endlessly around whatever flowers are most tantalizing that day. I love catching the occasional skipper on the Liatris, or following the Monarch from milkweed to milkweed as she lays her eggs, sometimes swooping toward a different plant with similar leaves before quickly rerouting. I love finding the Camouflaged Loopers on the Coneflowers (and on the Rattlesnake Master this year!), and so, so many different kinds of bees.

I love to think of my yard as a welcoming place, an area that I am happy to share with other living things. So much of our culture's "perfect" yard is the result of driving out any life except our own; an intolerance for sharing "our" space with anything else. What a sad and cramped world that seems!

 

Romance, Wool Carder Bee-Style

As I have occasionally let slip in previous posts, I have a soft spot for some of our most reviled non-native species and tend to cast an eye in their direction frequently when walking along the trail. The bright yellow flowers of low-growing Birdsfoot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) often grab my attention, and I enjoy seeing some of the small bees (generally also non-native) that can be seen hard at work prying into the tight petals of the flowers ins search of nectar and pollen.

Dropping down to take a few shots of what appeared to be a wool carder bee (possibly Anthidium oblongatum, Oblong Wool Carder), I smiled to myself as the green-eyed bee moved from flower to flower in the small clump of Trefoil.

Suddenly, another insect made a beeline [sorry] for the first. seemingly dropping from the sky and zeroing in directly on the first bee as its head was buried in a flower. The encroacher clasped its back and held it immobile. Was this a bee assault? A murder in progress?

Oh wait. They seemed to be the same species and--what's this? A little contact at the tips of the abdomens? It appears that a male bee, unceremoniously and without the slightest attempt at woo, saw an opportunity and took it. Surprised but unabashed, I continued watching as the pair remained immobile for 20 or 30 seconds, save for the male's antennae.

I left the encounter a little unsettled at the odd and seemingly hostile scene I had witnessed. The female bee gets no say in the matter? No displays, no demonstrations of fitness or other performance from the male to earn the female's favor?

This is, apparently, a common tactic among wool carder bees. Males are very territorial and will patrol their patch of flowers, driving out other male wool carders and sometimes even other species. Females tolerate what looks like a brazen assault in exchange for access to these high-quality foraging areas where they don't have to compete as much with other bees snaffling up all the pollen. Males and females will mate several times with multiple partners over the course of their lives; with the last male to mate with a female being the most likely to win out in the fertilization game.

Because of this mating system, male wool carder bees are generally larger than females, in contrast to the size difference in the opposite direction for other types of bees. Smaller males may still deploy sneak-matings with females successfully without holding territory of their own, though they find less opportunity to do so.