Winter Whimsy

 It's mid-January. It's cold, it's often windy, and an overcast sky can sometimes make it hard to find the beauty in the natural world. But fortunately whimsy can be found in even dreary circumstances, with a bit of attention and imagination. 

The cracked knot in a tree trunk that looks a little like a long-haired face. The catalpa seedpods whose curls I apparently can't find a word other than whimsical to describe. And leaves, again curling (is curling by nature whimsical?) or struggling futilely to fly free.

This year's entry also features a pop of color, crimson against the midwinter brown. Something about the silhouette--the smooth, bulbous head atop a skinny, kinked stem, topped with a ragged crown of dry sepals--brings to mind those unfortunate souls of Disney's Ursula. 

It's a single rose hip, from a wild rose near the wetlands. Though the hips of non-native multiflora rose can be found throughout the Greenway, the larger hips of what appears to be a native rose are not as common. 

They are the fruit of the rose, containing its seeds, and are a valuable source of nutrition for wildlife including birds and small mammals. Rose hips are also used by humans to make jams and jellies, teas, and other tasty items. 

It isn't much, but it doesn't have to take much. A moment of delight, requiring nothing more than that bit of attention and imagination, can make those winter days a little less bleak. 

Can you be on the lookout for whimsy? Or does it just make an appearance whenever it feels like it? Regardless, keep your eyes open and your imagination at the ready.

Sources/Additional reading:

• Roses have hips too! (ISU Extension)

Snippet of a Rainbow

I am usually too busy looking down to take the time to notice the astronomical and meteorological happenings in the sky. My eye looks for the motion of a bird or the subtle differences in the shape and color of leaves, while neglecting the distant beauty that has captured the attention and imagination of earthbound humans for millennia. 

A late afternoon walk, with the gibbous moon looming over the wetlands, and the sun hanging bright over the soccer park. Squinting up to locate the fiery orb among the wisps of clouds, I realize that the bright light in my line of sight isn't actually the sun but rather a gorgeous, glowing, rainbow-colored sun dog. The much brighter sun hangs off to the right, too dazzling to glimpse (I look beyond to find the other member of the paired sun dogs but fail to locate it).

Just a snippet of a rainbow, hanging in the sky. As I and the sun move, the sun dog's appearance changes from that faint rainbow to a fierce flame that transitions from orange on the sun side to hot white opposite. 

The phenomenon happens when sunlight refracts off crystals of ice in the sky, creating prisms of light. Also known as mock sun or parhelion, sun dogs usually occur when the sun is near the horizon, and can last up to 30 minutes. 

After the few quick glances that I can bear, my attention fades back to the ground and I begin scanning the dry grasses and leaves again. Returning to the familiar and comfortable life along the trail, but with a reminder to be sure to look to the sky, beyond the soaring birds, every once in a while. 

Around the Mound

There is a mound, a rather large mound of dirt, a few feet off the trail north of the soccer park. Many times have I passed this mound and mused at its size (several feet across, maybe a couple of feet tall?), wondered what manner of creature would construct such a mound, but never have I dared approach the mound to examine it. Until now. 

It did not take a very close inspection to see the mound was alive with activity: hundreds of ants hauling, pushing, carrying twigs, leaves, bits of plant material or dirt. They were handsome ants, with shiny black abdomens* and russet heads, with the antennae rakishly cocked. Their activity was mesmerizing; so many ants, doing so many things!

From photos, iNaturalist helpfully suggested they belonged to the genus Formica ("Wood, Mound, and Field Ants"--that certainly made sense), with further suggestions narrowing the species to the Allegheny Mound Ant, Formica exsectoides.

These ants will construct mounds above ground, with tunnels throughout and extended below the ground's surface. Each colony can have several queens taking care of the reproductive aspects of the colony, with workers doing the construction, maintenance, and care. The large mounds above ground are thought to take advantage of the warmth of the sun to keep their nurseries--the eggs and the larvae--warm and also allow an early start in the spring as the mound may stay warmer than its surroundings.  

The worker ants will forage outside the nest, hitting up extrafloral nectaries such as those on Partridge Pea, as well as honeydew from aphids. They will also hunt other arthropods, and in defense of their mound they can bite ferociously while also producing painful formic acid as an added deterrent. 

The mound colonies can persist for years, and additional mounds can be established nearby as colonies split off. 

Who knew there was a little ant city going about its business right next to the trail?

Sources/Additional Resources:

• Tiny camera explores ant colony
• AntWiki: Formica exsectoides
• BugGuie: Species Formica exsectoides - Allegheny Mound Ant
• Wild About Ants: Allegheny Mound Ants, Formica exsectoides

*I discovered that ant anatomy is a bit more complex than the basic insect anatomy I'd learned about: this hindmost part of an ant is technically called the "gaster", which, along with the narrow "petiole" that connects it to the forward parts of the body, comprise the "metasoma". The abdomen consists of segments, the first of which in ants is actually fused to the thorax; the petiole is the second abdominal segment, and the gaster includes the remaining abdominal segments.