Holy Moly

 Most outings to the Greenway or walking around town elicit small exclamations: Hello, friend sparrow! Good to see you again, dandelion! And what are you, shiny little beetle? 

An nod of greeting to neighbors, a sometimes-rote acknowledgement of an acquaintance, an occasionally delighted encounter with an occasional passerby. But some lucky days you get a Holy moly! Not quite breathtaking, not quite rare and exciting, but a neat reward for venturing outside and keeping your eyes open.

The first holy moly was a golfball-sized gall on the thick square stem of a Cup Plant. I was familiar with the varieties of goldenrod galls, and some of the galls found on oak leaves and stems. But I'd never noticed one on Cup Plant. It has a cheerful little remnant of a dried leaf trailing off the top of the gall like a pennant. I snapped it off with a length of the stem to bring home for further study, carrying it in my hand to ensure it didn't get broken in a pocket.

It doesn't look like much...
maybe you had to be there.

As I was happily pondering my new gall (or as my mind wandered, variously my queenly scepter, my wizard's wand, my drum major baton...it was a stem that captured the imagination), I turned off the trail to the mowed path leading to the wetlands, and practically ran headlong into a huge bird cresting the hill from the wetlands. Holy moly! A second bird followed, and as my imagination transitioned from the gall-topped stem to fantastic sight before it, the unmistakable call of Sandhill Cranes erupted from the birds.

Without thinking I chucked my prized gall stem to the ground to try to catch a photo or two before they flew out of sight. Instead they swerved north and alighted in the corn stubble just to the north, carefully foraging long enough for a few more pictures. I picked up my stem, fortunately unharmed, and headed back north along the trail.  

And then--a holy moly trilogy! Clutching my gall stem in one hand, the other warming in a pocket, a chunky little bird flies past, silhouetted against the afternoon sun, its long bill hanging in front of it like a proboscis. An American Woodcock! I turn to watch it wing south, simply enjoying the moment without frantically attempting to get a photo of the fast-moving blob against the light, until I lost sight of it. As big and charismatic as the cranes are, the woodcock is a much more subtle bird and one I rarely catch sight of. What a treat of an afternoon!