Great-Tailed Grackles

 I first experienced grackles when I was in college in Austin, TX, many years ago. Their loud whistles and gravelly squawks seemed cute and friendly to me. Click this linked site to hear a sample! God has a good sense of humor.

They made themselves entirely at home, wherever they were. Stalking around in a lordly manner, they obviously felt free to partake of any and all bugs that made the unfortunate decision to remain out in the open.

My family lived a couple of hundred miles farther north, and my home town had nary a grackle. They were citizens of the south. 

Then about fifteen years later, I heard that familiar whistle. I rounded up my small children, and we took binoculars to the back yard to find the grackle. There he was, perched at the very top of our neighbor’s tall pine tree, whistling away. From then on, the grackle population has continued to increase, and now they make up a large number of our bird citizenry.

Many people complain about them, but I still find them entertaining and funny—that is, except when they roost in the trees over our driveway and deposit their waste on our cars. A big plastic owl keeps watch, though, and they seem to believe it is real. As long as he guards the place, they find other trees for roosting.

The picture comes from this blog: From My Perch: Great-tailed Grackles

Great-Tailed Grackles

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/08/grackles.html

A Butterfly Frenzy

When our neighbors' sage bushes bloomed last year, a whole cloud of these big black and iridescent blue butterflies enveloped them in a frenzy of feeding.

Another neighbor's yellow kitten was mystified by all the butterflies, and she kept leaping up and trying to capture them. Fortunately, she never succeeded. 

A small swarm of bees joined the butterflies--those big, fat, yellow and black bumblebees. They were just as excited about the flowers as the butterflies were. A mockingbird squawked warnings at the kitten, which apparently was too close to the nest of mockingbird children. She occasionally dive-bombed the kitten, who ignored the bird--too busy with butterflies.


The underside of the butterflies' wings were blue and black with a curved line of orange spots. An Internet search shows that they are pipevine swallowtails. Here's another picture, showing the outside of the wings, which have a span of about three and a half inches. I took these pictures with my trusty Olympus digital camera.

Here is a linked site that has gorgeous pictures and lots of information about the pipevine swallowtail butterfly.



 

A Butterfly Frenzy

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/05/butterfly-frenzy.html

Ducks or Geese in Formation

I had a forty-five minute drive home the other day. It was late afternoon, and I was tired, dreading the drive home.

Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds in an afterthought, so I looked up to see a little blue sky.  High overhead was a V-formation of ducks or geese, headed north. I watched them as long as I could. Two other formations came along, then. I slowed down so I could see them longer.

As the road turned, I could see a large group of them from the back, and I saw something new (to me!).  Occasionally, a bird near the front of the formation would move a little sideways. All the rest of the birds in that line followed that one exactly, and so the whole line rippled, like a wave in water. It happened in several waves.

I was amazed at the sight of how closely they followed, how precisely each one  imitated  the one just ahead. It was a beautiful thing--a ripple of birds.

The picture is from this site: ifornature.blogspot.com/2008/01/tg-halli.html

Ducks or Geese in Formation

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/02/ducks-or-geese-in-formation.html

How to Describe a Sunset--or Not

If you go for a walk at sunset and you see the sunset and you want to write about how beautiful it is, what can you say?

In these days of lean writing, people don’t want to read about the sunset being “splendid” or “magnificent.” Too syrupy.

They don’t want to read about its colors--all the shades of pink and gold and yellow and purple and blue. Too inadequate.

And it’s not currently “good” to describe the brightness of the pinks and golds--how the clouds were outlined by the gleaming edge of gold and how the pink and blue lines radiated out in all directions for about one minute.

So how are you supposed to do it?

Should you just say something like “when I saw it, something in me welled up and felt tender, so I told God it was one of his very best” and just leave them to figure out all the rest?

That’s inadequate, too. And what if they can’t imagine it because they’ve never seen one just like it or maybe never noticed?!

How to Describe a Sunset--or Not

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-describe-sunset-or-not.html

Mary Oliver

I love the poetry of Mary Oliver; I have read several of her books, and so far, I love Red Bird best. She is seventy-three years old, and as she tells us in her poem “Self-Portrait,” she is “still in love with life. And still full of beans.” It’s true. In this book, there’s a melancholy I have not seen so much in the others I’ve read. But her love of nature seems deeper than ever, as well as her love and reverence for God.

To Mary Oliver, the precious creations of God are everywhere in nature. Here is her poem “Red Bird”:

Red bird came all winter

firing up the landscape

as nothing else could.

Of course I love the sparrows,

those dun-colored darlings,

so hungry and so many.

I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.

I know He has many children,

not all of them bold in spirit.

Still, for whatever reason—

perhaps because the winter is so long

and the sky so black-blue,

or perhaps because the heart narrows

as often as it opens—

I am grateful

that red bird comes all winter

firing up the landscape

as nothing else can do.

To read her poetry is to drink fresh spring water, to wade in the ocean, to experience the soul-deep colors of sunsets and bird feathers, to leap with deer and fly with geese. It is a celebration of life.

Oliver, Mary. Red Bird. Boston: Beacon, 2008.

Mary Oliver

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/mary-oliver.html

An Old Prejudice

One night I came out of class late, the last to leave. I headed toward my car, which was waiting for me in the small parking lot across the street from our building on the edge of the community college campus.

As I locked the building, I noticed a fox ambling along, minding his own business, toward the center of the parking lot. He was just past the edge, going into the large circle of light cast by the sentry lamp. He was humming and chuckling in fox language as he thought of nothing in particular.

Then I saw on the other side of the parking lot’s circle of light, a skunk sauntering toward him, just as preoccupied with his own night-time errands, stopping now and then to study a cricket or a june bug on the pavement.

Suddenly they looked up and saw each other at exactly the same moment. The air around them filled with bristling shock as they both came to a screeching halt. I could almost hear them saying, “Omigosh, what will I do now?” They both turned and bolted away into the darkness.

What happened? Some ancient prejudice based on fear rose up and grabbed them by their throats, apparently. It reminded me of people I have seen.

An Old Prejudice

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2008/09/old-prejudice.html

Painted Lady Butterflies

My grandchildren sent my mother, their great-grandmother, a marvelous gift for Mother’s Day (with the help of their mother). The two oldest boys, ages 5 and 7, giggled and told her a mysterious package would arrive soon and she must be careful about removing it from the box. She must not open the jar.

When the box arrived, we carefully took the jar out and set it on the table to read the booklet that came with it. The jar contained five Painted Lady butterfly babies. They were charcoal gray—very plain-looking and wormish, as caterpillars often are. The directions said we should set the jar somewhere out of heat and direct sunlight for about a week, while they crawled around and ate the nutritious brown stuff in the bottom. A net butterfly cage came along with them.

By about the tenth day, they had all climbed up and attached themselves upside down to the paper on the underside of the jar lid. They grew shorter than before, and they turned goldish-brown as they became chrysalides. At that point, we very carefully removed the lid, took out the round piece of paper, and pinned it to the side of the butterfly cage.

About five days later, we noticed one of the chrysalides was missing. Amazing! It had turned into a beautiful gold, brown, and white butterfly. Perching on the side of the cage, it was waiting for its wings to dry.

The instructions told us to then place a large flower, preferably a carnation, in the bottom of the cage and sprinkle it with sugar-water. I bought a carnation at the local florist’s for a dollar; we cut the stem short and put it in a small bowl to leave plenty of room for butterflying.

Within two days, four of the chrysalides had hatched (I suppose “hatched” is the right word) and the four new Painted Ladies were flitting about and landing on the carnation. My mother wheeled her chair to the back door and opened the cage to release them. Three of them fluttered away immediately, but one stayed in the open cage for a few minutes before leaving.

This was a wonderful experience for my mother; she loved watching the caterpillars become butterflies. Only God, the Chief Architect of butterfly birth, could plan such a process.

**You can order butterfly rearing kits at this linked Swallowtail Farms site. The picture comes from this nature site.

Painted Lady Butterflies

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2008/06/painted-lady-butterflies.html

Wordless (well, almost) Wednesday

This is a NASA photo image of “the core of the Whirlpool galaxy M51 (NGC 5149) taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows an immense ring of dust and gas that is thought to surround and hide a giant black hole in the center of the galaxy.” See this site: www.scienceclarified.com/Bi-Ca/Black-Hole.html

(Perhaps you notice the cross image in the center of the lighted area!)

Wordless (well, almost) Wednesday

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2008/05/wordless-well-almost-wednesday.html

Wordless Wednesday: Wildflowers

Wordless Wednesday: Wildflowers

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2008/05/wordless-wednesday-wildflowers.html

Cheerleader Crab

This is a “pom-pom crab”—a newly discovered little critter that lives only near the Hawaiian Islands. It was found recently during a census round-up of the ocean there, according to National Geographic.

The article says the pom-poms are not actually part of the crab; they are anemones it uses as tools to rake up unfortunate little organisms on coral reefs for its dinner.

So it isn’t a cheerleader, although it looks like one. God has a good sense of humor.

Cheerleader Crab

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/06/cheerleader-crab.html

Thursday Thirteen: Spring Is Sprung

Here are thirteen things I love about spring in the Southwest:

1. Wildflowers

2. The way different kinds of wildflowers take turns blooming as the spring goes along:

3. First, bluebonnets, wild primrose, and Indian paintbrush

4. Later, Indian blanket and Mexican hat

5. Even later, purple coneflowers

6. The brilliant green of new grass and leaves

7. The return of Monarch butterflies

8. Warmer weather

9. Rain

10. Thunderstorms

11. Not tornadoes!

12. Birds building nests

13. Students in love all over campus

Thursday Thirteen: Spring Is Sprung

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/05/thursday-thirteen-spring-is-sprung.html

God's Art in Colorado Springs

As the sun rises in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the mountains behind the Broadmoor Hotel turn bright orange and hot pink for a few minutes. A man said, “Somebody’s been fooling around with lighting!” But God is the artist there. His work is spectacular.

A small frozen lake spanned by a walking bridge rests in the middle of the Broadmoor complex. Wild birds often stop by to rest or forage in the little open-water patches on either side of the footbridge. Twice we saw white and black swans there. Early in the morning, the open water was completely encircled by fat gray Canadian geese, their heads tucked under their wings.

The geese reminded me of a winter day a few years ago when I saw a large flock of Canadian geese at a pond in the southern Oklahoma countryside. When I exclaimed over them, my elderly uncle, irritated for some reason, said, “Ain’t you ever seen a goose?”

“Not up close,” I said. Their soft gray elegance touched me, and I thanked God for the opportunity to see his bird art “up close.” I did not have a camera that day.

And I, of course, did not have my camera on our trip last weekend to the Christian Writers’ Guild Writing for the Soul Conference in Colorado Springs. My camera is too big; I must get a small one for traveling. I will have some pictures as soon as my two travel mates share their small-camera pictures with me. In the meantime, I have found some beautiful pictures of sunrise and sunset in Colorado Springs at the web site linked here. That’s where I got the one at the top of this entry; take a look at the other pictures by “doctorart.”

God's Art in Colorado Springs

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/02/gods-art-in-colorado-springs.html

Rainbows from Above: Jim the Pilot

My brother Jim is a pilot. He wrote an essay about amazing things he has seen while he is in the air--"Running Rendezvous with Mother Nature." He says God is the master artist and craftsman of these phenomena. Jim gave me permission to share some of this with you. For example, here is a paragraph from his essay, about rainbows seen from above the earth:

The most unforgettable sight associated with clouds is a rainbow. When unencumbered by close proximity to terra firma, it appears majestically in a full, perfect circle. I have seen it only three times in nearly forty years of flying. Conditions must be just right: sun behind, altitude between five and twenty thousand feet, high humidity. It appears on the clouds ahead, possibly two miles in diameter. The full spectrum of colors is there, more vivid than I thought possible. As the aircraft comes nearer to the clouds, the rainbow becomes smaller, to a minimum of approximately one-half mile. The individual bands of color grow even more vivid. As the aircraft scores a perfect bull’s-eye on the rainbow, the nearest band is a hundred feet wide. I could reach out and touch it with my hand, but I do not have to. It comes inside and fills the cockpit with the soft yellow of daisies. We pass into the cloud and it is gone. No more than two minutes have elapsed, but the memory of such a moving experience lasts a lifetime.

Rainbows from Above: Jim the Pilot

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/01/rainbows-from-above-jim-pilot.html