The Care and Feeding of Dragons

Dragonfly Tales

• STEVE MELCHER – 

If you fill it, they will come…
could be a bucket, bowl or a pond.

There was an interesting article in the May 2021 issue of the Owl Light News by Sally L. White about sedges which mentioned the saying, “Sedges have edges and rushes are round, and grasses have nodes all the way to the ground.” This reminded me of my saying that, “Sedges have edges and rushes are round and water is found where dragons abound” which is skewed toward my love of dragonflies. Dragonflies are the wonderful aerial acrobats of the aquatic world. Who wouldn’t want them buzzing around catching mosquitoes while you’re in the backyard firing up the barbie? They are ideal photography subjects and objects of spiritual contemplation. The males set up territories and will land on the same twig or leaf after each patrol. Set up your camera or sit there with your phone and snap a photo every time he returns to his post. 

Typical Dragonfly Nymph

Many of you have written to me of your journey towards creating a more diverse critter friendly habitat around your home. I see more and more yards being converted from a monoculture of fertilizer fed Kentucky Bluegrass to a pollinator heaven full of buzzing bees and fluttering butterflies. We need more of these. I wonder why the overweight gentleman even has a riding lawnmower to scalp the green on his postage stamp of lawn. Let’s not compete to see who has a weed free yard. If you do, you’re promoting one of the most devastating and insidious forms of pollution. Reams of reports have been written about the relationship between fertilized, herbicided, pesticided lawns and the decline of natural systems. Let it grow wild.  Many of you have read Douglas Tallamy’s ‘Bringing Nature Home’ where he expounds the beauty and benefits of converting the conventional suburban lawn to a natural native landscape. Thank you. You have become an island of hope for nature; hope, not only  for survival of dragonflies but for mysteries of our natural world that we are just beginning to understand. About 15 percent of North America’s dragonfly species are in danger of extinction. Habitat loss is the number one reason. Attracting dragonflies to your home garden helps to protect these beneficial dragons of the sky and cut down on those bugs that really bug you. 

So, you’ve decided to desod the fodder and start afresh with native plants (please do your research on what are native plants in our area). If you’ve decided to go wild why not become what Ruary Dodds calls a ‘Dragonfly Friendly Gardener’?    

Creating a water feature
in your garden

Water: it’s what attracts dragonflies.

Dragonflies have been known to breed in horse troughs and rain barrels. But how did they get there? You don’t have to have the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge in your backyard or even live on the shores of one of our beautiful Finger Lakes to attract dragons. Dragonflies have been known to travel up to 3 miles from a source of water to find suitable prey and habitat. The simplest thing you could do is to fill a tub with water and water plants like the ones listed below.  We know that butterflies, moths and other pollinators are attracted to certain plants or need a specific plant to complete a life cycle. We learned about the relationship of the Monarch butterfly and milkweed in a previous issue of Dragonfly Tales. Interestingly, there is research that suggests there may be a similar plant/species relationship for dragonflies. A simple search on the web will provide you with a plethora of articles about the benefits and ‘how tos’ of bringing dragonflies into your garden. They all start with a water feature.

For a pond designed for dragonflies:

• Provide a variety of depths from very shallow to a 18 inches or so.

• Select an area with few overhanging trees. This will make it easier to keep clean and dragonflies like sunny areas.

• Use a variety of pond plants, but include ones with vertical stems or leaves.

There is a YouTube video on building a pond dedicated to dragons
– youtube.com/watch?v=DSCy9JfuMI4

But what about mosquitoes you say? The number one prey species for dragonflies, when abundant, is the mosquito. A large adult can eat over 100 mosquitoes a day. Dragonflies are ideal hunting machines. More than 80 percent of their brain is used for processing visual information. Believe it or not, but those bulging eyes can see objects up to 30 feet away and detect motion as far as 60 feet away. They may consume 10 to 15 percent of their own body weight per day. Even the dragonfly as a nymph (see nymph illustration above) devours the wiggler larvae of mosquitoes.
You can also use mosquito donuts or dunks that contain Bt israeliensis if the buzzers have arrived before the dragons. So there is no excuse for you not to become a Dragonfly Friendly Gardener. You have a dog that is a tick magnet or a cat that brings in the occasional songbird gift or a teen…enough said, you can risk putting up some water feature that may temporarily harbor mosquitoes. But, if monitored properly and occupied by dragonflies, they will rid the area of mosquitoes and provide hours of dragonfly acrobatics in an ever changing circus of nature. 

Source: Scottish Wildlife Trust

A Review –The life of a Dragon

Dragonflies start out in water. All but one species of dragonfly breeds in freshwater. The adult lays the eggs in or near the water directly or drilled into a plant stalk. A nymph hatches from the egg. The nymph lives as a water creature anywhere from a few weeks to up to eight years depending on the species. The nymph, a voracious predator in its own right, eventually crawls out of the water and the marvel of metamorphosis occurs (ecdysis). The shell of the nymph (exuviae) is split open and left behind as the new winged adult (called a teneral) squeezes out into the world of the airborne. After a precarious few hours drying its wings where it is extremely vulnerable to predators, the adult dragonfly flies off into a new life in pursuit of a meal and a mate; a life that only lasts, at most, six months.  

12 plants to Attract Dragonflies for Mosquito control Around the Yard

1. Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) 
2. Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum) 
3. Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
4. Meadow Sage (Salvia marcus)
5. Yarrow (Achillea) 
6. Borage (Borago officinalis) 
7. Coneflowers (Echinacea)

Water Loving plants 

8. Arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia) 
9. Wild Celery (Vallisneria americana) 
10. Water Lily (Nymphaea) 
11. Water Horsetail (Equisetum fluviatile)
12. Pickerel Rush (Pontederia cordata)

Other Wetland Sayings

Do you know the difference between a marsh and a swamp? A marsh has grass and a swamp has tress, if you walk through either you get wet up to your knees. Or you can remember it the other way. A swamp has trees and a marsh has grass. If you walk through either, you get wet up to your… knees. 

Did you know? The scientific name for the black needle rush is Juncus romarianus not Junkus Rosemary’s anus (although this, perhaps, serves as a way to remember the Latin). 

The Dragonfly

Today I saw the dragonfly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Tennyson lived in the village of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight! 

Further reading:
The Dragonfly Friendly Gardner by Ruary MacKenzie Dodds

Adopting a Dog in Times of COVID

Dragonfly Tales

Adopting a Dog in Times of COVID

 

By STEVE MELCHER

What,Why, and Where?  What and Where?

We all can’t adopt a donkey or a pig. They’re hard to keep in the house and almost as bad as a teenager to clean up after. There are rabbits, cats, mice, snakes...all sorts of critters that need loving home. First: agree not to buy a companion animal. This only encourages the ‘bottom line’ maximization of profits and inbreed- ing which leads to the poor, toxic, overcrowded conditions we find in wet markets and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) which got us into this mess in the first place.

I helped deliver babies for a few years for Amish and Mennonite communities in Delaware and Maryland. The Amish are wonderful farmers, and part of farming is the business of making a profit. Unfortunately they have recently answered a demand for puppies. Using their animal breed- ing skills, many now find themselves locked in an enterprise that every farmer I’ve spoken to wished they had never started. The demand is so great and the profit margin so large that my farmer friends are finding it difficult to stop their sons from start- ing a puppy mill in the back corner of the barn. One farmer told me that if the demand disap- peared he looked forward to his son returning to making furniture again. Please don’t support pup- py mills of any sort. Maybe a friend has a Newfie that is pregnant and will give you a puppy. That sounds OK, but you should never have to pay for a gift. Find a reputable adoption/rescue agency. For a small fee you’ll gain a new family member. The agency will help you with paperwork, neutering and medical bills. Many of the agencies will have you fill out a questionnaire or even make a home visit. These shouldn’t be looked at as intrusions, just ways of matching companions. A rudimentary Google search and word out to friends will reveal many options for adopting from local shelters too numerous to list here.

A recent conversation:
OS (Odonata Sanctuary): We’ve recently adopted two beagles, one from the Beagle Freedom Project. RO (Restaurant owner): Oh, I wish I could adopt, but the folks that interviewed me said I needed to have an area that is fenced in. I can’t afford that. OS: Oh, that’s too bad. How much would a fence cost?
RO: We didn’t bother pricing, we knew it would be too expensive, but we did go online and bought a Bernedoodle! We didn’t want him to be alone so we found a Shih Tzu from the same breeder! They’re coming this Saturday! They gave us a spe- cial “2for”deal. The Bernedoodle was only $2500 and the Shih Tzu was a steal at $2100.

OS: Oh, yeah fencing can be expensive.
ere at Odonata Sanctuary we primarily focus

on large abandoned farm animals: sheep, goats,

If I raise my hand to scratch my head he still cowers away. He also has the interesting habit of dragging anything he can through the dog door to Beagleland to store in his cache. He’s worked out a technique where he brings a sock or sweater to the door, goes through and then pulls it through from the other side. I always know where to look for that missing shoe. Beagle Freedom Project finds homes for bea- gles that have been smuggled out of labs. The resaon beagles are chosen for use in lab experiments is not because they are close to human anatomy and phys- iology, but because they are docile, sweet, trusting and they don’t fight back.

The first institution in the world to experiment on beagles was the University of Utah, where they did studies mostly involving radioactive materials in the 50s. “The Beagle Project” was funded by the Atomic energy commission, where beagles were in- jected with plutonium. Some of the dogs were in- jected with highly toxic doses and developed pain- ful bone tumors, gross skeletal disfigurations, tooth loss and ‘spontaneous’ bone fractures. To keep costs down all 671 beagles were fed horse meat in a facili- ty designed to house 200. The pups became known as the ‘Hounds of Beagleville’. All 671 were bred from just 32 breeding pairs. The practice of using beagles for experimentation spread throughout government and privately funded research facili- ties. Adjusting for inflation, more than $1 billion was funneled into radioactive research with more than 17,000 beagles being killed in hideously pain- ful and deadly experiments.

Today there are more than 56 commercial bea- gle breeding facilities marketing dogs specifically for the research industry. Out of public view, tens of thousands of beagles are bred, sold and killed every year at an enormous profit. The legacy of the Radioactive Beagles lives on. Nearly 60,000 dogs are currently used in research, testing and experi- mentation in the United States each year; the vast majority of them beagles.

donkeys. We promised ourselves, and it's part of our mission statement, not to purchase any animals. We don’t want to reward someone with cash because they overbred or don’t have room for a pot bellied pig. We’ve cared for 143 animals here, not including the 9 dogs and 1 cat. Most are underground now in the Rainbow Bridge above the Westlands here at the sanctuary. Some were with us for a few weeks, others are still with us after 15 years recovering from ‘termi- nal illnesses’. We deal mostly in larger animals, but we do have a pack of rescued dogs as well roaming relatively free in the fields and forests. We recently ad- opted two beagles: Archie and Buddy. Archie is a lab rescue, not a Labrador Retriever but an animal that was used in a laboratory for experimental purposes. I remember when he first stepped cautiously onto the freshly mown grass of Beagleland in the Story Book Garden—he had never stepped on grass before. He gingerly tiptoed across from my wife to my daughter not knowing what to think of this unknown texture found under each paw. In just a few weeks he was bounding away with the rest of the crew. Adopted pups adapt. 

Why Adopt during Times of

COVID?

We’ve talked about ‘Blue Zones’ before in Drag- onfly Tales. In five locales—Sardinia, Italy; Okina- wa, Japan; Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California—people live a longer, healthier life than anywhere else on the planet. They have some commonalities, such as be- ing relatively warm year round, fairly small commu- nities, remote and close to the ocean. You may not live close to the ocean, but you can take advantage of the other cultural differences of the Blue Zones.

The basics are simple:

1. Live close to the ocean. OK, that’s a tough one. Maybe we should concentrate on the other factors, which are really habits or lifestyle decisions and be thankful that we live in an area of beautiful lakes and such fresh water abundance!

2. A plant based whole foods diet which includes whole grains, greens, tubers, nuts and beans. That’s easier than you think, really.
3. Herbal teas and plenty of clean water, every day, all day.

4. Limited alcohol and caffeine. Limited means two glasses of wine a day and two cups of coffee or black tea. This is certainly on my doable list.
5. Diet and exercise are just part of the picture. People of Blue Zones tend to walk more to get from place to place and spend more time outdoors with nature.

6. Humans are extremely social creatures and we learn from an early age the importance of teamwork and collaboration. We are genetically hardwired to seek social interaction and companionship. Blue Zone folks are more social. They are involved in their communities and volunteer regularly. They also have more stable life partner relationships involving a spouse or close friends. One way to check two of these off your list is to adopt a dog!

That new family member adopted from a shelter will give you a reason to take a walk after work as well as provide a loving companionship seldom matched by any two legged friend. You’ll also have a connection to fellow rescuers. Companionship and outdoor exercise! Stay healthy—adopt a dog. Don’t buy one. Go for a walk outside in nature with your new companion.

ALSO OF INTEREST

The “Beagle Brigade”

Have you seen the beagles working at JFK Air- port? We met one that had just found a suitcase of butchered pigs and a package containing almost 50 pounds of mangoes.

Can dogs do well on a plant based diet?

Our dogs eat what we eat. I’ve been scolded many times when warming something up from the

fridge by my wife saying, ‘Hey, that was for the dogs!’ There are few studies about dogs and veganism, but all of our dogs are fed a plant based whole food diet with V-Dog and Halo Kibbles. Tico, from Costa Rica is now 14 and Katie, an American Eskimo mix, made it happily to 22.

From the CDC: At this time, there is no evidence that animals play a significant role in spreading the virus that causes COVID-19.

The Apple: As American as Apple Pie … Well Perhaps Not

Though Henry David Thoreau insisted that he much preferred the wild apple (“of spirited flavor”) to the civilized versions found in Massachusetts orchards, even he admitted that the occasional spirited bite was “sour enough to set a squirrel’s teeth on edge and make a jay scream.” 

Fall! Here at Odonata Sanctuary, fall is the time to work on the BSF (Before the Snow Flies) list. Included on that list is apple gleaning. We do have several varieties of espaliered apple trees on the south facing side of the main house, but I’ve always found these to be too militant (“You there, up against the wall!) and far too much work. Like the berries of a few weeks earlier, I prefer to foray through the fields and forests to find the fruits of the forgotten wild apple tree. 

On one such recent foray in a far part of the sanctuary, we found an aged gnarled tree only about 15 feet high but radiant with ripe red fruits ready to be relinquished to the apple cart. One of the monkeys in the crew climbed up and began her shaking and screeching and the apple rain began to fall. We all scrambled for the ripest of the ripe, saving the sorting for later, the four legged members of the family getting any that are not worthy of Forest’s strudel. While bantering and bobbing for apples, the topic of where apples came from came up. I was interested in how this particular apple tree might have prospered here. Was this robust tree once part of a larger orchard? Were the seeds pooped here by some meandering bear many years ago? But their question was not about this particular tree but concerned the origin of apples as a species. Where do apples originally come from? Most assume that the apples of American Pie, the apple of your eye and Johnny Appleseed are native to New York, at least the New World. Who knows where the food you take for granted originated? We know that potatoes that we associate with the Irish potato famine are native to Peru and that tomatoes of a wonderful Italian sauce are native to somewhere far from Rome. The Apple, it turns out, is native to what is now Kazakhstan! Originating in the Tien Shan mountains millions of years ago the apple has been a part of the human diet for thousands of years. But how did they get to the New World? Like many other treasures of the East, apples travelled to the Mediterranean and beyond via the Silk Road. Apples were introduced to our part of the world by colonists as early as the 17th century. 

The first official apple orchard on the North American continent was planted by the Reverend William Blaxton in Boston in 1625, but even as early as 1607 Jamestown folks were eating apples grown from seeds and cuttings brought  from Europe.  But the apples of the early days in Europe and America were not grown for apple pies and strudels, their primary use was in the delightful fruity drink we know of as cider. Cider became a very popular drink in England after the Normans invaded and brought with them tasty apples from France. The New World brought that quest for quench with them in the form of cider apples. Most colonists grew their own apples and preferred to serve a fermented cider at meals instead of water, due to sanitation concerns. Even the kids had their share of watered down cider. 

What about that Johnny Appleseed guy? 

Yes, there really was a Johnny Appleseed. John Chapman, the apple toting fellow from Leominster, Mass, traveled the country with a bag of apple seeds and a tin pot nesting on his handsome head. He actually condemned grafting as wicked, insisting the only good apples come from seeds. John collected seeds mostly from cider mills in Pennsylvania and distributed them widely and wildly. These weren’t really good eating apples, they were used primarily again for cider. Johnny not only spread mouth puckering apples, he spread booze. Eventually the classic symbol of knowledge and health was ostracized by temperance activists of the times who pointed their finger at the apple as the source of alcoholic sin and proclaimed those that wished to be redeemed should burn their apple trees. Whew, and this tree that I am writing about survived all that. Imagine the stories these apples could tell. Perhaps the seeds of this tree were carried here by that sauntering bear or perhaps by some drunkard from New England visiting with a tin pot on his head.  

Botany Lesson: Apples grow extremely well from seeds but today’s cultivated apples are propagated using cuttings and grafts. 

This is because apples are an excellent example of a fruit that is an ‘extreme heterozygote’ (hetero= different and zygote=fertilized cell).  Their genetic makeup includes variations, or alleles, that combine randomly and cause significant differences from each apple’s parents. Even the same apple parents can produce very unlike offspring very much like another heterozygous species, human beings.This means that rather than inheriting genes from their parents to create a new apple with parental characteristics, they are instead significantly different in taste and color from their parents. This may be a way to compete with pests and assure diversity in a changing environment. 

An Apple by any other name.

The rose family includes apples, pears, quinces, medlars, loquats, almonds, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, sloes (blackthorns), and roses. The 50-acre orchard at USDA’ Plant Genetics Resources Unit in Geneva, New York, has what may be the world’s largest collection of apple trees—some 2500 different varieties from all over the world. 

History Lesson: Thomas Jefferson was not only one of our founding fathers, but he was an avid foodie (pastas and ice cream!) and was responsible for bringing the Fuji apple to the United States. The story is that while Jefferson was visiting France he received a gift of an apple cutting from the French Minister, Edmund Charles Genet. Thomas later donated a cutting from his orchard to a Virginia nursery, which then cultivated a variety known as the ‘Ralls Genet’. In 1939, Japanese apple breeders combined the genes of Jefferson’s Ralls Genet with the classic Red Delicious and the Fuji apple was the scrumptious result. 

Health Lesson:  An apple a day may really keep the doctor away.

Apples are low in calories and free of fat, sodium and cholesterol. They are rich in fiber, disease-fighting antioxidants and a variety of vitamins and minerals including potassium, folate, niacin and vitamins A, B, C, E and K. Eating apples has been associated with lower risk of a variety of cancers, stroke and diabetes. In addition, these nutritional powerhouses may help protect the brain from developing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and even lower a person’s risk of tooth decay.

Another component of a healthy lifestyle is being thankful. The ancestors of that beautiful Red Delicious that you are biting into today may have come from far off Asia, but the one you’re enjoying today was picked and grown by someone, hopefully local, that you may never have the opportunity to meet. Make sure you thank a farmer and her farm workers if you ever get the chance.

 

Thoreau in the Times of Covid

'In wildness is the preservation of the world.'  Henry David Thoreau

Walking, or sauntering as Henry liked to call it, is something everyone can do during these times of social distancing. Here in the Finger Lakes we’re fortunate to have miles of trails where we might walk and see only one other sojourning soul. The word ‘sauntering’ may have come from the latin ‘sans terre’, not a type of wine, but rather meaning ‘without land’ and referring to someone who is homeless or landless. It could be said that we are all homeless in the very fact that few of us own our own home and have full rights to the use of the property on which the mortgaged house sits. Saunter could have also come from sainte-terre-ers or ‘those seeking the holy lands’ during the crusades. We all could benefit from a pilgrimage to commiserate with the forest, to express empathy for nature or rest by still waters and hear the song of the wood thrush. During these times of isolation we all need to allow nature to console us. You can commune with nature in the deep woods of the Finger Lakes or Schmooze with the wild dandelion of your unmown lawn. Get outside. Take a walk. Eat your veggies. Sound familiar?  

I walk everyday; saunter some days. August is blackberry season and this has been a bumper year for berries. Berry picking entails long thoughtful walks. This is walking with a purpose but on a few occasions I allow myself to saunter and find myself at one of the shrines here on the holy land of Odonata Sanctuary. 

One such Kaaba is a wolf tree we call the ‘Pitcher Tree’ where I found myself in need of rest.  And so I did and sat down and leaned against the adorned Pitcher Tree and commenced to nap. 

During this post saunter slumber I had the following dream. 

Raising my head, and  squinting into the rising sun, I gazed upon the image of a man wearing the formal clothes of another century and a well worn straw hat. There was something familiar about the middle aged, bearded gentleman but I could not quite place him. I stared into his cool blue eyes as he introduced himself as Henry; Henry David Thoreau of Concord and what follows is our short conversation. 

OS (Odonata Sanctuary): ‘You’re quite a long way from home, Henry. 

HDT (Henry David Thoreau): Well, wherever you go, there you are, and wherever you’ve been is really not far. 

OS: (Oy, I thought. This is going to be a sing-songy conversation.) What brings you to our little neck of the woods?

HDT: Obviously I’m lost. No, just kidding. I’m on my way to Mackinac Island in Michigan with my friend, Horace Mann and I thought I would stop by and chat. 

(Henry, gently coughed and held a handkerchief to his mouth. I stepped back wondering if he had contracted SARS-CoV-2 in his travels). 

OS: Are you alright, Henry?

HDT: Not really, Steve. I know you are concerned today about the current pandemic that you’ve named COVID-19, but I am afraid I am a victim of an early curse called tuberculosis. I first contracted the curse while attending Harvard College. It's been a battle for years now. I believe my love of the outdoors and exposure to nature have enabled me to survive all these years.  Folks of your time could greatly benefit from such exposure to the fresh air and pheromones of the forests that surround you here in the frontier.  TB also claimed my grandfather, my father, and my older sister. My brother John, who died from tetanus, was also living with tuberculosis. So many members of my family have died of tuberculosis. Of course, in my home town of Concord, we have had outbreaks of all manner of plagues: dysentery, cholera, malaria, pneumonia, smallpox, typhoid fever and whooping cough to name a few. We had little knowledge of the causes or cures of many of these diseases. Most of these diseases are unthought of today in a time as advanced as yours. If only we had a better healthcare system and organized scientific agencies to study these diseases back then.  

(He lowered his head contemplating the great losses of his time. I lowered mine thinking of the great losses of mine.) 

HDT: What, by the way, was the source of this dreaded COVID? 

OS:  The virus was first detected all the way around the world in Wuhan City, China. The first infections were linked to an animal market where the disease spread from animals who were confined in unhealthy conditions. The virus spread from infected animals to humans and is now spreading from person-to-person.

HDT: So, if we treated animals better or didn’t eat them, there would be no current pandemic? You keep animals here at the sanctuary. Do you eat them?

OS: Odonata Sanctuary is a hospice for farm animals. The critters here live out their lives in the fields and forests of as natural a setting as we can provide.  My family eats only a plant based diet, primarily for health reasons. Are you a vegetarian? 

HDT: I’ve experimented with vegetarianism as a more ethical way of living. Though I did have a woodchuck bothering my beans last week that became dinner. I am certainly mindful, but never rigid about my diet. I’d call myself a "reducetarian". I’ve  reduced the amount of meat I consume. But, a primary difference is I know where that groundhog came from and that he wasn’t raised in some massive slaughterhouse factory. I guess as long as there are meat eaters among you, there is the recipe for a stew of sickness. 

OS: I’m very sorry to hear of your illness, Henry. And yes, we do know more today than during your time. We’re working on a health care system for everyone and we have an agency set up just to study infectious diseases around the world. We’ve developed vaccines for most of the diseases that plagued your century. We’ve even developed simple protocols to help stop the spread of those diseases. Simple things, like wearing a mask or washing your hands and what we’re calling ‘social distancing’.  

HDT: If I knew it would save my father or sister, I would certainly be willing to wash my hands and wear a mask! Such simple things. And I know a thing or two about social distancing. Mr. Emerson was kind enough to allow me to squat on his land for a time to carry out an experiment I’d been contemplating since the death of my brother, John. I wanted to separate myself from the buzz of society, to slow down and ask nature who I am.  I wrote my first book there, in a cabin I built, mostly myself, by the shores of Walden Pond. Have you read it?

OS: Yes, indeed I have and many of your other works. I find them gushing with optimism and spiced with your wit. But I’m afraid the modern American is afraid of solitude and shuns being alone. We pride ourselves on multitasking and being ‘busy’.

HDT: Ah yes, busy, busy, busy. It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about? I recommend everyone read Walden during your time of isolation. Especially my words about solitude and simplicity. “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.” (He was walking in a circle, ranting now and growing a bit red in the face.) This is a  time to spend with your family. What an opportunity! Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way? What do we really need and what do we want? My greatest skill has been to want but little. 

OS: I tell folks you don’t have to read your book as a novel. I find solace in opening to a chapter and reading. Would you read something for me? (Handing him my copy, he pulled a pair of thick lensed reading glasses from his jacket pocket  and balanced them on his aquiline nose. He turned to a random page and read.)

HDT: “Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through Church and State, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality…”  (He raised his head from the book and reflected.) My retreat to Walden Pond is often mistaken for an escape from society, to live like a hermit. I did seek to escape from the shackles of society, but I certainly did not live as a hermit. I had many visitors, some human, most not. I worked on my bean field along a busy road where I could banter with many who passed by. I had dinner most evenings at home or with the Emersons! I was no hermit but I wanted to find my own reality. To know myself. To know what I wanted and what I needed. To know what is necessary. (He bowed his head to read another passage.) I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms. (He looked up at me and spoke again in a voice pleading to be heard.) This pandemic can be a time of reflection and inner searching.  And, when this pandemic passes, we should never take for granted that hug from a friend or kiss on the cheek from a parent. This should be a time to decide what is most important in your life. What to let go and what to treasure. How is your life different now? How will your life be different in a year? What have you found to be precious and truly important in your life? What changes are you willing to make? What are you willing to give up? Ask yourself not just how COVID 19 has altered your lifestyle, but ask yourself what lifestyle changes are you willing to make because of the COVID 19 experience. 

I awoke to the sight of a damselfly, an Ebony Jewelwing  (Calopteryx maculata), the patron saint of the holy land of Odonata Sanctuary; a symbol of wisdom, change, transformation, light and adaptability in life. 

Henry David Thoreau in the woods near the ‘Pitcher Tree’. 

The Swallows Return to Odonata Sanctuary

The Barn swallow (Hirundo rustica)

The barn swallow is the most widespread spe- cies of swallow in the world. It’s found in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. Barn swallows, in our neck of the woods, spend only a few months here. The ones we see in our barns and sheds come here to build nests and have young but spend their winters elsewhere. Southbound fall mi- gration for Barn swallows to Central or South Amer- ica may begin as early as mid-July around the Fin- ger Lakes. They return in the spring, usually in late April. These beauties are short time visitors to the region, swooping down on Willow’s Pond scooping up a drink of water or perhaps catching a few flying insects. Swallows are the farmer’s best insecticides. A single barn swallow can consume 60 insects per hour or an impressive 850 per day! I’m not sure why they are called ‘swallows’ (and I’m not sure why their family name is Hirundinae, which is the same as the leech’s - subclass Hirundinae), but they certainly do “swallow“ a mouthful of insects.

The barn swallows arrive here at Odonata Sanc- tuary just after the tree swallows. The barn swallow’s first arrival is often missed because they look so sim- ilar to the tree swallows as they fly through the sky like little Parodi cigars with wings. Although they are easily told apart by their coloring, the white belly of the Tree Swallow and the barn red chin of the Barn swallow, it’s the chittering sound the barn swallows make that announces their arrival in the spring. Like other swallows, barn swallows migrate long distanc- es from Alaska to South and Central America most of the time returning each spring to the very same nest! They’ll make the necessary repairs if the nest has been damaged over the winter or removed by the barn owner. Swallows will look for a protected nook or cranny to set up housekeeping. Every year when the barn swallows return, I have to make sure our garage doors are kept closed for the few weeks of nest building. But, every year I forget and we end up with “garage swallows” and I have to keep a garage door open until they successfully fledge. The nests are cup shaped affairs made of grass, feathers and most importantly, mud: spit and mud. Both parents help repair or build a new nest. Males and females look very similar, however, females tend to be less brightly colored and have shorter tails. Both adults will collect feathers, spit and mud in their bills, cre- ating small pellets that are used like bricks to, layer by layer, form the cup shaped nest. What dedication! Imagine carrying mouthfuls of mud to make your home comfy.

Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor)

“There is arguably no bird in the world that combines graceful flight, beauty of feather, pleasing song, and accessibility; plus tameness and abun- dance, more than the tree swallows.” Bernd Heinrich

I place my nest boxes in pairs to enable the tree swallows to nest with the eastern bluebirds. This is still a study in progress and the subject of some heat- ed debates amongst nestbox trail keepers. The blue- bird crew believes that tree swallows help protect the area surrounding the nest boxes from the hassling house Sparrows and European starlings - the bane

of bluebird lovers. It’s interesting that Europeans set up nest boxes to attract English (house) sparrows and European starlings, but here we consider them invasive pests. Both house sparrows and European starlings will try to set up housekeeping in a nestbox set up for bluebirds and tree swallows. The foreign invaders will pull bluebirds or tree swallows from their nests or even just build their nest on top of the existing nest. This is why it is so important that if you decide to set up a nest box for a bluebird that you monitor the box and remove any nesting mate- rial created by the sparrows and starlings. The female tree swallow is the nest builder of the species. She gathers the materials and constructs the nest while the male ‘stands guard’. Tree swallows are very good at defending their nest box against these two inva- sive species. When you approach a tree swallow nest box you’re going to get dive bombed by the occu- pants and a few others that may join in just for fun while the meek and mild (nonaggressive) cerulean bluebird huddles in its nest. We believe that the tree swallow’s aggressive behavior protects the more doc- ile bluebird. The tree swallows folks believe that any animosity felt towards tree swallows by bluebirders is derived from the widespread belief that bluebirds are in trouble, their very survival in danger unless hu- mans come to their rescue and that bluebirds should be given preferential treatment when it comes to nestbox occupation. I don’t know of any bluebird- er who would remove or discourage a tree swallow from nesting in one of their nest boxes but there is an initial competition for nest boxes if the pairings are too close together. I recommend a distance of 3 meters for the pairs and then 100 meters between the pairs of boxes. This social distancing will flatten the curve of cavity nesting competition and provide for a more successful nesting season for both the bluebirds and swallows. Maybe I’ll find a volunteer, Scout or grad student, to do a study on the 50 acres in the Eastern section of our Bluebird Trail.

Time to FeatherYour Nest

Research has shown that well-feathered nests cool off much slower than nests with few or no feath- ers, keeping eggs and young warmer during times when the female swallow must be away. An interest- ing Tree Swallow nest design factor is the inclusion of white feathers. Bluebird nests don’t have them, neither do barn swallow nests. house sparrows may have white feathers, but house sparrows will have everything: string, straw, balloon ribbons, the kitch- en sink if they could carry it. In Bernd Heinrich’s book White Feather: The Nesting Lives of Tree Swal- lows, he says that the white feathers are added after the eggs are laid. He asks the question: Why does a pair of swallows in a nest-box close to his Maine cabin show a peculiar preference for white feathers to line their nests, feathers that are not easily locally accessible? Scientist that he is, he actually counted 110 white feathers in one tree swallow nest while

writing the book. We may
never solve the mystery of
the white feathers, but we’ll
certainly look forward to the return of the swallows next spring.

Birding, aka bird watching, is the perfect activi- ty during these times of practicing social distancing. Alone in the woods, kayaking on one of our beauti- ful Finger Lakes or sitting at your kitchen window, watching bird life can be enormously entertaining, educational and is no longer considered esoteric. This is a time to pause and feather your own nest. Perhaps provide any extra nesting material you may have to those not so fortunate.

Sparrow Fun Facts:

•The airspeed of an unladen swallow (European, Af- rican or tree) can be 31-40 mph.
•Throw a white feather in the air near an active tree swallow nest box, and the swallows will dive and catch the feather. It’s like watching an aerial dog fight between Snoopy and the Red Baron.

•I was going to write about the ‘Crows of Odonata’ but their family name, Corvidae, reminded me too much of something very unpleasant.

Further Historical Research:

Where did Barn swallows nest before there were barns to nest in?
Further Reading:
White Feather: The Nesting Lives of Tree Swallow by Bernd Heinrich

Further Viewing:

Monty Python’s The Search for the Holy Grail.

I was walking across our com- pound last month when a queen termite began building her miraculous city. I saw it because I looked down. One night three fruit bats flew across the face of the moon.I saw it because I looked up.

William Beebe

An aside from a vegan perspective: Bird’s Nest Soup. The bird's nests used for this Chinese ‘delicacy’ belong to the swiftlet not a swallow, although it may be on the menu as ‘Chinese Swallow Soup’. Swifts and swallows are superficially similar in appearance. However, they are only distant cousins. Swifts are more closely related to hummingbirds. Both the swiftlet and the swallow use saliva to glue their nests together. What makes the soups so ‘delicious’ is the fact that the swiflet’s nest is made entirely of gummy saliva whereas barn swallow nests are made of sali- va, grass, sticks, feathers and mud. So you probably shouldn’t make soup from a barn swallow’s nest. These swiftlets are a small bird usually found in Southeast Asia that live in dark caves and, similar to bats, use echolocation to move around and catch their prey. Ah, bats...that should raise a red flag.

S

https://www.owllightnews.com/dragonfly-tales-vitamin-n/

Dragonfly Tales-Vitamin N

• By Steve Melcher – 

The Essentials: 
That’s not just dirt under my fingernails.

Folks who think I’m a vegan often ask, “Where do you get your protein?” I answer “I eat plenty of whofoplaba.” You can be a vegan and eat Oreos, chips and drink beer. Well, not the old Guinness that formerly used isinglass, a collagen harvested from fish swim bladders used to filter impurities out of the brew. The new Guinness contains and uses no animal products. As a vegan, you have to be conscious that some beers have whey or milk products and some wines use egg whites in their precipitation process. But that’s another article. I tell them that by eating whofoplaba, I get plenty of protein. “Where can I get some whofoplaba?”, they ask. I answer by quoting Michael Pollan, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants,” and adds, “and stay away from processed foods”.  Then I am told that you can’t make muscle without meat. I refer them to the current medical literature, the movie Game changers and show them a photo of a silverback gorilla who builds some pretty impressive muscles from eating just leaves. And then I’ll ask, “Where do you get your fiber?”  Meat packs more protein per ounce than veggies but also has zero fiber.  Check out any floor of the hospital and you won’t find the protein deficiency ward, but you will find plenty of illnesses related to a lack of fiber and poor diet. They may also ask where I get my Vitamin B12. This is a good question for all of us and the answer is interesting. B12 is produced by bacteria found in soil as well as in the guts of animals including humans. The cow you ate didn’t make Vitamin B12, that future burger got it from eating plants. Humans used to get plenty of Vitamin B12 from plants, nuts and tubers that were covered with dirt. In that dirt were Vitamin B12 producing bacteria. “You’ll eat a peck of dirt before you die,” is the old proverb but hardly seems applicable as we shop for sterilized and hermetically sealed vegetables. So, I buy locally grown veggies and take a Vitamin B12 supplement. 

“Essential” in medical terms means that we cannot produce it ourselves. We need Vitamins D and B12 but cannot produce them ourselves. We get Vitamin D from the sun and B12 from bacteria. I won’t go into the value of a plant-based diet. Many of you are on that journey already and I may share my thoughts in the future. Those of you who have done some reading and research may have become familiar with our own local version of promoting a whole food plant-based diet: Rochester Lifestyle Medicine. Physicians can now become board certified in Lifestyle Medicine. The American Board of Lifestyle Medicine (ABLM) certification is recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties. One such Doc, a local radiologist, is Ted Barnett who is referred to as the ‘High Tech Doc with Low Tech Solutions’. Ted and his group at the Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute run several workshops and courses with the goal of introducing folks to a whole foods plant based diet and the value of ‘green exercise’.  Part of a healthy lifestyle is pretty much what your mom told you when you were a kid: eat your veggies and go outside and play. America is slowly making headway with transitioning to a plant based diet. The realization that Type 2 diabetes and childhood obesity are food-borne illnesses are persuading concerned parents to be more conscious of what their kids are eating at home and at school and steering them away from the local junk food eateries. Adults diagnosed with heart disease are more and more opting for cutting up their own carrots instead of having their chest cut open. So I’ll leave what is on your plate to your discretion but I want to discuss another essential part of anyone’s diet. 

Another “Essential Vitamin” that we are producing here at Odonata Sanctuary is one that is found in sunshine, soil, plants and animals, mud and butterflies. My question to you is, “Where do you get your Vitamin N?” Vitamin N is a term used in early Nature Study literature over 100 years ago. Recently it has become popularized through the writings of Richard Louv whose book, Last Child in the Woods urges parents to encourage their kids to spend more time in nature. Last Child in the Woods brought together the growing body of research that indicates a direct exposure to nature is essential to a healthy childhood and a lack of exposure will lead to health issues in adulthood.  A lack of Vitamin N produces what Louv calls a “Nature-Deficit Disorder” and believes that more exposure to nature would cure many of society’s ailments. 

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If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in. Rachel Carson

Map of Odonata Sanctuary (as of 02/02/2020)