Turn to snow: an Image poem

Lush green density
In its Autumn
Wans to yellow
You can taste the smell of leaves,
Decay.
Giving over their nutrients
For next years' progeny.

The wind is now
Crisp and viscous.
That once lazy breeze
Picked up its pace
Between the Willows' limbs
Packed up its place
Amongst the Lily pads
And shuffled off.

Its only good bye:
The missing heat, the biting void of temperature.

One timely denizen dares to dwell there.
A tiny, microscopically spiny transient
Whose clarity depends on prism's refracting light,
Clearly invisible or some sense that's not sight
Were it not for it's great numbers
Were it not for it's mass disbursement.

Thoughts on "My Life as a Turkey" by Joe Hutto, aired by PBS.

"My Life as a Turkey" on PBS is PHENOMENAL!!! It asks the basic human question "Who's really the Turkey here?" All jokes aside, big UPS to PBS, the Author, Naturalist, and Turkey Mom Joe Hutto, and the Turkeys!!!! Joe's experience raising the wild Turkeys from chicks seemed to have a deep and very human impact on the way he perceives Nature and the Human world. An amazing look at Nature from the inside. The Turkeys gave Joe an access to and understanding of the natural world that I can only describe as "Mowgliesque". Yes, I just made that word up. I hope you can understand what I mean. If you don't, watch "My Life as a Turkey" on PBS and you will! -Bird Nerd, OUT!

One Thing

The Red Eft (Notopthalmus veridiscens Rafinesque) is the land loving juvenile version of the Northern Spotted Newts (Notopthalmus veridiscens).  I'd known both of these creatures separately for years.  Well aware that the Eft resides in the damp mulch, near moss and rocks.  It's trees are our Toadstools as it lurks amongst wood chips and beetles, fallen leaves, and the newly budding spring ferns.  Bright red with hue encircled spots, a soft almost velvet skin you'd think belongs on a baby mouse.  The Newts I would find in slow flowing, flat, and riffled streams and along the shores of blue lakes.  Hiding between the summer weeds and the flotsam of reeds that once stood up stream.  Their skins slimy filmed, tails flattened, upturned and hydrodynamic.  The only vestiges of Eft are the red spots that line along their spines.  They are the same creature in two separate stages of life. Knowing this gave me insight into their life's journey.  From water to land then back from whence they came.  I'm curious to know how the transformation takes place.  Unfortunately, as we are getting into November, my search for that knowledge will have to wait until Spring. 

Black and White Warbler (B&W Creeper)

May 16, 1860

"The whole North American forest is being thus explored for insect food now by several hundred (?) species of birds.  Each is visited by many kinds, and thus the equilibrium of the insect and vegetable kingdom is preserved."

-Henry David Thoreau, Thoreau On Birds.