Winter

The winter solstice and Christmas have both now come and gone.  My family are not great holiday celebrators and so both days are ones that, each year, I am relieved to have behind me, especially the winter solstice.  I live in an area where winter always brings cold, gray and dark weather.  Going forward now, each day will slowly and imperceptibly become slightly less dark.  We will begin to be able to appreciate the longer days around mid-February, so still many weeks away.  But this makes February my favorite winter month.  February is also the month when the male Cardinal begins singing again.  It is always a pleasure to hear.

In a couple of weeks I am traveling to someplace warm which I have never visited before and so, hopefully, I will have some new content for my blog.  In the meantime, I hope to get out locally for an update or two.  I've been negligent these past couple of months.  Readers, thanks for your patience and Happy New Year!

The West Wind

 It's Tuesday mid-afternoon and I am just sitting down after a very challenging week.  The whole week has not been challenging, just most of it.  Over the past weekend, as now, I have felt depleted.

On Sunday, I was driving in my car and listening to the NYT The Daily interview podcast.  The interviewee was Anthony Hopkins, of movie star fame and now 87 years old.  If he is as he sounded in his interview, he seems to be a completely lovely man.  He, apparently, continues to act and keeps a full schedule.  When asked, by the interviewer, what he does when he is not working he replied, "Oh I don't know, read, play the piano."  At the end of the interview, he was asked to read this poem.  He went to fetch the book and he read so beautifully.  It might be considered a masculine poem, but I don't care.  Beauty is beauty and we all need beauty in our lives.  The other thing about this poem, it's an honest poem.  We all need honesty in our lives, too. 

There is a lot about birds, bird song, the land, flowers and, as always, so much more, especially the wind.  I loved the poem and loved hearing Anthony Hopkins read it.  I think it fits well on this blog and, even if it doesn't, it fits well in my heart.  Though unrelated to my current conundrum, the words will give me courage to say words of my own to end a thirty plus year friendship.    

Everything below was copied from Your Daily Poem.  Thank you to Your Daily Poem.com.

The West Wind by John Masefield Next

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills. And April's in the west wind, and daffodils. It's a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine, Apple orchards blossom there, and the air's like wine. There is cool green grass there, where men may lie at rest, And the thrushes are in song there, fluting from the nest. "Will ye not come home, brother? ye have been long away, It's April, and blossom time, and white is the may; And bright is the sun, brother, and warm is the rain,-- Will ye not come home, brother, home to us again? "The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run. It's blue sky, and white clouds, and warm rain and sun. It's song to a man's soul, brother, fire to a man's brain, To hear the wild bees and see the merry spring again. "Larks are singing in the west, brother, above the green wheat, So will ye not come home, brother, and rest your tired feet? I've a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep for aching eyes," Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries. It's the white road westwards is the road I must tread To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest for heart and head, To the violets, and the warm hearts, and the thrushes' song, In the fine land, the west land, the land where I belong. This poem is in the public domain.   John Masefield (1878-1967) was an English poet, author, and playwright. Both his parents died while he was a child, and at the age of thirteen, annoyed with John's "addiction" to reading, the aunt in charge of caring for him sent him off to train for a life as a sailor. Although his experiences at sea provided much material for the stories and poems he would later write, John soon tired of that harsh life and, on a voyage to New York, he jumped ship. For two years, he worked at odd jobs in that city, using his free time for reading and writing. He eventually returned to England, married, had two children, and established himself as a significant literary talent. As his stature as a writer continued to grow, John became an internationally successful lecturer and was appointed as England's poet laureate, a position he held for nearly forty years. He actively wrote and published until he was 88 years old. John Masefield wrote the poem "The West Wind" in or before 1902, the year it was published in his first collection of verse, Salt-Water Ballads.  Buy on AmazonBuy on AmazonBuy on AmazonBuy on Amazon

Writing leads to other writing

It's October 1st and we are enjoying a wonderful prolonged summer. Only I know that it's really not summer.  I'm a four seasons person—would not change that for anything—so when the warm, sunny weather leaves us I will move on to real autumn.  Still, the fine weather is lovely and should be enjoyed.

I was recently walking around the neighborhood and reflecting on how I had actually spent my summer.  It would be easy for me to say that I didn't do much.  But that wouldn't be exactly correct.

When I returned from my Finland and Norway trip at the beginning of June, I spent the next four weeks writing about it on this blog.  It was a great trip and writing about it, episode by episode, was such an enjoyable activity for me.  Then writing about F/N, lead to writing about our brief and distant sighting of a Terek Sandpiper for 10,000 Birds titled:  There's a Shorebird on the Roof.

The July ABA Magazine article titled Lost on the Frontier by Brad Meiklejohn led me to write:  Missing the Gray-headed Chickadee.

Then I listened to Nate Swick's prologue on the ABA podcast about the new documentary film by Owen and Quentin Rieser titled Listers and I was inspired to write:  To list or not to list.  I'm waiting for Quentin Reiser's book to arrive in the mail today.

I enjoyed remembering my experience in the Andaman Islands in March of 2023 and contributed to a collaborative post titled Our 6 Rarest Birds Seen So Far.  My bird is the Ruddy Kingfisher.

Finally, having nothing to do with birding, I finished reading Nightingales:  The Extraordinary Upbringing of and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale by Gillian Gill, published in 2014.  I'm a slow reader so it took me a while to finish.  It will be the best book I read in 2025 and I felt compelled to attempt to write a review.  This is a review of the sort that I do not feel qualified to write, but it turned out okay, I think.  But then I was reading a 10,000 Birds blog post and I was reminded that I had left something important (to me anyway) out of my review.  So I wrote:  Florence Nightingale and her Little Owl.

I have other writing ideas for the 10,000 Birds blog.  It is a fun blog.  It's an international site, has a very engaged editor who is also a birder, and I encourage others to look it up and subscribe.  You will see photos of birds you have no hope to see in real life, read of very different birding experiences, read about birding guides and lodges from all around the world, and perhaps be inspired to make a contribution of your own.  After all, none of us can watch, listen or read about politics all day.  Now is not a good time to put our heads in the sand (unfortunately, I have never been able to put my head in the sand, despite having examples all around me of how to do it), but even still it's important to have a diversion.

So this summer I wrote.  You could argue that this also means that, true enough, I didn't do much.  But this is not true.  Writing about birds has helped me find the strength to pay attention to our Democracy and not put my head in the sand.  I can't write if I have my head in the sand.  

As the new posts I write come out, I'll also publish them here. 

  Yes, someone is in there.  Enlarge to see.

Another Argiope spider - Banded Garden Spider

See the Addendum 09/21/2025 below.  

I have the classic iNaturalist app which I don't use often, so I use poorly.  So far, the only information I have is Genus Argiope, which is probably correct.  But I know this is not a Yellow Garden spider as is shown in the previous post.  It is similar, but definitely a different spider.  Check out the red medallion patch on the rear of its abdomen.  

There were two.  The first smaller than the one above.

The large size of this spider makes it a female; she knocked the smaller spider (a smaller female) away from the central part of the web

When the smaller spider tried to re-enter the web, she chased it out again.  The smaller spider was the only spider I saw at first.  It probably built the web.

Appreciate any feedback in the comments section from anyone who might know the common name of this spider.

From NC State University Extension:  Male black and yellow 

garden spiders are remarkably smaller than females.

I copied the photo above from NC State Extension that describes the male black and yellow garden spider as tiny.  At first I didn't look at the photo closely; now I see, that is indeed a tiny male spider perched just over the round medallion on the female's rear abdomen.  The spider in the NC State extension photo appears the same as the Belle Isle spider I found.  This is the only matching photo I have found so far.

While the spider I photographed at Belle Isle is certainly different in appearance than the one I photographed at Devine Preserve, apparently they are all lumped into the genus Argiope and are called black and yellow garden spiders.  Of note, my Belle Isle spiders' web did not have the corkscrew appearing stabilimentum (shown in the NC State photo). Maybe its web was still being constructed. 

Addendum 09/21/2025

I have a friend who is really smart about these kinds of things and she recently responded to my email asking for her thoughts on this spider's common name for identification.  She has her own meadow where these spiders are showing up.  She notes that they are very successful hunters.  My friend proposes that this spider's common name is Banded Garden Spider (Argiope trifasciata), a native of North and South America, but beginning to spread around the world.  They have also been seen on the Canary Islands, the Azores, Egypt and other places.  

If you see Banded Garden Spider photos on-line, you will likely be looking at the ventral side (underside) bands and from where the spider gets its name.  It never occurred to me that a spider would not be named for the appearance of its dorsal side (topside).  Again, not harmful to humans; it goes after garden pests.  Leave it alone and get rid of your pests.

Yellow garden spider

I went with friends yesterday morning to Devine (Nature) Preserve in Washtenaw County.  Oak savanna forest (some very big oaks!) and meadows dominated by sweet Joe-pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum) and goldenrod (several kinds).  There is, apparently, a marshy area also, but this was inaccessible.  Cattails were visible, but it has been so hot and dry that the marshy part was likely quite dry.   

We saw several good things, but this may have been the main attraction for me.  My friends had seen many before. 

Yellow garden spider (Argiope aurantia) 

As is true for most species of spiders, females are larger than males.  I am just assuming that our spider was a female.  It was about two plus inches long from tip of front legs to hind legs.  My friend has created her own meadow on her property and has seen several of these in her meadow.  The "corkscrew appearing" web is called a stabilimentum and is unique to Argiope species spiders.  The function is not fully known.  It may be so that birds and other creatures can see the web and avoid running into it. 

Apparently, in the right habitats this is a common spider, but it was my very first time seeing it.  The important thing to know about the yellow garden spider is that it is highly beneficial catching and eating several types of pests.  If you have one, or two or three, in your garden or meadow, leave them alone!  They are doing good work.  It is completely harmless to humans.  A truly stunning orb-weaver spider. 

Seeing this spider reminded me of the female Golden Silk orb-weaver spiders (Nephila clavipes) that I saw in Panama in 2016.  The male Golden Silk orb-weaver spiders were tiny in comparison.      

Female Golden Silk orb-weaver (Nephila clavipes). Enlarge the photo to see the web. 

I was also reminded of a relatively recent New Yorker book review by Kathryn Schulz titled An Arachnophobe Pays Homage to the Spider, February 10, 2025, in which she reviews the book The Lives of Spiders (Princeton), by Zimena Nelson.  If you are, like Kathryn Schulz, an arachnophobe (a very common affliction), or a arachnoid lover (yes, they do exist), you can pick this book up for a good price at a variety of on-line used bookstores.  Then, again, if you are an arachnoid lover you may already have it.

I wouldn't say that I'm an arachnophobe but, occasionally, I've been known to step into meadows for a closer look at something.  I did that a couple of times during our Devine Preserve visit.  I would not like to look down and find a yellow garden spider with it's eight legs trying for a foothold on the front of my fleece or sweater - never mind some other area of my clothing!  But I am very happy that the yellow garden spider is amongst us and just trying to do its job.  It was thrilling to see.