Feeling Blue

As a child, coming upon a bird's egg on the ground was something half-mystical.  Stopping to carefully examine the setting, I would extrapolate events that brought this shell of life to such a fall.

If it was a robin's egg, awe grew exponentially.  Something about those delicately colored eggs drew a reverential sigh from my soul.  "Ahhhh," my inner griot exhaled, and I would store away that bit of blue in my heart.

Forty years on, those feeling echo whenever I come upon such a find, as I did last August at Illiniwek Forest Preserve - a sudden interruption to my solitary ramble.

There it was, halved and empty, gaping at the sky.

Arrowhead

This is the arrowhead plant, as it is commonly called, due to its arrow-shaped leaves.  It likes to grow in wet, marshy ground, and in shallow water.

This plant is a member of the sagittaria genus, named after the constellation sagittarius - the archer.

Arrowhead is also called duck potato, and wapato.  Wapato is a Cree or Ojibwe word.

It has edible tubers.  In fact,  we learn from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, edited by Bernard DeVoto, that the corps of discovery was introduced to wapato as an important food source in late 1805 by the native people living on the Deschutes River.

Another name for this plant is said to be katniss, although I could find no trustworthy source to back up this claim.  Katniss is the heroine of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  Katniss' father tells her that as long as she can find "herself" - meaning the katniss or arrowhead plant, she will never go hungry.

As fall swiftly descends, our local varieties are beginning to fade and wither, but they are still beautiful!

Another New Warbler!

I've discovered another new warbler!

I don't know how I've never noticed this stunning little bird before, but here he is at Smith's Island:

Here's another photo of one over at Fisherman's Corner South:

And one more:

This is a prothonotary warbler.  According to a post over at 10,000 Birds (check it out at the following link: http://10000birds.com/golden-swamp-warbler.htm  ) these birds take their names from early clerks in the Catholic church who wore yellow vestments.  Interestingly, they mention that John James Audubon had called this bird the "golden swamp warbler" but the other name won out.

Protho means "first", and notary means "clerk".

Prothonotary warblers nest in cavities, and can be seen on tree trunks, looking for insects to eat, in a similar manner to nuthatches and creepers.  They live in the Quad City area during the summer months.

If I've missed this brightly-colored beauty all these years, what else is out there that I haven't yet noticed?  Here's to finding more gems out on the trail!

Gar

When I came upon this skeletal head on the river, I thought at first glance that it must belong to a shore bird.  I'd been photographing and studying them so much, and admiring their long bills, that I wanted it to be a shore bird's head rather than knew it to be so.

Upon closer examination, it turned out to be a gar, which is a type of fish we have here in the Mississippi.  (Thanks, Hyperion, for the official identification, which as usual, was instantaneous:  Look.  Blink.  "Oh, that's a gar".)

This is probably a short-nosed gar, as opposed to a long-nosed gar.  Either way, I wouldn't want to meet one in a dark alley.  Check out that toothy grin.

Gar, which comes from Old English and German, and means "spear" is related to the name Gary, which means "spear bearer".

Clubtail Dragonfly

While camping on the Mississippi recently, this black and yellow visitor alighted on our picnic table one afternoon.  See how the tip of its abdomen is swollen?  This is an identifying feature of the Clubtail Dragonfly.

There are several kinds of Clubtail Dragonflies, but I believe this one to be a Plains Clubtail, which is the most common variety.

Check out those amazing legs, feet, and enormous eyes!  He looks like he's coming right at you!

The scientific order of insects which includes dragonflies and damselflies is called Odonata, which comes from the Greek word for tooth.  (They have teeth on their mandibles.)

The word Odonata is, of course, related to words like orthodontist, dandelion (from the French "dent-de-lion" which means lion's tooth), rodent (from the Latin, meaning "to gnaw") and even Dentyne (the brand name of a gum promoted as an aid to oral health, which combined portions of the words "dental" and "hygiene").