Capers With Carroll

One of my delights this past month has been a new hedge of passion vine along my back fence. My impetus was new construction on the vacant lot behind us: I wanted some quick privacy. Since I had developed a fondness for the genus Passiflora while living in South America, I decided to try several species, some for their spectacular flowers, some for their fruit (a "sweet granadilla" and the sour "maracuya") and one for its cold hardiness.The first to bloom has been this P. vitifolia. The blossoms last only from sun-up to sun-down, but new ones appear almost daily. So far, none have set fruit, even with my attempts at hand pollination, but I’ve noticed a sudden influx of hummingbirds, fritillary butterflies, and even a swallowtail. Such fun.

I was slow going digital with my photography. As late as the summer of 2000, I dragged forty roles of slide film and my Nikon SLR for seven weeks across Europe and Uzbekistan. I still hadn’t organized and viewed all those slides when I bought my Canon G3 during the summer of 2003, and now, of course, when I want to use one of those European shots, I first have to digitize it. My G3 has been twice to China and twice to Brazil. It has recorded weddings for my five children, gotten me nearly three years into grandfatherhood, and illustrated these first five years of Capers with Carroll. On a single day in Yunnan, I shot 600 keepers from a bus window. In Pernambuco, I captured 120 images of one male Frigga sp. to get the picture I use at the top of this blog. That would have been a prohibitive four 36-shot rolls of film. I love my G3.

However, in September, I spent some time in the camera section of a big-box electronics store, helping a visitor from China choose a pocket-sized digital. Suddenly the G3 felt pretty bulky. My favorite shirt is a guayabera with four pockets. They will hold the G3, but it’s awkward to maintain for more than a few minutes. I usually carry my camera on a belly strap, but that creates other problems. Whether I’m photographing urban wildlife or grand kids, the key to success is to have the camera perpetually at hand. Even as a junior high teacher, whether I want to record evidence against a graffiti artist or a cute candid shot to forward to the yearbook, a camera in the pocket is worth two in the closet.

Two years ago, a family of foxes made my back yard their home for six weeks (from the end of June to the beginning of August). I read then that foxes often return to the same places to have their litters, so I've been watching. On Mother's Day weekend, I heard baby animals crying from underneith my wood pile, which stoked my interest. Then on the morning of June 20, I got up to find a fox standing guard from the fence while her kits played at the edge of the shrubbery. (Click picture to view an enlargement.)

For a brief moment, I saw three kits, but I could only get two in the picture at once.

Two days later, I saw the kits playing in the same spot, though mother was back somewhere out of sight.
I think she's a single mom. Two years ago, I saw Dad coming and going as he hunted, while Mom rested in the shade and kept an eye on things. The kits didn't come out until they were bigger. This year, I saw less of her, and saw no male at all. Now it has been two weeks since I saw her, and three weeks since I saw the kits. I have been standing ready with a video camera (and a freshly scrubbed dining room window to shoot through), but perhaps the show is over. Maybe I spooked her and she moved them to a new location. But I will be watching again next year.

Ever since Vicki had to work the day I took the newly-weds to see the General Grant Tree in the snow, she has yearned for her own trip to Kings Canyon. We went today, hoping to get above smoke from the 800 lightening-sparked fires that have been burning in California. Although we got above most of it, there was still enough to obscure the tops of the tall Sequoias.

With the grand vistas muddied, I turned my attention to the small delights, like Bumble Bees in the Ceanosis. . .and wild Iris, hiding in the shade. This section of Redwood bark had the Filistatid web around the knot hole, and Agelenid webs in the rift.Great bouquets of Western Azalea dotted the hillside.

Later, we walked in the meadow at Grant's Grove Village. I found this Misumena on wild strawberry.Great patches of Shooting Stars carpeted the field, but each is a jewel in itself.On higher ground, there were Columbine . . .And Leopard Lilies to take your breath away.Not bad for a day that was too smoky for sightseeing.

Spiders in the family Uloboridae make some of the most delicate of all spider webs, so delicate in fact that an automatic camera usually looks past the spider, through the web, and focuses on something unimportant in the background. Today, however, cutting plywood left a dusting of fine particles on this female's (probably Uloborus diversus) artwork. That is her, just above and to the right of center, hanging upside down, long front legs bent at the joints but held together to make her look like a sliver of bark. She is among the most harmless of all spiders, a finely-crafted work of art, obvious only in those moments when dust has just fallen and the light finds her from a perfect angle.

  I have an international mystery for which I would very much like some visitor from South Africa to help me. On February 8, I posted this picture of a Colombian crab spider, and titled my post The Epicadus heterogaster of whimsey. Suddenly on February 19, I began to get hits from South Africa (15 so far), all from people who had Googled "whimsey eyes." I did mention in my post that Charles Darwin thought this spider had ten eyes, but I cannot believe this is the reason for the sudden South African interest in Colombian crab spiders. Is Whimsey Eyes a new band in South Africa? Or a new song? I would love for one of my South African visitors to leave a comment and explain this mystery.

I’ve mentioned before that jumping spiders often come in beautiful colors. Yet even I haven’t seen anything that topped this pair of Psecas sp. The male (right, May 1988) impresses me as an Elvis impersonator, looking like he’s poured into those iridescent bands of blue and red, and with his high collar pulled up behind the head to add bulk to the shoulders and neck. The female (left, June 1995) takes the same colors and sends them in a different direction, achieving a little less flash, but more elegance. I need to admit that I posed them on handy vegetation. I have since read that at least some Psecas show an affinity for Bromeliads, unlike most Salticidae who will stroll around whatever plant-life presents itself. At the time I photographed them, I didn’t know what to call them. Now I can identify the genus, but this Colombian species may not have a name yet. It closely resembles pictures of a Psecas from Brazil, but that one lacks a name, as well. Similar members of the genus are found from Central America to Argentina.

In Colombia, whenever I stumbled upon a female Epicadus heterogaster (THOMISIDAE), I would stop and marvel at God’s infinite whimsy. Even a fairly diligent stumbler, like myself, will only see females, as the ladies may outweigh the gents by a factor of one hundred. The males stroll around their mate’s bodies with all the romantic status, I suppose, of body lice.

The females, meanwhile, try to pass themselves off as flowers, orchids specifically. Hence one of their common names: 'Flower Mimicking Crab Spider.' I know, you weren’t immediately put in mind of a corsage when you saw my photograph, but then, properly posed in a bouquet of similarly colored flowers, she only has to fool an occasional fly.

To the naked eye, they seem to have two eyes, due to the 'mascara effect.' Actually, there are eight eyes, four hidden in each of the two streaks of eye shadow. Charles Darwin thought he counted ten eyes when he captured one in Rio de Janeiro, in 1832. He records “Abdomen encrusted & with 5 conical peaks.” In my own mind, I remember it having three. Yet “The strange orchid-mimicking South American arachnid Epicadus Heterogaster (sic on the capitalized 'H') is commonly known as the Seven-Spined Crab Spider” I learned this as fact number 324 (out of 693), on a page titled “77 facts about the number 7.”

(Note this alternative: If your first language is Japanese, ‘カニグモ科’ may be translated back into English as "Seven-spinned Crab Spider").

The whimsy just keeps coming.

 
Going through old photographs, I found one of my favorites from 1984, taken just a month or so after I arrived in Colombia. I don't know the name of the genus or species. It's a jumping spider (fam. SALTICIDAE). Many of the Colombian jumping spiders were flamboyantly colorful, but this gal relied purely on personality. Today, with digital cameras, I can shoot 200 quick poses and pick the one I like best. In those days, shooting on film, every shot had to try and be the best. I think this one has stood the test of time.

Fotos de coiote por Eduardo

Yesterday, I took my daughter and son-in-law up to Kings Canyon to see the General Grant tree before they take off for Brazil. At the point when I realized I had gone too far before putting chains on the tires, I stopped and was about to get out when a movement at two-o'clock high caught my attention. I now suspect this is a coyote, but at the time is was coming down the mountainside, full-speed, straight at me, I was thinking, 'Wolf!' It came around to the driver's side of the van, and waited for me to get out. I decided maybe I wouldn't.

Instead, I inched along, curving around several bends in the road, while my canine friend trotted beside us.

Eventually, he (she?) got bored with us, I did get the chains on, and we did see the General Grant Tree. A good time was had by all.