Fall Snapshots

Autumn is meandering along on its way to winter. A few vestiges of summer abide—the chilled tattered late dragonfly and lost-looking turtles. Early winter residents like slate-colored juncos and white-throated sparrows are showing up. Both are sometimes fooled by autumn days—day length is about the same as mid-May, and you can hear the occasional spring peeper call in the swamp. The odd white-throated sparrow as well begins to tune up its song, which sounds like “old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody”, but they rarely get past the “Sam” part—maybe they figure out what is going on and are too embarrassed to continue.

If you keep your eyes open, you can see some of the fall specialties in evidence. A four-point buck, neck swollen from testosterone, picks his way across my backyard, oblivious to everything and everyone but does. (This is the time of year you see road-killed deer whenever you run an errand). Squirrels, their autumn breeding season in full swing, scamper up tree trunks in twos and threes and fours, spiraling their way like long gray scarves. Oak trees are finally releasing their crispy brown leaves to pile up in the gutters. Oaks are the last to let go in fall—I’ve heard Garrison Keeler explain it as vanity, but since they are among the last to leaf out in spring, it all evens out.

A northern harrier (aka marsh hawk) moseys his way across the marsh at Huntley Meadows. Banking and turning at walking speed, he checks out the flocks of mallards, testing for any sign of weakness as they explode off the surface. The harrier, rump showing the bright white diamond of feathers that screams “field mark!” to any birder, milks every erg of energy from the breeze with an ease and efficiency any America’s Cup skipper would sell his soul for. And the harrier does it in three dimensions to boot. He will linger here for a few days before moving on for the winter to the more expansive Potomac River marshes, sharing the area with the night shift of short-eared owls.

Canada geese, too big for the harrier to bother with, are busy harvesting a summer’s worth of marsh sedges. Think of them as feathered sheep, grazing on the swamp grasses, pulling up the stalks to feed on the calorie-rich rootstocks. Bow waves of grass blades form as they swim through the shallow water, past the skulking Virginia rails who have taken up residence in the marsh and pad daintily between the faded brown stalks of cat-tails, long since gone to seed. A pair of hooded mergansers newly arrived from points north, skirts the edges of the marsh, jumpy as cats, while northern shovelers doze in the watery sunlight.

Here and there, almost like after thoughts, or maybe grace notes, American witch hazel is in full bloom, forsythia-yellow blossoms the same color as maple leaves and easily overlooked amid all the riot of color.

The planet is turning, winter closing in, but not just yet. There is still business to be done, still things to do before the cold falls and the hemisphere sleeps.

Peter and Frederick..

This article will appear in the December issue of The Capital Guide, the publication of the Guild of Professional Tour Guides of Washington, D.C.

At first glance, Peter L’Enfant and Frederick Douglass seem unlikely companions—L’Enfant, a slightly built Frenchman whose vision resulted in the city of Washington, D.C. and Douglass, a powerful orator whose calls for the abolition of slavery gave rise to the Emancipation Proclamation and the modern Civil Rights movement. They stand, paired in the lobby at One Judiciary Square, as the District’s contribution to the National Statuary Hall collection in the U.S. Capitol. Visitors need not go through security; the statues are easily viewed from the entrance as well as from outside the building.

The two larger-than-life bronze statues, each seven feet tall and weighting close to 850 pounds, were commissioned in 2007 by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. An advisory commission of historians and art experts (50 prominent citizens nominated by public ballot) chose local sculptors Gordon Kray and Steven Weitzman to create the statues of L’Enfant and Douglass, respectively.


Each man is shown practicing his profession, tools at hand. L’Enfant stands atop Jenkins Hill, later to become Capital Hill, plans for the Federal City and a pair of dividers in his hands. Douglass, leonine head erect, is depicted giving his 1852 July 4th speech, considered by many historians to be his finest. Weitzman shows Douglass as both orator and writer—a copy of the North Star, Douglass’s abolitionist newspaper clutched in his right hand, his left gripping a lectern on which his pen and inkwell rest.


The Statuary Hall collection in the Capitol displays two statues of historical figures from each state, 100 in all. Since the District is not a state, Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s non-voting delegate to Congress, proposed special legislation authorizing Douglass and L’Enfant to join the select group under the Rotunda. Representative Norton’s bill has been languishing in Committee since in 2005, but she plans on reintroducing the legislation in the near future. In the meantime, visitors may see the sculptures in their temporary home at 441 4th St., NW.

Autumn Closing In

Nights are getting crisp, days are filled with changing colors as the trees suck the nutrients back out of their leaves and begin to shut down. Winter’s coming on. We tend to think of autumn and spring as transition periods between the absolutes of heat and ice—parts of the pendulum swing before it hits the top or bottom. In reality, they are seasons of their own with their own milestones, their own comings and goings. Autumn and spring are more subtle, more nuanced than the exuberances of summer or winter’s bleakness. Pat says the autumns in Colorado are blazing with the bright yellow of aspens but lack the reds and oranges that make the East coast a leaf-peeper's Mecca.


If you pay enough attention, you can find the hallmarks of any season. Spring has its massed wildflower displays of ephemeral beauty, autumn, its own flowers and leaves. But here and there, you can still see summer’s children in a final curtain call before the cold stops the show.

A common spreadwing damselfly settles onto a perch, well below the level of the stiff breeze gusting above the tops of the cattails. Clear gossamer wings neither folded over its back nor spread stiffly out, you can almost hear the rustle of crinolines as it adjusts. Weak fliers, keeping out of the greater sky, damselflies prefer to hunt low, gleaning aphids and tiny bugs from leaves.


Autumn Meadow hawks, the last dragonflies of the year, sway in the breeze perched atop cattail leaves, alone or in coupled pairs, glowing red in the thin sunlight.


Orange and black flashes overhead give away migrating Monarch butterflies, riding the winds, looking barely in control as they flutter their way toward Mexico and the groves of fir trees where they will spend their winter.

Other sets of orange and black, a bit smaller, a bit redder give away the monarch’s mimics and doppelgangers, the viceroy butterflies. Viceroys take advantaged of the monarch’s retchingly bad taste to gain immunity from predators. They are often one of the last butterflies on the wing, first letting the monarchs pass by to teach birds not to eat anything orange. Orange isn’t just for breakfast. Trust me on this.

Autumn rains have called forth red-backed salamanders. Leaving their flooded underground lairs, they climb up tree trunks, bushes, and even walls to find some breathing space. Lungless and respiring through damp skin, they are almost never seen during the hot days of summer. The dampness of fall is the perfect time to see them. Coming in one of three flavors, the common redback with its dull red stripe running down its back, intermingles with the less common “leadback” whose red has been replaced with dull gray. A third form, more common elsewhere, is bright orange, mimicking red efts. An unrelated species, the red eft is the juvenile of the eastern newt. Newts live in beaver ponds and when the population reaches critical mass, efts leave in search of new horizons. Trudging across the forest floor, the bright orange efts tell predators to stay away—they are mildly toxic and will sicken anything foolish enough to eat one.

Red-headed woodpeckers work the dead snags at the edges of the beaver pond. White oaks, killed by the rising pond, the wood is rotted and punky enough for a wide variety of insect prey and soft enough for the woodpeckers to hammer in acorns and hickory nuts for future dining. Red-heads are one of the few woodpeckers in North America who store food for winter. Mice, flying squirrels, and gray squirrels do the same and are not above raiding the woodpecker’s pantry when times get lean.

This year, times will be good for all—it’s a mast year for oaks and other nut-bearing trees. Acorns litter the forest floor in abundance—more than enough for the hoarders to gather and bury. Oaks will belch forth a huge crop of acorns every so often and gray squirrels will gather them up and bury a few at a time in scatter hordes. Squirrels forget some spots or are detained by predators. The acorns, having been obligingly planted and away from other species with a taste for nuts, sprout to grow into new forests. Squirrels have spent thousands of years selecting the fattest and tastiest acorns to store, while oaks have spent the same time selecting squirrels to act as gardeners. Who has domesticated who?

You Have to Go Out…

Tucked behind the dune that has protected it for 140 years, the United States Live-Saving Service’s Indian River Station has weathered hurricanes and north-easters. A barn like structure, it has been lovingly restored to its 1905 colors and condition. Photos of old ship wrecks line the walls and portraits of long-dead crew stare out at you, all mustached and unsmilingly formal.


These men were some of the bravest, most foolhardy people the U.S. Government had in its employ. Their job was to find wrecked ships along their section of beach, five miles or so in either direction, and rescue the crews and passengers, no matter what the conditions. They called themselves surfmen and their motto was “You have to go out; you don’t have to come back.” They lived in Spartan conditions, the wood-burning stove in the mess room the only source of heat—in freezing weather, they heated bricks on the stove and wrapped them in flannel to take to their bunks. The open cupola along the roof ridge was manned 24 hours a day, rain or shine, hurricane or blizzard. Like today’s firemen, their job was to put themselves in harm’s way for the safety of others. Failure was always an option, nearly every station lost surfmen to waves or the cold. Not going out was never considered. The rule book stated that a surfman “will not desist from his efforts until by actual trial, the impossibility of effecting a rescue is demonstrated. The statement of the captain that he did not try to use the boat because the sea or surf was too heavy will not be accepted unless attempts to launch were actually made and failed.”


The surfboat, an open wood-planked 20-foot affair, weighing 3000 pounds, rested on a carriage with extra large wheels in the ground level boat room. The eight man crew of surfmen dragged the boat to the beach to launch through storm waves often over 20 feet high. These boats were always rowed by the men. Motors were almost never used. As one surfman said, “Motors can quit; men never will.”


If the storm surf was of suicidal fury and attempts at launching were unsuccessful, the surfboat also carried a Lyle gun, a small cannon used to launch a grappling hook-like projectile to the crippled vessel. A thin rope called the shotline was attached to the projectile. Regulations called for the gunner to fire the projectile into the rigging of the stranded ship. Using the shotline, the surfmen hauled larger lines and pulleys to the ship to create a continuous loop with a breeches buoy, a one-man harness, attached. Passenger and crew rode the buoy from the ship to beach one by one.


Six stations ranged along the Delaware shore with another four in Maryland. Surfmen patrolled on foot in two-man shifts, each man walking the beach for five miles north or south of the station. They carried patrol clocks to ensure they patrolled their stretch of beach. They also carried Coston flares to warn ships too close to the beach or to burn at a wreck to alert the station lookout and to let the ship’s crew know they had been located and that help was on the way.

Although Cape Hatteras lays claim to the title “graveyard of the Atlantic”, the mid-Atlantic Delmarva Peninsula has had more shipwrecks. The Indian River Station saw seven major wrecks in its history. Some stations like the one at Bethany Beach, saw none, and others such as the one at Lewes at the entrance to Delaware Bay made nearly fifty rescues. Stations were expected to assist each other when possible and Alexander Graham Bell set up one of the first telephone systems in America so stations to communicate with each other up and down the coast.

Reading the accounts of rescues leaves me in awe of these people. The surfmen at Lewes once went for 72 hours without sleep or hot food during a screaming north-easter in 1889. With the help of the Cape Henlopen and Rehobeth Beach crews, they went from one wreck to another, rowing out with frozen hands and protesting muscles to rescue nearly 100 people from ships which wrecked one after the other over the course of the three-day storm.


In 1891, the Indian River crew attempted a near epic rescue of the schooner Redwing, wrecked down beach across the Inlet. The surfmen dragged their boat two miles to the flooded inlet, and could not cross on the flood tide. They reloaded the heavy boat back on its carriage and dragged it to nearby Rehobeth Bay, packed the carriage into the boat, and relaunched to cross the bay. It took nearly five hours to reach the wreck, and by then, the Redwing was a total loss with all hands. The surfmen spent the next day on the beach finding the bodies of the crew and paid out of their own pockets for graves at the nearby Ocean View Presbyterian Church. You can still see the site today with an added mystery—the schooner’s manifest listed six crewmen and the surfmen collected six bodies from the beach. There are seven graves in the Redwing plot.

Going South

The dog days of August are upon us. Scorching temperatures, humidity you can swim in, and thunderstorms powerful enough to uproot houses. Time for Fall migration. I know what you are thinking, its not Fall. Not even close. Yet for some animals, it is time to head for tropic climes or even farther.

Shorebirds—sandpipers, plovers, and the like always lead the way. Nesting on the tundra, above the Arctic Circle, almost at the edge of the ice, they have reared out their broods and are ready for some fun and sun. They pass through the mid-Atlantic starting in late July and by September are pretty much gone. I saw least sandpipers, small brown and white birdlets, hardly bigger than marshmallow Easter duckys, working over the exposed mud flats at Huntley Meadows park last week. They were joined by a solitary sandpiper, a spotted sandpiper, and several killdeer, all partaking in the bounty of the ooze. The leasties are on their way to Peru, the others go as far as the Argentine pampas and Tierra del Fuego.


Other birds I saw that day are busy putting on fat for their own journeys. The chimney swifts chittering overhead are beginning to feel the call of the rainforests and the osprey circling over the open water of the marsh will be going to coastal Brazil by mid-October. Even the hummingbirds, weighing as much as a paper clip, will be flying the 90 miles of open water nonstop from Florida to Cuba.


What prompts an animal you can hold in the palm of one hand to fly thousands of miles twice a year? Sunlight and food. Consider: every point on the planet averages 12 hours of light and 12 hours of night in a day. The actual hours are lopsided except at the equator. The poles get three month each of endless daylight and stygian night. When spring hits the northern hemisphere, daylight exceeds night with a concomitant acceleration of plant growth. More plant growth equals more insects. More insects equals more protein to feed baby birds. A good number of bird species leave the crowded tropical ecosystems and head to the sparsely populated north. They settle in, raise one, maybe two broods, and return to Central and South America at the end of the season. We think of them as our birds going south for the winter when in reality, it is their birds coming north for the summer.

Something is always migrating. Think of the year as the arc of a pendulum. At the top of each swing, there is an instant when gravity and momentum balance and the swing stops. The migration swing stops for about 10 days in mid-July and again at the other end of the arc in mid-January. For those brief periods, all species have gotten where they were going. Then the process begins anew. Now is the time when the pendulum is moving back down and the birds are beginning to move with it.

Modern Problems

Today’s news reported that Pope Benedict XVI suffered a broken wrist in a fall at his summer palace. Add to this the picture of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wearing a sling to support her broken elbow and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sottomayor on crutches after she broke her ankle in a fall, and a disturbing pattern emerges.

Gravity anomalies—little patches of disturbed gravitational fields have been popping up all over the Earth. Normally these attract no attention; after all, who notices fish floating up out of the water in mid-Pacific or the fact that Mt. Everest has shrunk by a full two inches in the last 5 years? Gravity, a real but little understood universal phenomenon, is under assault. The culprit?—Global warming. As the surface of the planet heats, it becomes less dense relative to the underlying crust. This difference in densities is expressed by localized increases or decreases in micro gravitational fields. The field switches off in small foot-square areas. If a person is unlucky enough to step on that area, the effect is similar to stepping on a banana peel. The corollary, as explained by Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of Conservation of Energy, is localized areas of hyper-gravity—someone stepping there weighs over 800 pounds for a fraction of a second. Injuries to upper extremities come from zero gravity patches, those to ankles and legs from hyper gravity anomalies.

This is not a new phenomenon—Albert Einstein postulated gravity fluctuations in his Addendum to Special Relativity, published in 1924. Einstein nearly won the Nobel Prize for this, but lost to Max Plank in the swimsuit completion. Human history has been changed for better or worse as a direct result of gravity shifts. One thousand years ago, during what is known as the Medieval Warm Period, a 400 year era of global warming, Europe was saved from conquest when Genghis Kahn died after falling from his horse. This snippet, glossed over by most historians, belies the fact that Genghis was an expert horseman, literally born to the saddle. Falling off one’s horse, even while drunk, was considered by the Mongol hordes to be something of a gross faux pas. If one considers a gravity surge, which caused Genghis to suddenly weigh 600 pounds, making his poor mount collapse, the whole historical mystery comes into focus. Another example, that of the Mary Celeste, an American sailing ship found abandoned and sailing by itself across the Atlantic in 1894, can be explained by its sailing through a zero gravity area, causing the crew to float off the deck and into the water. The disappearances of Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa, and the Lost Colony have similar explanations.

How do we combat this seemingly inexorable menace? The obvious solution is to end global warming and stabilize the earth’s surface temperature relative to the underlying crust. Failing that, a multi-trillion dollar effort should be initiated by NATO to warm the crust with microwave ovens in order to bring it back into relative balance with the surface. As neither plan is likely, I propose a temporary fix—cats. Cats are well known to have mysterious effects on gravity, and are thought by some observers to possess rudimentary control over their own gravitational fields. Consider: a falling cat always lands on its feet. Long thought to be due to quick reflexes and loose skin, recent experiments using high speed video have demonstrated that a falling cat can cancel out or reduce its immediate gravity field, allowing time to twist into landing position. Consider also the sleeping cat phenomenon. Anyone trying to pick up a sleeping cat will remark “Geeze, this cat weighs a ton.” This is truer than once thought. A sleeping cat concentrates the local micro-gravity field to become several pounds heavier, thus keeping it in safely in place—a useful evolutionary trait for an animal who, in the wild, habitually sleeps on tree branches. Cats’ legendary sense of balance is nothing more than gravity field manipulation.

Obviously, the solution for persons of high societal rank, such as Popes and Supreme Court judges, is to emulate the Prophet Mohamed who always had a cat with him. According to legend, he once cut off the sleeve of a favorite robe so as not to disturb a sleeping cat. This was not entirely due to affection--when one considers that the cat temporarily weighed 150 pounds and Mohamed had a bad back from his early years as a camel driver, the real explanation leaps to mind. My modest proposal is that rather than carrying yappy rat-dogs as do some celebutants, world leaders should be accompanied by official cats. The cats could be carried in decorous accessories, lending statesmen a certain air of gravitas.

Greyfriar’s Bobby

One of the fixtures of Edinburgh is Greyfriar’s Bobby. Bobby was a Skye Terrier belonging to a Mr. John Gray, a night watchman, who died in 1858, and was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard, the cemetery attached to Greyfriars Church. Mr. Gray and Bobby were inseparable in life and in death. For the next 14 years, Bobby kept vigil at Gray’s graveside, leaving only in bad weather, when he was sheltered in nearby homes and fed at the backdoors of local restaurants. Word of Bobby’s devotion spread and the City Council paid for the renewal of Bobby’s license, making him a ward of the city. Bobby died, old and full of honors, in 1872, and was buried just outside the cemetery proper but within the walls. Bobby’s headstone, dedicated by the Duke of Gloucester, bears the inscription “Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all.” At the base is a pile of sticks and dog toys left by dog lovers for over a century.


A bronze statue of Bobby stands near the cemetery, just outside Greyfriars Pub. Legend has it that the publican turned the statue 180 degrees, so it no longer faces the cemetery, and any photo of Bobby will also have the pub in the background.