When I was in grad school, I worked for the USDA as an integrated pest management field technician. My job consisted of traipsing out to various beef and dairy farms in Howard County, Maryland, to monitor face flies. Face flies are an imported livestock pest, originally from the Old World. They breed in cow dung and feed on cattles' nasal and eye secretions. While they don’t bite, they can become so annoying to the animal that milk production and weight gain suffer, causing monetary loss to the farmer.
In the late spring, I was part of a team setting up face fly monitoring stations. We would pull up to a farm and go into the pasture, first checking for bulls (dairy bulls are mean as snake spit). We set up tiny corrals of about 50 square feet, using three metal fence posts and barbed wire. Into each enclosure, we placed three fly traps made of plywood and painted white (Glidden’s semi-gloss exterior). The trap's shape, combined with the UV reflectance of the paint, presented the flies with the model of a bovine face; flies key in on angle and UV. We used a hand-held post driver (a short length of steel pipe plugged with concrete) and plenty of wire; enough to spiral around the enclosure three times. It was hard, dirty work and we averaged two farms a day, with two or more corrals per farm.
One day, we decided to go to McDonald’s for lunch. The team consisted of a PhD entomologist (later to become the chief entomologist of Guam), a PhD candidate, and an Master's candidate—me. Among the three of us, we totaled close to a half-century of education. We were tired, cold, and filthy from the work—we had discovered a dairy bull, a Holstein the size of a Cadillac and close to six feet tall at the shoulders—and had spent an eventful morning alternately working and running for our lives to get over the pasture fence.
Behind us in line were a father and his small son. “Daddy,” the kid asked, “why are those men so dirty?” I overheard the reply, sotto voce, “That’s why you need to work hard in school; otherwise you’ll wind up like them.”
Thursday, December 11, 2008
White Cats for Obama
We were watching a rerun of Jon Stuart and the Daily Show the other night. Stuart was interviewing Barrak Obama, then just a candidate. When the camera isolated on Obama, Flint, our male white Maine coon cat, perked up his ears and trotted to the screen. He sat down in front of the tube and watched Obama, devoting his complete attention to the screen. When the camera cut back to Stuart, Flint blinked and turned away as if to leave. But Obama came back on and Flint was once again enraptured. He jumped up on the TV table and began pawing at the screen, nuzzling and purring loud enough to be heard from several feet away. As long as the President-elect was on TV, Flint was riveted. As soon as the interview ended, he jumped down and resumed his previous activities: washing and begging for food.
Huh.
Neither cat has ever shown any interest in television, even during the wildlife programs. I guess cats are natural born Democrats.
Huh.
Neither cat has ever shown any interest in television, even during the wildlife programs. I guess cats are natural born Democrats.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Woodstock Weekend
Real surfers don't say "Dude".
--Dana Brown, Step Into Liquid, 2003
Woodstock; August 15 to 18, 1969--3 days of peace and music somewhere in upstate New York. They say upwards of half a million people attended. People grooved to the music, exchanged genetic information, and imbibed various chemicals. Babies were born. Most of my friends vanished that weekend. My cousin--who had just turned 16-- borrowed his dad’s car “to go to a concert”, neglecting to say it was 400 miles up the Jersey Turnpike,--and didn’t come home for a week.
Me? I went surfing.
When I was a junior in high school, the film Endless Summer was released. I must have seen it eight or nine times. It was basically an old-time travelogue, following two California surfers around the world in “search of the perfect wave”. I was completely won over. I rented a surf board that summer and drove to Assateague Island to try my luck. It was a complete disaster. I was banged by the board, dumped every way imaginable and nearly drowned twice. I loved it. Once, in the shore break, I managed to stand up of a grand total of what must have been five seconds, but seemed like hours. It was ecstasy. I felt the ocean under my feet, felt the push and power of the wave; then the nose went under and I was gulping seawater and trying to figure out which way was up so I could find air and breathe. I was stoked.
The following summer, I bought a second or third hand board, a Hobie Sportflight, with a redwood stringer, ten feet long, weighing forty pounds, and as hard to turn as the Queen Mary. I brushed a pound of melted paraffin onto the deck for traction, scrounged a roof rack, and hit the beach every weekend. My summer job barely paid for gas and I camped out on the beach, fishing and foraging for clams in the bay behind Assateague for supper. It got to where sympathetic park rangers recognized me and would let me slide on the daily fees, directing me to out of the way camping areas where I could pitch my tattered pup tent.
I kept surfing the shore break, known to surfers as the “soup”. I got pretty good a paddling fast enough to catch a wave and stand up for a few brief seconds until the wave crashed down and the board grounded in the shallows; more than once, I ran down the length of the board to dry sand, having milked every inch out of a wave.
I began noticing other surfers, watched their style, and how they attacked the waves. Actually, most of them never went out, they mostly sat on the beach, worked on their tans, and drank beer. Their boards were untouched by wax and were just a lure for girls. The real surfers were out on the water, white triangles of zinc oxide on their noses, waiting for the next set to form. I seldom saw them with girls and the beer sat in coolers until it got dark. We were monks of the sea, sitting on the beach before dawn, waiting for enough light to go out, sitting on the beach in the late afternoon, waiting on the tide to turn. Watching the waves break with the concentration of chess players.
Woodstock weekend, mid-August. Assateague was breaking big (for Assateague); the soup was running at six feet plus, a wild and confused mass of foam and movement. I saw waves breaking left and right about a quarter-mile offshore. There is an offshore sand bar at Assateague, and when waves are big enough, they trip there first, reforming to break again, fulfilling their destiny on the beach.
I wanted to try outside, but couldn’t bring myself to paddle out that far; it looked about half-way to Spain. I was rubbing sand into the worn wax on my board to increase the traction, when a real surfer dropped his board on the beach next to me. Skin brown and leathery as an old saddle, hair bleached by hours under the sun, white zinc oxide on his nose. He asked to borrow some wax and noticed my beat up board, the dings covered with duct tape and filled with Bondo. “Hobie, huh,” he said “Well we’re not here to fuck around.” I nodded in agreement and kept sanding. “You going outside?" it wasn’t really a question. I nodded; the decision having been made for me. “Mind the rips” he said. “Rips?” “Yeah, rip currents; rip tides. If you get dumped in one, it’ll drown you if you don’t know how to handle it.” “Oh” I replied noncommittally. “Yeah, there’s one about thirty yards down the beach; see it?” I looked up and noticed a lane of confused water, brown with suspended sand going seaward until it spread out like a stalk of broccoli some ways off shore. “You can ride it out on your board; it’ll take you to the bar. Save on the paddling. Surf’s up; let’s go” I followed him down to the water, and pushed my board out. A few strokes past the soup and I felt the board begin to move off on its own. I was in the rip, brown water roiling all around me. The real surfer kept ahead of me, steering with short arm strokes until we reached the cut in the outside bar where the brown water bloomed out like a flower. “You straight or goofy?” he asked, meaning did I lead with my left foot (straight) or right (goofy foot).”Goofy”, I replied. “Take the right break, it’ll keep you facing the wave.” He headed left.
I had that part of the Atlantic all to myself, straddling the board, facing out to sea, the August sun warming my back. I watched the waves come in for some time, bobbing up and down on the board, trying not to think of what was sharing the water out on the bar with me. I’d seen aerial photos showing eight- and nine-foot brown and sandbar sharks lying like logs amid surf bathers at Ocean City, a couple of miles north. I resisted the impulse to pull my legs up out the water where they were dangling like bait. Browns and sandbars pup in the back bay, I told myself, they don’t eat when they pup. Yeah, my brain replied, but what if they’re done and need a quick energy boost; and what eats them?
I was saved from myself by a set of three big waves marching in fast. I let the first go, sinking into its trough from where I looked up at the second. They weren’t really breaking; just mounding up when they hit the shallow bar, steep shoulders trailing off from the peaks. I felt the board climb up the face of the second wave, pop over the crest, and fall with a hollow smack onto the trailing edge. I spun my feet in opposite circles to turn the board around, lay prone, and began to paddle as hard as I could on the face of the third and biggest wave. I felt the board pick up speed and suddenly I was moving with the wave, caught in the palm of the sea. I did a quick push-up and stood, making sure my feet were positioned on the back third, and took off. I had never made a standing up turn before, but somehow my feet knew what to do. I took the drop and cut left and the board ran with the wave, outside rail buried in the water, making a sound like tearing silk. Time seemed to stop. All of the falling off and snoots-full of water in the shore break came to fruition. I was surfing. The shoulder petered out and the board slowed. I dropped back down and let out a whoop you could have heard in Missouri. I paddled back to my take-off point and waited for the next set to come to me. I was in the zone. I must have spent four hours outside, taking on wave after wave. Lengthening shadows, an empty stomach, gripping thirst, and shaky legs finally made themselves known. Time to go in.
I took one final wave, as flawless a ride as you could ask for. When the shoulder faded, I began paddling toward the beach. The shore break had calmed to three-foot breaks, crashing down all at once, like a falling brick wall. Unwilling to call it a day, I paddled with fading energy to catch the last piddling wave of the day. Big mistake. I stood up, watched the nose of the board go under, catching the full weight of the Atlantic, and was catapulted up and off the front. I landed on my feet in two feet of water and turned around just in time to see the board chugging sideways into my left knee. I heard an internal crack and went down in a heap, the board passing over me and banging me on the top of my head. I struggled to my feet and hobbled after it. The board was dinged where it made contact with the bone—more duct tape work. I sat on the beach picking fiberglass splinters out my knee. A shadow fell over me; I looked up to see a blonde angel in a pink bikini. “You OK? You had some really good runs out there. Mike wants to know if you’d like a beer.” This said with a motion down the beach where the real surfer sat. He gave a casual wave and I limped down the beach, board under one arm. Just like a real surfer.
--Dana Brown, Step Into Liquid, 2003
Woodstock; August 15 to 18, 1969--3 days of peace and music somewhere in upstate New York. They say upwards of half a million people attended. People grooved to the music, exchanged genetic information, and imbibed various chemicals. Babies were born. Most of my friends vanished that weekend. My cousin--who had just turned 16-- borrowed his dad’s car “to go to a concert”, neglecting to say it was 400 miles up the Jersey Turnpike,--and didn’t come home for a week.
Me? I went surfing.
When I was a junior in high school, the film Endless Summer was released. I must have seen it eight or nine times. It was basically an old-time travelogue, following two California surfers around the world in “search of the perfect wave”. I was completely won over. I rented a surf board that summer and drove to Assateague Island to try my luck. It was a complete disaster. I was banged by the board, dumped every way imaginable and nearly drowned twice. I loved it. Once, in the shore break, I managed to stand up of a grand total of what must have been five seconds, but seemed like hours. It was ecstasy. I felt the ocean under my feet, felt the push and power of the wave; then the nose went under and I was gulping seawater and trying to figure out which way was up so I could find air and breathe. I was stoked.
The following summer, I bought a second or third hand board, a Hobie Sportflight, with a redwood stringer, ten feet long, weighing forty pounds, and as hard to turn as the Queen Mary. I brushed a pound of melted paraffin onto the deck for traction, scrounged a roof rack, and hit the beach every weekend. My summer job barely paid for gas and I camped out on the beach, fishing and foraging for clams in the bay behind Assateague for supper. It got to where sympathetic park rangers recognized me and would let me slide on the daily fees, directing me to out of the way camping areas where I could pitch my tattered pup tent.
I kept surfing the shore break, known to surfers as the “soup”. I got pretty good a paddling fast enough to catch a wave and stand up for a few brief seconds until the wave crashed down and the board grounded in the shallows; more than once, I ran down the length of the board to dry sand, having milked every inch out of a wave.
I began noticing other surfers, watched their style, and how they attacked the waves. Actually, most of them never went out, they mostly sat on the beach, worked on their tans, and drank beer. Their boards were untouched by wax and were just a lure for girls. The real surfers were out on the water, white triangles of zinc oxide on their noses, waiting for the next set to form. I seldom saw them with girls and the beer sat in coolers until it got dark. We were monks of the sea, sitting on the beach before dawn, waiting for enough light to go out, sitting on the beach in the late afternoon, waiting on the tide to turn. Watching the waves break with the concentration of chess players.
Woodstock weekend, mid-August. Assateague was breaking big (for Assateague); the soup was running at six feet plus, a wild and confused mass of foam and movement. I saw waves breaking left and right about a quarter-mile offshore. There is an offshore sand bar at Assateague, and when waves are big enough, they trip there first, reforming to break again, fulfilling their destiny on the beach.
I wanted to try outside, but couldn’t bring myself to paddle out that far; it looked about half-way to Spain. I was rubbing sand into the worn wax on my board to increase the traction, when a real surfer dropped his board on the beach next to me. Skin brown and leathery as an old saddle, hair bleached by hours under the sun, white zinc oxide on his nose. He asked to borrow some wax and noticed my beat up board, the dings covered with duct tape and filled with Bondo. “Hobie, huh,” he said “Well we’re not here to fuck around.” I nodded in agreement and kept sanding. “You going outside?" it wasn’t really a question. I nodded; the decision having been made for me. “Mind the rips” he said. “Rips?” “Yeah, rip currents; rip tides. If you get dumped in one, it’ll drown you if you don’t know how to handle it.” “Oh” I replied noncommittally. “Yeah, there’s one about thirty yards down the beach; see it?” I looked up and noticed a lane of confused water, brown with suspended sand going seaward until it spread out like a stalk of broccoli some ways off shore. “You can ride it out on your board; it’ll take you to the bar. Save on the paddling. Surf’s up; let’s go” I followed him down to the water, and pushed my board out. A few strokes past the soup and I felt the board begin to move off on its own. I was in the rip, brown water roiling all around me. The real surfer kept ahead of me, steering with short arm strokes until we reached the cut in the outside bar where the brown water bloomed out like a flower. “You straight or goofy?” he asked, meaning did I lead with my left foot (straight) or right (goofy foot).”Goofy”, I replied. “Take the right break, it’ll keep you facing the wave.” He headed left.
I had that part of the Atlantic all to myself, straddling the board, facing out to sea, the August sun warming my back. I watched the waves come in for some time, bobbing up and down on the board, trying not to think of what was sharing the water out on the bar with me. I’d seen aerial photos showing eight- and nine-foot brown and sandbar sharks lying like logs amid surf bathers at Ocean City, a couple of miles north. I resisted the impulse to pull my legs up out the water where they were dangling like bait. Browns and sandbars pup in the back bay, I told myself, they don’t eat when they pup. Yeah, my brain replied, but what if they’re done and need a quick energy boost; and what eats them?
I was saved from myself by a set of three big waves marching in fast. I let the first go, sinking into its trough from where I looked up at the second. They weren’t really breaking; just mounding up when they hit the shallow bar, steep shoulders trailing off from the peaks. I felt the board climb up the face of the second wave, pop over the crest, and fall with a hollow smack onto the trailing edge. I spun my feet in opposite circles to turn the board around, lay prone, and began to paddle as hard as I could on the face of the third and biggest wave. I felt the board pick up speed and suddenly I was moving with the wave, caught in the palm of the sea. I did a quick push-up and stood, making sure my feet were positioned on the back third, and took off. I had never made a standing up turn before, but somehow my feet knew what to do. I took the drop and cut left and the board ran with the wave, outside rail buried in the water, making a sound like tearing silk. Time seemed to stop. All of the falling off and snoots-full of water in the shore break came to fruition. I was surfing. The shoulder petered out and the board slowed. I dropped back down and let out a whoop you could have heard in Missouri. I paddled back to my take-off point and waited for the next set to come to me. I was in the zone. I must have spent four hours outside, taking on wave after wave. Lengthening shadows, an empty stomach, gripping thirst, and shaky legs finally made themselves known. Time to go in.
I took one final wave, as flawless a ride as you could ask for. When the shoulder faded, I began paddling toward the beach. The shore break had calmed to three-foot breaks, crashing down all at once, like a falling brick wall. Unwilling to call it a day, I paddled with fading energy to catch the last piddling wave of the day. Big mistake. I stood up, watched the nose of the board go under, catching the full weight of the Atlantic, and was catapulted up and off the front. I landed on my feet in two feet of water and turned around just in time to see the board chugging sideways into my left knee. I heard an internal crack and went down in a heap, the board passing over me and banging me on the top of my head. I struggled to my feet and hobbled after it. The board was dinged where it made contact with the bone—more duct tape work. I sat on the beach picking fiberglass splinters out my knee. A shadow fell over me; I looked up to see a blonde angel in a pink bikini. “You OK? You had some really good runs out there. Mike wants to know if you’d like a beer.” This said with a motion down the beach where the real surfer sat. He gave a casual wave and I limped down the beach, board under one arm. Just like a real surfer.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Arsters
My friend Freddy and I were sitting in a bar in Eastport, Maryland after a day on the water. Eastport, protestations to the contrary, is a suburb of tony Annapolis. But where Annapolis has gone upscale with “Millionaire’s moorings” near the public dock, Eastport remains decidedly blue collar, populated with mechanics, teachers, carpenters, watermen, boat builders; people who actually make things work.
Freddy had invited me to join him on his old wooden sailboat for a day’s cruise and I jumped at the chance. Although not a sailor, I know my way around a boat. Besides, it was an opportunity to see some isolated Chesapeake Bay lighthouses up close.
It had been a long, windblown, sun-struck day. We were both burned rosy red, with the only pale skin covered by our sunglasses, giving us the look of raccoons on a piece of black and white negative film. I was trying to doctor a headache with a glass of whiskey and a bottle of Miller’s finest when the upscale couple strolled in. He was in a pastel polo shirt and khakis, sockless feet in polished(!) deck shoes. She was in painted-on jeans and heels, nary a blonde hair out of place. They sat around the corner of the U-shaped bar and he ordered two drafts (obviously slumming), and a dozen oysters on the half-shell. “You know” he said with a barely perceptible leer, “they say oysters are aphrodisiacs.” His companion giggled and went off to find the lady’s room.
Freddy glanced up at me, the crow’s feet crinkling at the corners of his eyes, and ordered a couple dozen for us. “Just because I’m getting oysters (he pronounced it ‘arsters’ like all good Maryland boys), don’t mean I’m easy.” This said as the cute blonde was returning to the bar. She must have heard, as a small frown crossed her perfect Maybellenned lips.
If you grew up near tidewater, oysters are a food, not something to put lead in your pencil. I’ve eaten them fried, fricasseed, steamed, scalded, scalloped, baked, barbequed, and raw. I’ve had them in pies, stews, and Rockefeller. There is something elemental about the mild salt tang, the slight metallic flavor from oyster’s copper-base blood, and the way they cringe when you squirt them with lemon juice (that’s how you know they are fresh). Just think of them as Chesapeake sushi.
Beyond mere food, oysters are history. Oysters made Chesapeake Bay and the tidewater culture that embraces it. Chesapeake itself means “Great Shellfish Bay”. Archeologists can spot a pre- European contact Indian village site by the overgrown piles of discarded shells. Visit old tobacco plantations from Mount Vernon to Cape Charles; each has tucked away, amid the poison ivy and kudzu, a mound of old oyster shells quietly dissolving back into the soil. Indentured servants and slaves were fed oysters; cheap protein and free for the harvesting in the shallows. One of the first labor strikes in American history rose from indentured servants complaining about having to eat oysters day in and day out.
When John Smith explored the Bay in the 1500’s, he found oysters so extensive that they formed reefs, breaking the surface at low tide and a hazzard to navigation. The European settlers adapted the Indian appetites and watercraft. Soon, schooners called bugeyes, sporting two raked masts and hulls built from nine old-growth pitch pine logs, were hauling dredges across the reefs. After centuries of onslaught, the reefs soon dwindled to bars; smaller, shorter, and harder to get at, but still chock full of oysters. Bugeyes gave way to skipjacks—single masted plank-built sloops that could handle the new conditions. These graceful craft began the evolution of clipper ships, the acme of sailing ship development.
Oysters are vital to Chesapeake Bay, in large part responsible for its teeming biodiversity and are the Bay’s filtering system. Oysters are what ecologists call a “keystone species”. Keystone species are defined, like the Cheshire Cat, by what’s left when they are gone. Pull a keystone species out of the environmental pyramid, and you get a resulting cascade of unforeseen changes and extinctions of species that, at first glance, have nothing to do with oysters drop in abundance and associated ecosystem function. Ecologists estimate that, at the turn of the 20th century, a volume water equivalent to that of the entire Chesapeake Bay was filtered through an oyster every three days. A single oyster runs 50 gallons of water a day through its gills, feeding on and removing algae and bacteria.
Oysters’ prodigious filtering capacity was the major influence on submerged vegetation. Oysters filter feed on one celled algae, keeping the water clear enough for sunlight to penetrate to the bottom, allowing aquatic grasses to thrive. The grasses formed nurseries for crabs and fish of all sorts.
In the 19th Century, sail switched to steam and gasoline engines and the plunder became serious. Maryland made feeble attempts at conservation, such as limiting dredging to sail only, but to little avail. It is an adage among fisheries management people that governments don’t enact management plans until the resource has already dwindled to critical levels. After being pounded for 400 years, the oysters have seemingly given up. Down to one percent of their former populations, they are no longer a major functional part of Chesapeake ecology.
Eastport once had nearly 20 oyster shucking houses and watermen tied up at nearby Annapolis City Dock to off load their bushels of bivalves. Skipjacks and smaller working craft were common in the harbor. The bartender where Fred and I sat was a part-time waterman who knew his way around an oyster. I watched as he deftly opened one oyster after another, his short razor-sharp knife pushing through the hinge at the back of the shell. He kept his non-knife hand, the one holding the shell, in a chain mail glove, looking like something out of Beowulf. A quick twist and the shell was open. Another twist and the morsel was free.
Fred and I slurped down a dozen each, washing them down with draft beer. When her companion left to go to the men’s room, the cute blonde slipped Fred her phone number with the pantomimed “call me.” Maybe there is something after all to the aphrodisiac story.
Freddy had invited me to join him on his old wooden sailboat for a day’s cruise and I jumped at the chance. Although not a sailor, I know my way around a boat. Besides, it was an opportunity to see some isolated Chesapeake Bay lighthouses up close.
It had been a long, windblown, sun-struck day. We were both burned rosy red, with the only pale skin covered by our sunglasses, giving us the look of raccoons on a piece of black and white negative film. I was trying to doctor a headache with a glass of whiskey and a bottle of Miller’s finest when the upscale couple strolled in. He was in a pastel polo shirt and khakis, sockless feet in polished(!) deck shoes. She was in painted-on jeans and heels, nary a blonde hair out of place. They sat around the corner of the U-shaped bar and he ordered two drafts (obviously slumming), and a dozen oysters on the half-shell. “You know” he said with a barely perceptible leer, “they say oysters are aphrodisiacs.” His companion giggled and went off to find the lady’s room.
Freddy glanced up at me, the crow’s feet crinkling at the corners of his eyes, and ordered a couple dozen for us. “Just because I’m getting oysters (he pronounced it ‘arsters’ like all good Maryland boys), don’t mean I’m easy.” This said as the cute blonde was returning to the bar. She must have heard, as a small frown crossed her perfect Maybellenned lips.
If you grew up near tidewater, oysters are a food, not something to put lead in your pencil. I’ve eaten them fried, fricasseed, steamed, scalded, scalloped, baked, barbequed, and raw. I’ve had them in pies, stews, and Rockefeller. There is something elemental about the mild salt tang, the slight metallic flavor from oyster’s copper-base blood, and the way they cringe when you squirt them with lemon juice (that’s how you know they are fresh). Just think of them as Chesapeake sushi.
Beyond mere food, oysters are history. Oysters made Chesapeake Bay and the tidewater culture that embraces it. Chesapeake itself means “Great Shellfish Bay”. Archeologists can spot a pre- European contact Indian village site by the overgrown piles of discarded shells. Visit old tobacco plantations from Mount Vernon to Cape Charles; each has tucked away, amid the poison ivy and kudzu, a mound of old oyster shells quietly dissolving back into the soil. Indentured servants and slaves were fed oysters; cheap protein and free for the harvesting in the shallows. One of the first labor strikes in American history rose from indentured servants complaining about having to eat oysters day in and day out.
When John Smith explored the Bay in the 1500’s, he found oysters so extensive that they formed reefs, breaking the surface at low tide and a hazzard to navigation. The European settlers adapted the Indian appetites and watercraft. Soon, schooners called bugeyes, sporting two raked masts and hulls built from nine old-growth pitch pine logs, were hauling dredges across the reefs. After centuries of onslaught, the reefs soon dwindled to bars; smaller, shorter, and harder to get at, but still chock full of oysters. Bugeyes gave way to skipjacks—single masted plank-built sloops that could handle the new conditions. These graceful craft began the evolution of clipper ships, the acme of sailing ship development.
Oysters are vital to Chesapeake Bay, in large part responsible for its teeming biodiversity and are the Bay’s filtering system. Oysters are what ecologists call a “keystone species”. Keystone species are defined, like the Cheshire Cat, by what’s left when they are gone. Pull a keystone species out of the environmental pyramid, and you get a resulting cascade of unforeseen changes and extinctions of species that, at first glance, have nothing to do with oysters drop in abundance and associated ecosystem function. Ecologists estimate that, at the turn of the 20th century, a volume water equivalent to that of the entire Chesapeake Bay was filtered through an oyster every three days. A single oyster runs 50 gallons of water a day through its gills, feeding on and removing algae and bacteria.
Oysters’ prodigious filtering capacity was the major influence on submerged vegetation. Oysters filter feed on one celled algae, keeping the water clear enough for sunlight to penetrate to the bottom, allowing aquatic grasses to thrive. The grasses formed nurseries for crabs and fish of all sorts.
In the 19th Century, sail switched to steam and gasoline engines and the plunder became serious. Maryland made feeble attempts at conservation, such as limiting dredging to sail only, but to little avail. It is an adage among fisheries management people that governments don’t enact management plans until the resource has already dwindled to critical levels. After being pounded for 400 years, the oysters have seemingly given up. Down to one percent of their former populations, they are no longer a major functional part of Chesapeake ecology.
Eastport once had nearly 20 oyster shucking houses and watermen tied up at nearby Annapolis City Dock to off load their bushels of bivalves. Skipjacks and smaller working craft were common in the harbor. The bartender where Fred and I sat was a part-time waterman who knew his way around an oyster. I watched as he deftly opened one oyster after another, his short razor-sharp knife pushing through the hinge at the back of the shell. He kept his non-knife hand, the one holding the shell, in a chain mail glove, looking like something out of Beowulf. A quick twist and the shell was open. Another twist and the morsel was free.
Fred and I slurped down a dozen each, washing them down with draft beer. When her companion left to go to the men’s room, the cute blonde slipped Fred her phone number with the pantomimed “call me.” Maybe there is something after all to the aphrodisiac story.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Renaissance Leiderhosen
My family has attended the Maryland Renaissance Festival since the kids were small. I never cease to be amazed at the diversity of costumes in evidence. Not the players, they pay close attention to detail of the Henry VIII cycle. Each week Henry moves on to a different wife and the actor playing him magically grows older and fatter. The ladies are in full finery with long velvet skirts and lace headpieces. What draws your attention is what passes for Renaissance garb among the paying customers. Everything from eleventh century chain mail and Viking helmets complete with horns (which is actually Bronze Age) to seventeenth century pirate garb with stuffed parrot on the shoulder. And that’s just the men. The women dress like something out of Xena, Warrior Princess, with lots of leather and tattoos. Cleavage is everywhere. Something about Renaissance Festivals that brings out the bad girl in who would otherwise be a demure young lady. This past Saturday was German day, with lots of beer and oom-pah music. Pirates and Vikings mingled with leiderhosen and fake British accents mixed with fake German ones, sometimes in the same sentence.
“Nice leiderhosen, dude, where’d you get them?”
“Ebay.”
“Ebay? No way, dude.”
“Way, dude.”
Two young ladies wandered close to the White Hart Tavern, where beer flowed and patrons sang. They were in beer hall freulien costume, with short skirts, shorter aprons and white stockings--like the girl on the St. Polygirl beer bottle come to life. They stopped a stone’s throw from the stage and began primping. Each in turn stretched a shapely leg and slowly pulled up a stocking. Everyone within a radius of fifty yards and possessed of an XY chromosome and pulse turned to watch. One girl feigned surprise at the attention and giggled. She wiggled her butt and sauntered off to catch up with her friend.
Her admiring throng included the pipe band about to take the stage. One young drummer stood mouth agape, eyes bulging, and commented: “I think I just forgot all the music”. A piper, beard showing grey and crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, laughed and said “Son, just think of it as pre-performance applause.” They took the stage and kicked into a bagpipe version of the Rock’n Roll classic “Angel in the Centerfold”. The drummer played fine, but I noticed he kept scanning the crowd.
“Nice leiderhosen, dude, where’d you get them?”
“Ebay.”
“Ebay? No way, dude.”
“Way, dude.”
Two young ladies wandered close to the White Hart Tavern, where beer flowed and patrons sang. They were in beer hall freulien costume, with short skirts, shorter aprons and white stockings--like the girl on the St. Polygirl beer bottle come to life. They stopped a stone’s throw from the stage and began primping. Each in turn stretched a shapely leg and slowly pulled up a stocking. Everyone within a radius of fifty yards and possessed of an XY chromosome and pulse turned to watch. One girl feigned surprise at the attention and giggled. She wiggled her butt and sauntered off to catch up with her friend.
Her admiring throng included the pipe band about to take the stage. One young drummer stood mouth agape, eyes bulging, and commented: “I think I just forgot all the music”. A piper, beard showing grey and crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, laughed and said “Son, just think of it as pre-performance applause.” They took the stage and kicked into a bagpipe version of the Rock’n Roll classic “Angel in the Centerfold”. The drummer played fine, but I noticed he kept scanning the crowd.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Some Like It Hot
The bank thermometer says 103°F. It is 1 PM and the “heat index” is pushing 105. Not that a couple of degrees makes any difference when the humidity on this mid-August day is closing on pure water. Neither mad dogs nor Englishmen are within eyeshot; just fifteen or so assorted lunatics sweating like sponges and waving nets about with gay abandon at what appears to be empty air.
“Dragonflies love the heat; it makes them pop” says Kevin Munroe, who is leading a field trip as part of the Dragonfly Identification Workshop, a course in the Northern Virginia Audubon Society’s Master Naturalist Program. Kevin is working on a book describing the dragonflies of Fairfax County, Virginia and he can tell you at a glance what dragonfly species is flying past.
Dragonfly spotting is a relatively young “sport” among naturalists. Birders, who had pretty much filled up the check boxes in their field guides (nobody ever gets them all), began looking for something to observe while waiting for the elusive what-ever to show up in their lenses. They hit upon butterflies. Butterflies are colorful, fly during the day (no pesky getting up before dawn), and exhibit enough variety to give most people a challenge. Add in the Skippers, a butterfly-like Lepidoptera group somewhere between butterflies and moths (and which all look alike), and a small cottage industry of field guides and web sites was hatched.
Birds, check. Butterflies, check. What else was out there to experience? Cue the dragonflies. North America boasts nearly 700 species; about the same number as bird species. Northern Virginia has 70 species, divided unevenly among 7 larger groups, a manageable number, with life histories and migration patterns to rival those of birds and butterflies.
“Wandering Glider” says Kevin, pointing at a dragonfly-shaped dot hovering fifteen feet above our heads. Straw yellow body, red eyes and clear wings; this is the albatross of dragonflies. Wandering Gliders and their closely-related cousins, Spot-wing Gliders, cross whole oceans, their broad hind wings locked in glide mode, steering with the front wings. Following fronts and weather systems, gliding thousands of feet up, the two species, known collectively as “rain pool gliders” place their eggs in ephemeral rain pools following a storm. The eggs hatch and mature in just a week or two, taking advantage of the temporary water which being temporary, lacks predators. The Wandering Glider is found on every continent but Antarctica and is the only native dragonfly to Hawaii. The Spot-wing Glider makes it to the Galapagos Islands and throughout the Pacific. Rain pool gliders cue on the ultraviolet reflection from standing water, the same reflection given off by a newly waxed car. Check out a parking lot on a hot summer afternoon; dragonflies will be laying eggs on the hoods of blue and white cars.
Dragonflies have an ancient lineage. Fossils from Permian coal beds going back a third of a billion years show insects very much like dragonflies, reaching up to two feet in wingspan. Modern dragonflies, while smaller, have a few additional features such as a bend in the leading edge of the front wing for better maneuverability. And maneuver they do. Dragonflies can hover, fly backwards, and turn on a dime, sending power to each set of wings and to each wing individually as needed. Antennae have been reduced to tiny hairs act as air speed indicators. Heads are mostly eye with several thousand facets in each one, allowing for exquisite sensitivity to movement. In fact, dragonflies are so attuned to movement; it is possible to capture a perching insect by hand. Just move slowly enough and it literally does not see you—you are not there. How slow is enough? If it takes off with your fingers still several inches away from the wing, it wasn’t slow enough. Dragonflies can see better than we can at the far end of the spectrum; something that looks black to us like the Slaty Skimmer, may in fact be screaming purple to a dragonfly.
“Dragon Hunter” says Kevin, reaching in his net to extract a green dragonfly which, if not two feet across, is still pretty impressive. Over three inches long, this beast looks like it includes a healthy dose of steroids in its diet. Dragon Hunters specialize in preying on other dragonflies. This is prey that can bite back and this particular Dragon Hunter looks like it’s been through some real tussles. Its wings are tattered and the claws are missing from one of it its long hind legs. Kevin shows it around and releases it. It rests for a moment on a branch, then takes off, wings clattering, abdomen curling down in a J, looking for all the world like a helicopter gunship all weapons pods signaling “loaded”.
Dragonflies spend the first part of their lives in water. Eggs hatch into tiny ogres who crawl the bottom and rocks, using a wicked looking retractable lower jaw to snag insects, worms, and even small fish. The speed of the strike is among the fastest movement recorded in the animal kingdom. Dragonfly nymphs (technically naiads since they are aquatic) are top predators, the Great White Sharks, of the pool. Naiads may spend up to five years growing and lurking until one fine day, they climb out the water up a stalk or branch, split down the middle, and step out like Athena emerging from the head of Zeus. This process may take several hours, but at the end, a dragonfly has emerged, wings crumpled and shining like an enamel pennant. The insect pumps blood into the wings to expand them. Once expanded, the blood is withdrawn back into the body, and the hollow veins act as struts and braces (tubes are stronger than solid members) just like on a canvas and wood World War I biplane.
Just as birders are bedeviled by "Confusing Fall Warblers" and the myriad of sparrows ("just list it as an LBJ--little brown job”), and butterfly aficionados are made crazy by skippers (Peck's, whirlabout, or common? They all look the same), so too are dragonfly spotters beset by a whole group of look-alikes; the damselflies. Of the three groups, two (the broad wings and spread wings) are relatively easy to identify and contain manageable numbers of species. The group that makes people tear their hair out is the pond damsels. All pond damsels are small, all are blue, and all were put on this planet to humble the most discriminating of taxonomists. They can tell each other apart, but the luckless spotter is reduced to standing ankle deep in stagnant water, field guide in hand trying to remember if the light blue abdomen on the long-gone bug had nine or ten (or was it ten and a half) dark blue rings (that gets it down to only ten species or so). Audubon did his birding with a shotgun; they ought to come up with something similar for damselflies. You may still not get an ID, but you will have managed to waste the little bugger which is almost as satisfying.
“Dragonflies love the heat; it makes them pop” says Kevin Munroe, who is leading a field trip as part of the Dragonfly Identification Workshop, a course in the Northern Virginia Audubon Society’s Master Naturalist Program. Kevin is working on a book describing the dragonflies of Fairfax County, Virginia and he can tell you at a glance what dragonfly species is flying past.
Dragonfly spotting is a relatively young “sport” among naturalists. Birders, who had pretty much filled up the check boxes in their field guides (nobody ever gets them all), began looking for something to observe while waiting for the elusive what-ever to show up in their lenses. They hit upon butterflies. Butterflies are colorful, fly during the day (no pesky getting up before dawn), and exhibit enough variety to give most people a challenge. Add in the Skippers, a butterfly-like Lepidoptera group somewhere between butterflies and moths (and which all look alike), and a small cottage industry of field guides and web sites was hatched.
Birds, check. Butterflies, check. What else was out there to experience? Cue the dragonflies. North America boasts nearly 700 species; about the same number as bird species. Northern Virginia has 70 species, divided unevenly among 7 larger groups, a manageable number, with life histories and migration patterns to rival those of birds and butterflies.
“Wandering Glider” says Kevin, pointing at a dragonfly-shaped dot hovering fifteen feet above our heads. Straw yellow body, red eyes and clear wings; this is the albatross of dragonflies. Wandering Gliders and their closely-related cousins, Spot-wing Gliders, cross whole oceans, their broad hind wings locked in glide mode, steering with the front wings. Following fronts and weather systems, gliding thousands of feet up, the two species, known collectively as “rain pool gliders” place their eggs in ephemeral rain pools following a storm. The eggs hatch and mature in just a week or two, taking advantage of the temporary water which being temporary, lacks predators. The Wandering Glider is found on every continent but Antarctica and is the only native dragonfly to Hawaii. The Spot-wing Glider makes it to the Galapagos Islands and throughout the Pacific. Rain pool gliders cue on the ultraviolet reflection from standing water, the same reflection given off by a newly waxed car. Check out a parking lot on a hot summer afternoon; dragonflies will be laying eggs on the hoods of blue and white cars.
Dragonflies have an ancient lineage. Fossils from Permian coal beds going back a third of a billion years show insects very much like dragonflies, reaching up to two feet in wingspan. Modern dragonflies, while smaller, have a few additional features such as a bend in the leading edge of the front wing for better maneuverability. And maneuver they do. Dragonflies can hover, fly backwards, and turn on a dime, sending power to each set of wings and to each wing individually as needed. Antennae have been reduced to tiny hairs act as air speed indicators. Heads are mostly eye with several thousand facets in each one, allowing for exquisite sensitivity to movement. In fact, dragonflies are so attuned to movement; it is possible to capture a perching insect by hand. Just move slowly enough and it literally does not see you—you are not there. How slow is enough? If it takes off with your fingers still several inches away from the wing, it wasn’t slow enough. Dragonflies can see better than we can at the far end of the spectrum; something that looks black to us like the Slaty Skimmer, may in fact be screaming purple to a dragonfly.
“Dragon Hunter” says Kevin, reaching in his net to extract a green dragonfly which, if not two feet across, is still pretty impressive. Over three inches long, this beast looks like it includes a healthy dose of steroids in its diet. Dragon Hunters specialize in preying on other dragonflies. This is prey that can bite back and this particular Dragon Hunter looks like it’s been through some real tussles. Its wings are tattered and the claws are missing from one of it its long hind legs. Kevin shows it around and releases it. It rests for a moment on a branch, then takes off, wings clattering, abdomen curling down in a J, looking for all the world like a helicopter gunship all weapons pods signaling “loaded”.
Dragonflies spend the first part of their lives in water. Eggs hatch into tiny ogres who crawl the bottom and rocks, using a wicked looking retractable lower jaw to snag insects, worms, and even small fish. The speed of the strike is among the fastest movement recorded in the animal kingdom. Dragonfly nymphs (technically naiads since they are aquatic) are top predators, the Great White Sharks, of the pool. Naiads may spend up to five years growing and lurking until one fine day, they climb out the water up a stalk or branch, split down the middle, and step out like Athena emerging from the head of Zeus. This process may take several hours, but at the end, a dragonfly has emerged, wings crumpled and shining like an enamel pennant. The insect pumps blood into the wings to expand them. Once expanded, the blood is withdrawn back into the body, and the hollow veins act as struts and braces (tubes are stronger than solid members) just like on a canvas and wood World War I biplane.
Just as birders are bedeviled by "Confusing Fall Warblers" and the myriad of sparrows ("just list it as an LBJ--little brown job”), and butterfly aficionados are made crazy by skippers (Peck's, whirlabout, or common? They all look the same), so too are dragonfly spotters beset by a whole group of look-alikes; the damselflies. Of the three groups, two (the broad wings and spread wings) are relatively easy to identify and contain manageable numbers of species. The group that makes people tear their hair out is the pond damsels. All pond damsels are small, all are blue, and all were put on this planet to humble the most discriminating of taxonomists. They can tell each other apart, but the luckless spotter is reduced to standing ankle deep in stagnant water, field guide in hand trying to remember if the light blue abdomen on the long-gone bug had nine or ten (or was it ten and a half) dark blue rings (that gets it down to only ten species or so). Audubon did his birding with a shotgun; they ought to come up with something similar for damselflies. You may still not get an ID, but you will have managed to waste the little bugger which is almost as satisfying.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Moving Daze
Well, the wind is blowin' harder now
Fifty knots or there abouts,
There's white caps on the ocean.
And I'm watching for water spouts
It's time to close the shutters
It's time to go inside.
--Jimmy Buffet; Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season
Ariel moved out last weekend to her own (shared) apartment in a not-too-dodgy section of Arlington. Of 52 Saturdays in the year, she picked the one with a hurricane in it. I’ve got to hand it to her, though, she carefully planned what was going, and how, and in whose car. The only hitch in the giddyup was Hanna. An uninvited guest, Tropical Storm Hanna was scheduled to come ashore somewhere in the Carolinas late Friday or early Saturday and move up the coast with wind gusts up to 50 mph and loads of rain, spreading terror, destruction, and damp in her wake. Thursday night. Ariel announced the schedule had been moved up a day.
Friday morning, I began loading my pickup with boxes. After two additional trips to the storage locker for furniture (bed and bed stead, dresser, couch, etc., etc.) left over from Grandma’s move 2 years ago, I was sore in places I’d forgotten I had. Ariel’s friends came by and took additional boxes, furniture, and her enormous shoe wheel; girl’s got more shoes than Imelda Marcos. Pat came home early and joined me at the storage locker to load "that frickin' mattress and box spring into the bed of the pickup. The box spring was not too heavy, but lacked handles and was like trying to wrestle a walrus, while the mattress had handles but was heavier than the average loaded supertanker. Plus they were 4 inches longer than the truck bed so they had to travel tilted against the bed edge. Tying them down was more of a psychological help than a real one. They caught enough wind on the road that I felt like I was tacking a small boat.
Hanna had begun as a Saharan dust storm, moved offshore and became a group of thunderheads off the Cape Verde Islands. Like so many Atlantic "tropical disturbances", the storms drew heat energy from the warm tropical waters, organized themselves into a loosely rotating mass (with help from the Coriolis Effect), and began drifting west. Somewhere east of the Leeward Islands, wind speed picked up to 40 and a Tropical Depression was hatched. Hanna sailed through Tropical Storm and kept growing to a respectable Category 1 strength with winds at 80 mph, and took aim for the east coast of the U.S. She kind of snuck up on everyone since most attention was diverted to the Gulf coast where Gustav was impacting. Once under the influence of a high pressure system, Hanna began tracking north.
Saturday dawned glowering and dark. Doom knocking at the door. One more load and on to the apartment to unpack and set up. Good friends from church showed up to help; Frank, an engineer, was put in charge of assembling a mismatched brass bed and a bathroom étagère (no tools needed… right, just a power drill, screwdriver, vice grips, and lots of muttered words). In my wisdom and my haste, I had forgotten the clamps to keep the bed from collapsing- stuck them in the truck without a second thought. Problem was, the truck was at home in Vienna, and I was with the Honda in Arlington. So, back to Vienna for the clamps and a dozen framed photos for the walls which were pretty empty (“Not everybody grows up in an art gallery, daddy.”) By this time the rain was pelting down sideways and traffic was throwing up rooster tails of spray wherever the storm drains were overflowing, which was pretty much everywhere.
Back to the apartment, where Frank figured out the clamps which looked like something Galileo had cobbled together on an off day. We assembled the bed and Ariel tested it by flopping down full length down the center. I cringed, but the contraption held together; good enough for jazz. The étagère (no tools required!) was up, needing only to be bolted into the drywall. The rain continued, and the area around the ground floor apartments, excavated and landscaped to allow in light, had turned into a moat with more water pouring down all the time. Ann was there, putting up curtain rods and threading the curtains, and Ariel’s friends were unpacking. The bed, assembled, pizza delivered for the masses, and curtains up, the place was looking lived-in and girly. Kathy from church arrived to help Ariel unpack the books, and unpack the books, and unpack the books…not everybody grows up in a library, daddy.
And Tropical Storm (formerly Hurricane) Hanna? She passed on through, leaving 10 inches of water in Vienna but not much wind. By Tuesday, she had recrossed the Atlantic and was flooding Northern Ireland. The RAF sent helicopters to evacuate isolated villages. Begorrah.
Fifty knots or there abouts,
There's white caps on the ocean.
And I'm watching for water spouts
It's time to close the shutters
It's time to go inside.
--Jimmy Buffet; Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season
Ariel moved out last weekend to her own (shared) apartment in a not-too-dodgy section of Arlington. Of 52 Saturdays in the year, she picked the one with a hurricane in it. I’ve got to hand it to her, though, she carefully planned what was going, and how, and in whose car. The only hitch in the giddyup was Hanna. An uninvited guest, Tropical Storm Hanna was scheduled to come ashore somewhere in the Carolinas late Friday or early Saturday and move up the coast with wind gusts up to 50 mph and loads of rain, spreading terror, destruction, and damp in her wake. Thursday night. Ariel announced the schedule had been moved up a day.
Friday morning, I began loading my pickup with boxes. After two additional trips to the storage locker for furniture (bed and bed stead, dresser, couch, etc., etc.) left over from Grandma’s move 2 years ago, I was sore in places I’d forgotten I had. Ariel’s friends came by and took additional boxes, furniture, and her enormous shoe wheel; girl’s got more shoes than Imelda Marcos. Pat came home early and joined me at the storage locker to load "that frickin' mattress and box spring into the bed of the pickup. The box spring was not too heavy, but lacked handles and was like trying to wrestle a walrus, while the mattress had handles but was heavier than the average loaded supertanker. Plus they were 4 inches longer than the truck bed so they had to travel tilted against the bed edge. Tying them down was more of a psychological help than a real one. They caught enough wind on the road that I felt like I was tacking a small boat.
Hanna had begun as a Saharan dust storm, moved offshore and became a group of thunderheads off the Cape Verde Islands. Like so many Atlantic "tropical disturbances", the storms drew heat energy from the warm tropical waters, organized themselves into a loosely rotating mass (with help from the Coriolis Effect), and began drifting west. Somewhere east of the Leeward Islands, wind speed picked up to 40 and a Tropical Depression was hatched. Hanna sailed through Tropical Storm and kept growing to a respectable Category 1 strength with winds at 80 mph, and took aim for the east coast of the U.S. She kind of snuck up on everyone since most attention was diverted to the Gulf coast where Gustav was impacting. Once under the influence of a high pressure system, Hanna began tracking north.
Saturday dawned glowering and dark. Doom knocking at the door. One more load and on to the apartment to unpack and set up. Good friends from church showed up to help; Frank, an engineer, was put in charge of assembling a mismatched brass bed and a bathroom étagère (no tools needed… right, just a power drill, screwdriver, vice grips, and lots of muttered words). In my wisdom and my haste, I had forgotten the clamps to keep the bed from collapsing- stuck them in the truck without a second thought. Problem was, the truck was at home in Vienna, and I was with the Honda in Arlington. So, back to Vienna for the clamps and a dozen framed photos for the walls which were pretty empty (“Not everybody grows up in an art gallery, daddy.”) By this time the rain was pelting down sideways and traffic was throwing up rooster tails of spray wherever the storm drains were overflowing, which was pretty much everywhere.
Back to the apartment, where Frank figured out the clamps which looked like something Galileo had cobbled together on an off day. We assembled the bed and Ariel tested it by flopping down full length down the center. I cringed, but the contraption held together; good enough for jazz. The étagère (no tools required!) was up, needing only to be bolted into the drywall. The rain continued, and the area around the ground floor apartments, excavated and landscaped to allow in light, had turned into a moat with more water pouring down all the time. Ann was there, putting up curtain rods and threading the curtains, and Ariel’s friends were unpacking. The bed, assembled, pizza delivered for the masses, and curtains up, the place was looking lived-in and girly. Kathy from church arrived to help Ariel unpack the books, and unpack the books, and unpack the books…not everybody grows up in a library, daddy.
And Tropical Storm (formerly Hurricane) Hanna? She passed on through, leaving 10 inches of water in Vienna but not much wind. By Tuesday, she had recrossed the Atlantic and was flooding Northern Ireland. The RAF sent helicopters to evacuate isolated villages. Begorrah.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)