wordsfromanneli

Thoughts, ideas, photos, and stories.


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P is for Pileated Woodpeckers, Pam and Patrick

“Ooh!” says Pam. “I see that handsome Patrick. See his red cheek slash? So manly!”

“Oh, Patrick! Do you like my little red Christmas hat?”

“Meh – it’s not bad, I guess,” says Patrick. “Wanna come down here and get some bugs out of this stump?”

“Actually, I think I see some at the end of this raised bed,” says Pam.

“Hmm. I guess that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. I’m not very good at this dating stuff.”

“Hmpf! Pam is playing hard-to-get. I’ll show her…as soon as I get that pesky bug off my shoulder…. Maybe she thinks I have dandruff.”

P is for Pam and Patrick the pileated woodpeckers. I’m sure they’ll find each other eventually.

 


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O is for Octopus

Octo is for the eight arms of Oscar the Octopus. That’s a lot of knitting for Christmas mittens.

Did you know that the giant Pacific octopus ( Enteroctopus dofleini) usually weighs up to 33  lbs. and has a tentacle (arm) spread of about 14 feet?

But the heaviest and largest scientifically recorded octopus of this species weighed 157 lbs. Claims have been made of even larger octopuses, but these have not been documented.

The smallest octopus (Octopus wolfi) is a tiny little fellow weighing only one gram. (It would take 454 of them to make a pound.) It is only about an inch long.

Most octopuses have a mild venom in them, but are not out to hurt people. However, the four types of blue-ringed octopuses (Hapalochlaena) can inflict a deadly bite, injecting a toxin called tetrodotoxin which can paralyze muscle and prevent breathing. If the victim of a bite from a blue-ringed octopus can get to a hospital immediately, and be kept breathing artificially, he may be able to recover within about 24 hours. Many of these blue-ringed octopuses are found near Australia.

There is so much more to know about octopuses – their relatively short lifespan, their method of defense by squirting ink. They are fascinating creatures (and so tasty to eat – sorry, Oscar).

Now to lighten your mood, here is a poem by Ogden Nash about:

The Octopus

Tell me, O Octopus, I begs,

Is those things arms, or is they legs?

I marvel at thee, Octopus,

If I were thou, I’d call me Us.

 

by Ogden Nash

O is for Oscar the Octopus

 


					
		
	



					



	

				

			
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N is for Nuthatch

	


	

					
“It sure is a lot of work to pick a hole in a tree and make it big enough for a nest, but I’ve made a good start,” says Nancy Nuthatch.




“Hmm…I wonder if I should go deeper. Can’t make the entrance too big though, or those nasty squirrels will come visiting.”




“Ah, there’s a solution. Nora Nuthatch is making a nest on the lower level. We can take turns keeping an eye out for predators and shriek to call out an alarm if the squirrels come looking for trouble.”




N is for nuthatch, but really we are Nancy and Nora, the Nuthatch Ninjas.


 


Do you see Nora working on the lower level of the tree?


 


 

					
		
	



					



	

				

			
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M is for Mice

	


	

					
Where is your mother, little mice?




You’d better get back into your nest.




Mama Mouse was found in an old apple box that, once she had jumped into it, was too high for her to jump out of.




Mama Mouse was exhausted from all the jumping efforts, and lay still after her rescue, soaking up the warmth until she recovered from her ordeal.




In a few moments, she perked up, and remembering her children, rushed to save them.




M is for Mighty Maisie the mama mouse and her three blind mice.


 


I know that some people are afraid of mice, but how do you think they feel about us?


Here is one of my favourite poems by Rose Fyleman:


Mice


I think mice

Are rather nice.

Their tails are long,

Their faces small.

They haven’t any chins at all.

Their ears are pink,

Their teeth are white.

They run about

The house at night.

They nibble things

They shouldn’t touch

And no one seems

To like them much.

But I think mice

Are nice.


 

					
		
	



					



	

				

			
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L is for Ling and Lunch

	


	

					
I used this photo in a post early this summer, about catching two fish in place of one, but it also works for a picture of a ling having lunch.


The Captain wasn’t wanting to catch a ling. It was salmon he was after. But here is how it happened, many, many years ago.


A salmon is jerking the fishing line. The Captain checks his lines  and  pulls up what he expects to be a coho. But it is not only a coho he has hooked.  A ling has been attracted to the wriggling coho and has swallowed him for his lunch. Unfortunately for the ling, the same hook that the coho bit has caught the ling somewhere down his throat and both fish were hauled aboard the fishboat together. The coho was not easily retrieved, and the ling could not be freed of it because of the ling’s teeth. He has sharklike teeth around his jaw, and another three sets of pharyngeal teeth farther back in his mouth (555 of them)! Not a place anyone would want to reach in with his hand while the ling was still thrashing about.


 




L is for the ling’s lost lunch.

					
		
	



					



	

				

			
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K is for Kalamata

	


	

					
The Greek city of Kalamata could quite rightfully be called Calamity that day.


When the bus gets a flat tire in the main intersection of town, everyone needs to find an alternate method of transportation. Even the bus driver is gone, leaving his tools on the ground as he most likely is looking for help. That would be quite a heavy tire to change, assuming he had a spare to put on there.




The coffee store roasts the coffee  right there in the front of the store, but I don’t think they serve coffee. They just sell the beans. Next to the yellow Pepsi crate, is the container of coffee beans that looks like the top part of an old-fashioned washtub. That tub full of beans is heated from underneath to roast the beans while some mechanical arms constantly turn and stir them so they don’t burn. The smell is delicious.




I wonder if the bus driver will get a cup of coffee nearby while he waits for help with his flat tire.


K is for Kalamity. Oops! No, I mean Kalamata where the olives for your Greek salad are grown.

					
		
	



					



	

				

			
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J is for Jellyfish Lookalikes

	


	

					
These sea salps are tiny jelly-like creatures (but they are not jellyfish) that glom together to make a bigger mass. They are a nuisance to commercial salmon fishermen when the fishing lines pass through areas where the sea salps are floating.


Some years, warmer southern currents come farther north and the salps float along with the currents into colder waters where they are not usually common.


When they coat the gear, the fish can’t find the lures (and the hooks), so the salps have to be cleaned off the gear constantly or no salmon will be caught.




They are harmless otherwise. Unlike some jellyfish they don’t have any sting when they are touched.




J is for “just a jellyfish lookalike.”

					
		
	



					



	

				

			
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I is for Ice

	


	

					
Ice on the fennel plants looks pretty, but the songbirds that pick at the fennel seeds are dismayed when they see this. Their food source that would otherwise bring some heat to their little bodies is  covered in ice.




The deer, too, can suffer when this happens out in the woods. The small twigs on the shrubs of deciduous trees get a coating of ice, and it is very hard on the deer who rely on the twigs to browse on in the winter. Imagine thinking you’ll get a meal of twigs and you get a mouthful of ice instead.




Only sunshine or a warm current of air and maybe some rain can bring the seeds back to an edible condition.


Here is another version of ice in nature – a frozen creek surface.




While it is a pretty design, it reminds me of how easily animals can get into trouble walking on thin ice. If you have a dog who likes to be by the water, be especially careful not to let him/her go onto the thin ice of ponds or creeks that look safe but can be deadly.


Please keep an eye on your pets near thin ice.


I is for ice – sometimes pretty, but not always nice.

					
		
	



					



	

				

			
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H is for Horses, Home on the Range

	


	

					
Not a bad life for a horse while the weather is warm enough. These horses in Montana, even in October, find that it’s still great to have wide open spaces in the sunshine, for  romping around on top of a field full of food.




But when the owner calls them to come home, it’s a treat to get a decent meal and a safe place to sleep for the night.


 




I listened in on the horses’ conversation:


Ready for another day on the range. Our owner said, “No horsing around now,” but we’ll do what we like. What would you do?


Whenever a vehicle stops by our gate, we line up and look as smart as we can. You never know when someone will point and say, “I’d like to have a better look at that one.”




While we wait for someone to buy us, we stand at the fence looking pretty — like girls in a beauty contest.


But shh!  No one needs to know that we’re full of beans. They’ll find out soon enough after they buy us.

					
		
	



					



	

				

			
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G is for Goose

	


	

					
This photo is from February, a few years ago, when we had a sudden snowfall. These Canada geese were probably wintering here, rather than flying farther south, but I’m sure they didn’t expect it to snow.  Even the five or six snow geese in the foreground were probably not expecting snow. I think their name comes solely from their colour, not from any love of snow.




Most of the geese have their head in the snow, trying to work their way down to the roots of the crop that was harvested a few months earlier. They may find some nourishment there, and possibly the odd worm might be lurking just under the ground.


The geese must be finding enough to eat there to make it worthwhile, or they would all be on the other side of the road (from where I took the picture) where there is an estuary that is a bit more sheltered and the water is shallow, providing nibbles of seafood just barely covered by water.


I’m guessing that another reason they’re not in that estuary just at this photo time could be that the tide was out and the mudflats are exposed. When there is a bit more water, the geese can swim  and be safer from predators, and they can dabble in the muck for their hors d’oeuvres.


In the field, they can’t swim and be out of reach, but the field is flat and provides plenty of oversight.  You will always see one or two geese acting as sentries while the rest have their head down, feeding.  Somehow, they manage to take turns at watch duty.


 




See the little bit of black near the tail feathers of the snow geese above.  Those feathers are actually their black wingtips that make the geese so easily identifiable when they fly overhead. White feathers reflecting the sunshine, and black wingtips adding special decoration.




G is for goose, but not Christmas goose for dinner.  Not here, anyway.