American Woodcock (Scolopax minor)

Let’s say they were American Woodcocks, so charmingly known as Timberdoodles, although they may have been Ruffed Grouse. The American Woodcock attracts comment and is also called a night partridge, big-eye, bogsucker, and mudbat. I caught a glimpse—almost too generous a word given the brief time I saw them—of three that fed on the forest floor as they rapidly fluttered to camouflage themselves in the duff and shrubs that edged the trail. The Woodcock is a shorebird in the sandpiper family that forages in young forests and shrubby places, digging for worms with its long, slender beak, which ends in a flexible tip. As soon as I saw this passage about their hunting behavior, I knew I had to quote it, “A woodcock may rock its body back and forth without moving its head as it slowly walks around, stepping heavily with its front foot. This action may make worms move around in the soil, increasing their detectablity.” At first I read this as delectability, which I find a little more amusing, but I’m still left thinking that they are clever as well as pretty darn cute.

Porcini (Boletus edulis)

Three friends, two dogs, and I went mushroom hunting in the mountains of northern Colorado. We were a merry group, our good cheer heightened by the pounds and pounds of porcini we found in the conifer forests. They seem to like to grow along trails. I asked my friend Donna why they grow where they grow, and she said, because they are “gregarious.” If that explanation doesn’t satisfy, then it should be known that this mushroom grows in late summer and early autumn, in sunny yet forested areas, commonly on north-facing slopes, during years of good rainfall. They often appear along with the Amanita muscaria, a mushroom that looks as though—with its white-dotted, brilliant red cap—it should star in a fairy tale or, even better, a Technicolor Disney movie, something Bambi would see in the forest during the idyllic portion of his life. But, with toxic qualities, its really more like something a evil witch would give children wondering through the forest, or the hallucinogenic mushroom Alice nibbled on. Don’t eat it. Porcini, on the other hand, are a “choice edible,” meaning they taste delicious. When I got home, I spent hours cutting them up before leaving them out in the sun to dry. Taking care of them was some work, as I had to bring them in at night, so they wouldn’t get dewy, set them out every morning, and then package them in half gallon size jars that I’ve temporarily stolen from the dairyman from whom we get our raw milk. Now these delicacies from a boon year will enrich winter dishes like soups and risottos and act as reminders of summertime, and of my friends Alison and Jerry, who are moving to Seattle next month.

Common Loon (Gavia immer)

I was totally thrilled to see a Common Loon while walking around Jordan Pond in Maine’s Acadia National Park. I would have cavalierly passed by if not for a family who pointed it out to my husband and I. The family had been photographing the loon for three hours, trying to capture an elusive image. The above image is one of Jordan Pond. Although I didn’t hear its eerie call, I was excited enough just to see it in summer plumage, with its dramatic white and black checked back, sailing upright and magnificent. I’ve always wanted to see a Common Loon, and had no idea I would see it on a “pond” (what we in Colorado would call a lake) in Maine. Common Loons are made for diving in pursuit of fish. Adaptations such as setback legs and—unusual among birds—heavy, solid bones, allow them to do things like flip-flop underwater and make them excellent at what they do. But these same traits make flight, or at least take off, challenging. Loons can get landlocked if they don’t find the thirty yards or up to a quarter of a mile they need to build up speed. Unfortunately, patches of dark, wet pavement and small ponds can act as traps, deceiving the birds into believing they’ve found sufficiently large bodies of water. The Common Loon is no sluggard when aloft, though, and has been clocked migrating at up to 70 m.p.h. The loon made me think a lot about the mechanics of flying on our flight home—how much propulsion a plane has to have to lift all of that weight into the air and especially about landing—how the plane has to slow, yet maintain a certain speed so it won’t fall out of the air. (For a technical description of the four elements of flight, see this site.) My favorite fact about the loon, though, is that two adults and their two offspring can eat up to half-ton of fish in fifteen weeks.

Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora)

The enigmatic poet Emily Dickinson described the Indian Pipe as the “preferred flower of life,” but it’s commonly known as the corpse or ghost plant. I’m not good at conundrums and wonder what she meant. Reputed to be Dickinson’s favorite flower, I’ve seen references to at least three of her poems that mention the Indian Pipe. Native Americans used Indian Pipe, later called eyebright, to treat eye inflammation. Colonists knew the flower as convulsion root, because they used it to treat convulsions. Nowadays, medicinal plant experts warn that it may be toxic. The plant exists widely, except for in the southwest, the intermountain west, and the central Rockies. I was lucky enough to see it while hiking in a dense, “humusy” Maine forest. The Indian Pipe is a saprophyte, an organism that feeds on dead or decaying matter. More accurately, the plants are parasites that feed on fungi that in turn feed on trees. These wildflowers don’t need leaves to produce chlorophyll, so the plants do not have any green, and the leaves are merely scales or bracts. The plants turn black with age or when damaged—these were new and pristine, white with a pinkish tinge, waxy, with drooping heads.