Remembering some old friends...

(This was originally posted on StarParty on 22 January, 2013.  But as summer gives way to fall, and the old friends are coming around again, I thought it might be fun to add it here as well.  cdf)

I don't remember my exact words when Richard brought home his first telescope, about 20 years ago.  But I imagine my response was either, "What is that?" or "Where did you get that?"  It was, he told me as he placed the red tube on the table, a telescope, and he had picked it up in a trade with a buddy of his.  He was quite happy with the trade too -- he had exchanged an old car stereo for the telescope and a Dalmatian dog (the dog, it turns out, wasn't really part of the trade, but was just hitching a ride to what would become his new home).

I am pretty sure when he showed me that telescope, that Richard got "The Look."  Although I didn't know it at the time, Richard had always wanted a telescope.  And now he had one.  It was a Newtonian design, a cardboard tube with a built-in eyepiece and an aperture of about 4 and a half inches.  Maybe he took it out that night for a look at the moon.  Maybe he even took it out more than once.  I can't really recall, since I didn't see the attraction of it myself.  But if he did take it out, it wasn't more than a few times.  Richard was young, always busy with one thing or another, and the red telescope eventually ended up in "the junk room" with other unwanted and unused objects.

It was a few years later, when cleaning out that room that I came across that telescope again.  "We'll just see how well this thing works," I thought, and I took it outside.  Now bear in mind that I knew absolutely nothing about telescopes, so I can honestly say the poor little red tube never stood a chance.  What do you think you can see through a 4.5" cardboard Newtonian telescope in the daylight, holding it in your hands?  I can tell you what...NOTHING!  The instrument got only that one trial, and with its failure, I concluded that it was just a piece of junk.  Into the trash it went.

I forgot about the red telescope, but apparently Richard never did.  Last year, we were watching some TV show about space, and he said, "I used to have a telescope.  Whatever happened to it?  I've always wanted one, even when I was a kid."  And I had to try to defend myself and tell him how that red telescope wasn't any good anyway -- that I knew it wasn't because I had tested it out one day -- and finally confess that I had thrown it away years ago.  I could tell he was disappointed, but he never mentioned it again.  But it was Christmas, and with that, I had my chance for redemption.  I suggested that maybe he might like to get a telescope, and we decided that he would shop around to see what kind he might want to get.  A week or so later, he placed his order for an Orion XT10i.

It was a long one-week wait, and when the scope finally arrived, Richard wasted no time in laying out all the pieces and getting started on the assembly.  Compared to the little red tube, the slick and shiny Orion telescope was a monster!  It was like replacing your '78 Pinto with a shiny new Corvette!  We named the telescope "Newton" -- an original name, right?  (It's consistent with our naming the Oscar fish "Oscar.")  Richard couldn't wait to get it out for a test drive!  He took it outside, sighted in the finder on a road sign and then waited impatiently for nightfall.

As newbies, I will readily admit that we knew almost nothing about the night sky.  We did know a few of the constellations -- shapes and names that we had learned as kids -- but that was about it.  We didn't even know the names of any stars to use to align the Intelliscope controller.  So we started out just pointing the telescope toward something and trying to find that something in the finder. I think we looked at the moon a bit.  Richard hmad seen some pictures of M42 on a website and suggested we try to find it.  He pointed the telescope toward the constellation Orion and scanned the area with the finder.  He stopped moving the scope.  When he looked through the 25mm Plossl eyepiece, I heard him utter what has become a very familiar phrase.  "Wow..."

And he was right.  The sight was nothing short of breath-taking.  Over the first few weeks, Richard took Newton out many more nights, but every session included (and usually concluded) with another look at M42.  But slowly we learned the names of different stars (although I wouldn't put money on our pronunciation!) and we learned about other targets in the winter sky.  Galaxies M81 and M82 were found just over the treetop one night.  The great Andromeda Galaxy, M31, was already so low in the sky early in the evening that it was difficult to see, but we searched for it and found it. Galaxy M51 is not a good winter target, but we searched for it in the glare of the streetlight below the hill. When we finally found it, we were the victors!  The dim "car headlights in the fog" galaxy couldn't hide from us!

Winter gave way to spring, spring to summer, summer to fall and with each season, Richard and I learned new names, and saw new and wonderful things in the night sky.  Now winter is here again, and when I walk out into the cold dark night and look up at the stars shining so brightly overhead, I can't help but feel a special fondness for what I see there.  The stars and constellations have become like old friends, passing overhead, each in its own season.  Orion the hunter, Taurus the bull, the Pleiades (known to me in my childhood only as the seven sisters), the brilliant star Sirius, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper...I feel like I know them, and therefore they must know me.  Looking up into the night sky -- looking and understanding -- I think one can't help but be astounded by the immensity of it all, and appreciate just how profoundly unique, and incredibly special is our place in the universe.

Little red telescope, your legacy lives on.

A Temporary Refuge

The sun peeked through the trees at the edge of the thicket, melting the night's light frost everywhere it touched.  It found the cat sleeping in the thicket, and it's warmth caused her to stir.  She stood up and stretched, the long, lazy stretch of a cat who really didn't think waking up was that great of an idea.

But she had to get up.  Her situation was getting very desperate.  If she didn't find food - and find some very soon - she wasn't going to live to see many more late winter mornings.

She wasn't quite sure how she had gotten into this predicament.  After all, she was Himalayan, with a long creamy white coat, chocolate fur on her face, ears, and feet.  Her eyes were a piercing blue color.  She had been beautiful once upon a time, and she had been loved.

But then something happened that she didn't understand.  First her old woman had gone away, and now her old man no longer opened the door to let her in.  There were strangers who occasionally came to her house. She didn't know them, and she didn't trust them.  So she had taken refuge in the thicket.

But doing without the comforts provided by the old woman and the old man had taken a heavy toll on her. Her flea collar had long since stopped working, and her pretty pink collar, studded with rhinestone-shaped kitty footprints when new, was dirty and missing several jewels.  It chafed her neck where her long hair had gotten tangled around it.  Her once beautiful coat was matted and pulling loose from her skin in places.  Worst of all, she was starving.

She had roamed the thicket for a while now.  She had wandered as far as the paved road, sometimes sitting on the shoulder watching the comings and goings of the people who lived in her neighborhood.

She had passed by one house where she knew she might find some food.  She had considered going to that house, but there were risks in showing herself there.  The house had other cats, but it also had three large dogs.  Several times she made her way from the thicket across the field to the edge of the yard.  She sat and watched the routine of the house, and watched where the dogs were likely to be, and listened for the woman at the house to put out food for the cats.

But it was clear to her now that going to that house was her best, and perhaps only option.  She had to eat.  She left the shelter of the thicket, and made her way through the field to the edge of the yard where she hid in the tall grass, waiting for the woman to put out food for her cats.

It was late that evening when the woman finally came out.  Her desperation overcame her fear, and she dashed across the yard and launched herself right into the middle of the food bowls.  She was frantic as she grabbed the food.  "What's this?" the woman exclaimed.  "What are you doing here?"  But the woman didn't scold her, and didn't try to chase her away.  Instead, the woman put another small scoop of food out for her, then stood back to watch.  "You're starving to death, aren't you," the woman said with a troubled frown.

She finished the food, but tonight she didn't go back to the thicket.  She found a safe hiding place on the woman's carport and settled down for the night.

Over the next few days, the woman put out food for her, away from the other cats and safe from the dogs.  The woman talked to her, and tried to pet her, but she was careful not to let the woman get too close.  After all, she didn't know her, and she didn't trust her.

The weather was becoming more unsettled as winter gave way to spring, and  one afternoon heavy clouds moved in.  Certainly it was going to rain.  She had endured the rain many times, and her hiding spot on the carport would surely keep her dry.  But the woman came to the door and called, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty...." The door was open.  The house was warmer, and it was dry.  She slipped through the doorway into the woman's house.

Thankfully, the woman didn't try to pet her again.  Instead, the woman rattled a small dish of food and led her into another room.  The woman knew what cats needed.  There was a water bowl, and a clean litter box, and a large couch with a soft crocheted afghan over it.  The woman sat down the bowl of food.  She heard the woman say "I'll call you Sassy," as she left the room.

Was Sassy her name?  It really didn't matter.  The woman took care of her, even if she was rather annoying. The woman took off the used-up flea collar (it was good to be rid of it).  But then the woman stole the pink collar too.  The woman didn't like the matted up hair, and would often interrupt a nice nap with the snip, snip, snip of scissors cutting the mats loose.  When she had endured all of this that she could stand, she would hiss at the woman.  Usually it worked.  The woman would leave for a little while and let her sleep.

The days passed.  One week went by, then another.  It was a cold night, and she had gotten to know the woman.  She had begun to trust her.  As the woman settled down in bed, she lightly jumped up onto the woman's shoulder and lay there, watching as the woman fell asleep.

It was a Saturday morning, one of the warmest days of the young spring.  She wasn't starving anymore, and she felt more like her old self than she had in a long, long time.  She went to the door and called to the woman.  "Do you want to go out?" the woman asked her.  Such a question...not worthy of an answer.  But the woman seemed to understand, and opened the door.  She stepped outside and heard the woman close the door behind her.

She made her way through the field, and late that evening, when the woman began to worry and to wonder where she had gone, she got up from her nap, stretched the long, lazy stretch of a cat who really didn't think waking up was that great of an idea.  She wasn't concerned that the woman was watching from the kitchen window of the house.  As twilight set in, she carefully groomed the beautiful chocolate fur around her face.  Then with a final stretch, she walked to the edge of the field and disappeared into the thicket.  She did not look back.




Update  9/28/2013 - The woman finally saw the cat she called Sassy again in July.  The cat looked healthy enough, and she showed herself several more times during the last days of the summer.  But on September 28, the woman saw Sassy for the last time.  The cat's body lay in the grass on the side of the road.  The woman did not know what had happened...perhaps the cat had been hit by a car, or perhaps the large dogs in the neighborhood had finally caught her.  The woman gave Sassy a final refuge, burying her under the old oak tree.

An Unfortunate Case of Mistaken Identity

It was almost noon, and I was breaking up some ramen noodles  for lunch when the first text message came in.

"Dad wants to know what kind of snake this is," the message said.  "Hang on...I'm sending you a picture."

An email message popped up in my inbox with a link to the picture.  I opened it and there was a  gray sinister-looking snake, coiled up against the side of the house, head flattened out.   I looked closely at the picture and felt a little knot in my stomach.  It looked like a water moccasin, or cottonmouth as they're also called.

Ramen forgotten, I turned back to the computer and opened The Google.  "Cottonmouth snake," I typed in.  As the search results loaded, another text message came in.  This one was much more urgent:  "It was lunging at us and chasing us! And now it's on the porch and we can't find it!"

Of the cottonmouth, the Google said:

Agkistrodon piscivorus is a venomous snake, a species of pit viper, found in the southeastern United States. Adults are large and capable of delivering a painful and potentially fatal bite. When antagonized, they will stand their ground by coiling their bodies and displaying their fangs. Although their aggression has been exaggerated, on rare occasions territorial males will approach intruders in an aggressive manner.

Why on earth would a water moccasin be at our house?  The nearest body of water was the stock pond, about 1/8 of a mile or so down the hill.  But the why wasn't really important at the moment.  What mattered was finding the snake before it got under the house!  I grabbed my keys, left a message for my boss, and headed out the door.

All the way home, I was filled with dread, thinking about all the different ways the snake could get into the house (if you read my previous posts, you might remember that it's a very old house, with lots of cracks and gaps where critters can find their way in).  I thought about all the hiding places - the flower beds, the garden, the woodpile....  How would we ever feel safe again if we didn't find it?

But as I pulled in the driveway, the family motioned for me to stop.  They had it cornered up against the house, and didn't want to risk me scaring it off.  RAF was standing guard with the garden hoe, and we talked for a while, trying to get a better look, and trying to decide what to do.

Eventually we decided the best course of action was to shoot the snake, so we borrowed a 12-gauge shotgun and RAF killed it with one shot.

I put the snake into a bucket and took it to my mom's and dad's house.  My mom looked into the bucket at the snake and asked, "Did it smell bad?"  No, but it was sure aggressive I told her.

The next day I sent the picture to Dr. Knight, who teaches Biology at the local university.  It could be a cottonmouth, he said, but it looked more like a blotched water snake.  "But you still have to be careful around them," he added.  "They are very 'bitey.'"  How could I know for sure?  Look at the snake's eyes, he advised.  A cottonmouth has vertical pupils, like a cat, with deep pits and a very strong triangular shaped head.  The water snake's eyes would be round.

When I got home, I took a stick and carefully lifted the snake out of the bucket.  The pupils that stared out of his lifeless eyes were perfectly round.

"I didn't think it was a water moccasin," my mom told me later, "but I figured you two knew more about it than I did."  As it turned out, we didn't know anything about cottonmouth snakes after all.

Poor little blotched water snake.  Our fear and our ineptitude at snake identification brought a tragic end to his foray into our yard.  His coloration and behavior may have evolved they way they did because mimicking a cottonmouth gave him an advantage against his natural predators.  But, as Dr. Knight pointed out, the coloration that offers protection against natural predators becomes a risky way to dress when you bump into a frightened human.

A Splash of Color on a Dreary Day

It's late March, and while the morning started out with broken clouds and moderate temperatures, by mid-day the sky had gotten darker, the temperature colder, and it wasn't long before a heavy drizzling rain began to fall.  A stiff breeze blew from the east, and all in all, it was just what I would call "thoroughly miserable" outside.

Don't misunderstand me...I am absolutely thankful for the rain.  After last summer's drought, I will forever feel blessed to have days like today.  But it's the kind of day that makes you just want to curl up under a warm blanket with a good book, or snuggle down and take a nice nap.  I had taken the day off work, since school is out for spring break, but I couldn't really find anything that I wanted to do, so I spent most of the day doing nothing at all.  Every now and then I wandered into the kitchen and leaned on the counter, peering out at the gray skies and the rain.

I like looking out in our back yard, because, for whatever reason, it always seems to attract a variety of birds.  Among the birds I've seen in our yard are cardinals, blue jays, blue birds, nuthatches, titmice, crows, finches, sparrows, starlings, mockingbirds, chickadees, quail, mourning doves, thrushes, meadowlarks, and juncos.  I was amazed by the number of birds (and the red squirrel) that were out and about, even on a day like today!

But today, we had a special guest, sporting an interesting and unusual cap, splashed with red.  Our guest was a Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus).

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Pileated Woodpecker is one of the biggest, and most striking forest birds in North America.  I am just guessing, but I would say that this one was anywhere from 10" to 12" from the top of the red crest to the tip of the tail.  It was busy ripping bark off the stump of a dead pecan when I first saw it;  some of the bark pieces were tossed as far as 10' out into the yard!  As I watched, the bird worked its way down the row of trees, moving first to the mulberry tree, then on to this old red bud.  It worked its way around the trunk, tearing off bark, moving up and down the gnarled old tree before finally moving on to the next tree in the row.

Those old trees that seemed so attractive to the woodpecker may very well be one reason that the birds like our yard so much.  Most of the trees are at least 50 years old, and based on its diameter and a growth rate of about 1/8" per year, we estimate that the big oak in the front yard sprouted at around the time of the revolutionary war.

But I have plans to remove some of the older trees in our yard this spring, because they've become such a threat to the house.  One of the trees destined for removal is an old catalpa, which I've been told was planted in 1880 when the house was built.  Most of the tree has died, and I'm pretty sure the central portion of the tree is hollow.  I hope that the tree hasn't become the new home for this beautiful bird!  (Or for the red squirrel for that matter!)  What a tragedy that would be!  Now that I've seen this bird in the yard, I'll have to keep an eye out for it.  If it has moved into the catalpa, the tree man may have to come back another day.

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Update:  3/22/2013 4:50 p.m. The Pileated Woodpecker was back this afternoon, and really did a number on the base of the old pecan stump!

There were three other woodpeckers out in the yard this afternoon...one downy woodpecker, and two Northern Flickers (Yellow shaft subspecies).  Flickers are very attractive birds, dressed in their humble brown feathers, decorated with black spots, a large black bib, and a splash of red across the nape of the neck.

In researching the identification for these birds yesterday, I came across the great site by The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and decided to submit my bird sightings to eBird.org, a joint effort by the lab and Audubon.  I have officially submitted two checklists now, one for yesterday's sighting of the woodpecker, and a list with 9 species observed this afternoon.  Pretty cool, if I do say so myself!