HAPPY EARTH DAY 2018!

Watercolor of Eastern redbud leaves

We celebrate our planet Earth today.  We see the connection of all the life forms in it.  Each of us can play a role in the health of our Earth.  Thinking about this led me to look at a an area of environmental science that I knew little about: phenology (not phrenology, the pseudo science of bumps on the head). 

Phenology measures the timing of cyclical biological events of all living things. It includes observing periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how they are influenced by seasonal change, climate variations, habitat, elevation, and weather itself.  The study includes tracking the timing of leafing out of plants, the emergence of flowers, the arrival of migrant birds, and the emergence of insects.  

We count on scientists to let us know about climate changes and dangers, and they have sophisticated tools like remote sensors on orbiting satellites like the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) that calculate amount of green vegetation and they have found that their satellite data match ground observations. Still those of us on the ground need to pay attention too. There have always been individuals who in their own small area collect important data about the health of their environment.  For example, Henry David Thoreau compiled his own data set of the leaf out of trees in Concord, Massachusetts in the mid-nineteenth century. I remember when we had a house in New Paltz how descendants of the Smiley family measured the waters in the Shawangunk ridge as well as noted leafing and other natural events in the Mohonk region over many decades and this work is continued by the Shawangunk Ridge Biodiversity Partnership.  

Each of us can take an interest in an area near where we live.  As part of Earth Day, it is a good project to go outside and notice the trees that are beginning to leaf out in your area.  In fact, a friend of mine has a young tree-loving son who is keeping a notebook with dates for when trees begin to leaf out in Forest Hills where he lives. In Riverside Park, the Callery pears, the redbuds, crabapples, and kwanzan cherry trees are beginning to bloom, and soon they will leaf out.  Birds are building nests and insects will emerge.  Spring will come.  

For most of us, leaves are the way we identify trees and know of their health.  For me, drawing leaves is cathartic, even meditative, but I don’t know very much about the secret underground lives of trees and it turns out that that may be where a lot of the action is taking place. Environmental scientists are finding out about roots and how root systems are really communication devices for trees to connect, feed each other, and even warn each other of dangers.  I recently heard Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees, talk about his remarkable findings about how trees communicate: 

“Tree roots extend a long way, more than twice the spread of the crown. So the root systems of neighboring trees inevitably intersect and grow into one another…usually there are fungi present that act as intermediaries to guarantee quick dissemination of news.  These fungi operate like fiber-optic internet cables…The fungal connections transmit signals from one tree to the next, helping the trees exchange news about insects, drought, and other dangers. Science has adopted a term first coined by the journal Nature for Dr. [Suzanne] Simard’s discovery of the `wood wide web’ pervading our forests” (10-11).

Wohlleben was originally a forester who was involved in chopping down forests and replanting them for industrial purposes. He questions what he used to do and has become a forest advocate and an above ground voice for the trees.  He tells us, “Trees live their lives in the really slow lane, even when they are in danger.  But this slow tempo doesn’t mean that a tree is not on top of what is happening in different parts of its structure” (4).  He does suggest that trees can mount their own defenses, but these days they may need some help from us.  Earth Day is a good day to think about that.  As Jane Goodall says, "Every single individual makes some impact on the planet every single day. And we have a choice as to what kind of difference we are going to make." 

The Thing with Feathers

Watercolor Drawing of feathers

“`Hope’ is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—

That perches in the soul—

And sings the tune without the words--

And never stops—at all—

“Feathers: Fashion & The Fight for Wildlife” on view at the New York Historical Society from April 6-July 15,  marks the centennial of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) of 1918.  The exhibit presents examples of the use of feathers and actual birds in decorative wear.  The widespread use of feathers for decoration led to the MBTA legislation which prohibits the hunting, killing, trading, and shipping of migratory birds, their feathers, and their eggs. Since its passing, the MBTA has been administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service whose power extends to the regulation of the commercial plume/feather trade, a thriving trade in the early 20^thcentury that by 1918 had already decimated the population and in some cases led to the extinction of many American bird species. The restrictions had a huge effect on New York City, which--as the US fashion capital-- was the center of the US feather trade producing hats as well as other clothing, decorative items, and ephemera constructed of feathers. The exhibit honors activists like George Bird Grinnell, the founder of the Audubon Society; Olive Thorne Miller, Lilli Lehmann, Florence Merriam Bailey, Mary S. Sage, and Mabel Osgood Wright who worked to ensure the passing of legislation protecting birds from slaughter and suggested that people respect the lives of birds and instead use ribbons and flowers to decorate their clothing and homes.  

The exhibit and the anniversary, as well as our present moment in history, urge us to think about conservation, about feathers themselves and to reflect on the birds whose bodies they cover.  We can think about the different types, shapes, colors and iridescence of bird feathers. The life of every bird in the world depends on its coat of feathers-- a tiny Ruby-Throated Hummingbird has about 1,000 feathers and a Mute Swan up to 25,000. Much of a bird’s life is spent maintaining and caring for its feathers. Feathers are truly one of nature’s miracles and every bird knows this: 

“Feathers can conceal or attract.  They can be vibrantly colored without using pigment.  They can store water or repel it.  They can snap, whistle, hum, vibrate, boom, and whine. They’re a near-perfect airfoil and the lightest, most efficient insulation ever discovered.” Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle by Thor Hanson

I took a course with Mary Christiansen at the NYBG in drawing feathers. She was careful in obtaining feathers from hunting websites where feathers and even wings of game birds are legally sold to help teach dogs how to hunt. These feathers helped me as an artist to learn the structure of a feather.  Just as with eggs, all feathers are not the same.  Some grow in tracks for the wings or the body shape.  Some are downy and keep the bird warm or cool. They serve different purposes for the bird. See the structure drawing to see the parts of the feather—all feathers from the largest to the tiniest, from the stiffest to the fluffiest have the same basic structure.

 

Drawing of feather structure

    

Drawing them is a challenge. It is important to capture the softness as well as maintain the structure of feathers in addition to the colors, textures, and shapes. Part of drawing birds as well as drawing feathers is to attempt to make them appear light yet solid, strong yet delicate.  Drawing feathers, eggs, and birds themselves for me and this blog is a way of reminding myself and any reader of how vital each of these small lives is.  And reading about these activists show us how important our role can be in making sure that their lives are protected and valued. 

 Yes, “hope” is the thing with feathers, but at this time in history, we may need to do more than hope to ensure that the 1918 MBTA and other conservation measures are supported and continue their important work.  

Oology! It's a very special day!

 Today is Easter Sunday, Passover, Palm Sunday for Orthodox Christians, and April Fool’s Day—a rare confluence of events.  It is also the day after a blue moon, which is a second full moon in a month such as occurred in March 2018—on March 1^st and 31^st.  Our next full moon is April 29.  Thinking about the roundness of the glowing moon draws me to the subject of this post—eggs or the study of eggs--oology.

Eggs, dyed colorful eggs, are a part of the tradition of Easter and many other religions at spring time.  Eggs symbolize life, fertility, spring, and the future.  They are a tiny piece of hope.  In the Christian religion, they are meant to symbolize Jesus emerging from the tomb and being resurrected—in a sense breaking through the seal of the shell and coming back to life.

Drawing eggs, like the 90 plus eggs I drew for The Field Guide to the Neighborhood Birds of New York City, was a lesson in close observation of something that we may think of as simple or not think of at all but which in fact contains a mystery.  People dye eggs for holidays, but wild birds do it by themselves. For despite what we think, wild bird eggs are not all white, not all ovoid, and not all the same size as you can see in my drawing.  Wild bird eggs range in color from the white or brown we know from the supermarket and the turquoise we know from robin’s eggs to a rainbow of greens, reds, oranges, blues, tans, beiges, and even black.  It is also interesting that eggs that look white to the human eye may have bolder colors under ultraviolet light, which helps birds identify their eggs.  Birds’ eyes are tetrachromatic—they have four photoreceptor cells so they see not only the colors we do but also in the ultraviolet range, which we do not.   Calcium carbonate produces the white color of the shells while biliverdin produces the blue and green colors and protoporphyrin produces the yellow, red, brown and orangey colors. The two pigments together can make purples and exotic greens. 

Eggs come in lots of shapes.  Oval-shaped eggs are the most common, but many owls lay completely round eggs.  Shorebirds lay pointed pear-shaped eggs perhaps preventing them from rolling away thereby keeping them in place in the nest.  Some of the colors along with squiggles, specks, splotches, and streaks may help to camouflage the eggs so that predators do not steal them.  Wild bird eggs are very attractive to squirrels, rats, reptiles, and snakes as well as to other birds and for good reason.  Eggs are rich in good nutrients as many of us already know. Bird eggs are amniotic, which means they have a hard shell with a porous membrane for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.  The yolk is the part with the fat and protein that nourishes the growing chick. The shell is rich in calcium and parent birds will often eat the empty shells from their own chicks to both replenish the calcium in their body and to protect the nest from predators who might spy the shells. 

Bird eggs range in size from the hummingbirds with the tiniest eggs to the ostriches with the largest eggs. There was a time when humans collected wild bird eggs for their beauty and value, but it is not legal to do so anymore, so we have to admire them in museums and books. In fact, we need to discourage the removal of eggs from nests no matter how beautiful they are.  Many formerly common bird species are at risk from predators, even our beloved cats, and from environmental change.  The best thing we can do for the birds we love is to look, wonder, and ooh and aah about the mysteries contained in the shell, the nest, and the birds that hatch.