"I'm never at a loss for things to study or topics to write about: everything in the natural world is fair game," writes Thor Hanson in his wonderful book Feathers. "If I'm not intrigued and excited every time I step outside, it just means I'm not paying attention."
Case in point: I was outside of my studio early this morning inspecting two night-blooming cerecus plants looking for any sign they might be attempting to bloom this summer when I noticed something even smaller than a cactus flower bud. So small it almost defies description, as small as a garden pea but since I did not have one single pea, I used a Roosevelt dime.
I know the species. Lustful male Cope's gray tree frogs (recently reclassified as Dryophytes chrysoscelis) have been calling every night especially since we have had several days of passing rain. But where this little one was conceived, hatched from its egg and swam as a tadpole until it went through metamorphosis is a mystery to me. I have no ponds but probably oodles of temporary pools.
Life on planet Earth is indeed preciously ephemeral.
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| And then it hopped away. |
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