Kathleen Kudlinski

Hi, all -
There hasn't been much activity on this site lately, though I've been writing up a wild storm elsewhere.
All of November, I'm taking the write-a-novel-in-a-month challenge.(go to NaNoWriMo.com)
It is taking all of my effort to reach the breathtaking goal of 50,000 words (or more) by November 30.
Last month I was furiously writing on another children's novel to get it done before NaNoWriMo took over my life. (I didn't, quite.)
Come December, I'll be back delighting in nature with you daily.
Take care-
And let me know what you are seeing outdoors while I'm chained here to my keyboard.
Kathleen

Hi!
It is my birthday.
If I were a dog, I'd be dead by now. (That, from a thoughtful birthday card from my daughter.)

I've outlived most small creatures by a half century or more (though it horrifies me to type it out!)Most living species have at least one upper limit on the number of times cells can divide. For humans, this is called the Hayflick limit, although number of cell divisions does not strictly control lifespan. Non-dividing cells and dividing cells lived 122 years in the oldest known human.

Thank goodness I am not expecting to live THAT long!

Nor am I going to have to get gnarly like an old plant.

A giant sequoia, General Sherman is alive and well in its third millennium. A Great Basin Bristlecone Pine called Methuselah is 4,841 years old and the Bristlecone Pine called Prometheus was at least 4,844 years when cut down in '64. The oldest known plant (possibly oldest living thing) is a creosote bush in the Mojave Desert called King Clone at about 11,700 years.

One species of jellyfish, Turritopsis nutricula, reverts to a sexually immature stage after reproducing, rather than dying as in other jellyfish. So this species is biologically immortal.

Not me!
I'm just happy to have one more birthday. Next year we can see if I will renew this life contract for another year.

Our sweet little love birds (2, unrelated) turned out to be a male and a female. They, of course, produced a nesting and 2 related young - whom I gave away. But the original pair went right back to work. Now here are five. I could deal with that.

But someone (and I don't know whom)has laid six egs.

We surely don't need eleven lovebirds! And then what...? 2 - 5 - 11 - 23 - 47??? That doesn't begin to count in all the young who will come online as egg layers along the way.

Populations are like that but their growth can be stopped. If they run out of water the birds will all die. But I give them all the water and food they need. Space? My husband and I are alkready talking about getting a new, bigger cage. We already clean the cage daily, so they will not foul this nest, nor would they poison themselves in a larger space.

There seems to be no limiting factor to their population growth. With no limits, a group reproduces slowly at first, but then exponentially. Sooner or sooner, we will have to do something to avoid overpopulation.

But what?

This is the crisis that dare not say its name for fear of inciting angry responses. It needs a calm assesment. Overpopulation is true. It is global. And it affects all life on earth.

October will mark man's population on earth reachng 7 Billion. I'll be blogging abut what this means for nature from now until we reach that mark.

MAN SWARM AND THE KILLING OF WILDLIFE, Dave Foreman's new book stands out from most writing on overpopulation by focusing on the devastating impact our population explosion is having on plants and animals. Overpopulation is bad for humans, he writes, "but it is much worse news for other Earthlings . . . who are taking a far worse beating than we are for our devil-may-care childishness and greed. Long ago we overshot Earth's carrying capacity for keeping wild things hale and hearty."

It is fall. All of our nesting birds and their young are gone. Their birdhouses have stood empty and silent - until today.

One of our bluebird houses started squalking loudly. The muffled sounds of fluttering wings and scratching claws seemed to signal wild conflict trapped inside.

As we crept closer to investigate, first one, then another downy woodpecker shot out of the doorway and streaked into the nearest tree.

What were they doing fighting inside a bird box at this season? I do not know - and that's embarassing. I am "The Naturalist" at The Sunday New Haven Register. I should know, but only have guesses. The birds could be following insects into the used bird house and squabbling over an easy meal. They might have been scoping out the box for shelter in the coming winter storms. They could also be this year's young, just trying out the concept of selecting - and agreeing upon - a nesting site.

The observation was accurate and priceless. I'll need to do some research online and among friends (that's you!) for confirmation - or correction - of my woodpecker behavioral guesses.

Anybody out there can help?

"Where have the birds all gone?" I complained to my husband. "You filled the feeders. Did you buy really cheap food, all ground corn, or what?

"Look around," my endlessly patient husband said. So I did. The milkweed pods are bursting with seeds. Berries and fruits hang heavy on every plant. Seed heads droop from grasses, Queen Anne's Lace, mulliens, and hundreds of other plants are out there offering "my" birds a better mix of food than Hank could ever buy at a pet food store.

The birds will flock back to our feeders when they've cleaned out the all-natural buffet table.

Last weekend's full moon was exceptionally bright, as befits the "Harvest Moon." This is the moon that let farmers of long ago keep working in their fields beyond sunset, bringing in the last of the harvest. We're talking about farmers of long-ago, wielding scythes, or driving donkey carts, or out in moccasins using stone knives to cut the last squashes. They lived without electric lights, in a day and night world. We have altered the natural cycle by stretching day as long as we want it to be. With all the lights on in my house, the TV, a computer, and more, I couldn't see the moon light.

I went to bed last and turned every one of our lights off, then stood by our big windows. Moonlight bathed the yard, almost brightly enough to see colors. Ghostly moon shadows of tree twigs snaked across the bluish lawn. A moon river rippled across the pond. Moon beams spilled across me, too, as they did the faces of those farmers of yore.

Artifcial light illuminates some things, but hides the glory of night. Tonight, I'll turn off our lights far earlier to enjoy a very old fashioned night.


I'm away from internet connections this weekend. Be back Monday with more nature notes.

Guess what blew in on the tail end of Hurricane Irene and the floods Tropical Storm Lee - a plague of mosquitoes! Not what anyone wanted, unless that "anyone" included all the bats, damselflies, dragonflies, small fish, endless spiders, and many others. While it annoys me to be feasted on by mosquitoes, I am vastly outnumbered by those who enjoy feasting on mosquitoes. A Plague to some, a Boon to others.

If you haven't used Tender's "After Bite" I suggest you get a tube or two to ab on mosquito bites to end the itch and stop the swelling.

Hurricane Irene tore many trees from the ground, but it left far more standing. This week those survivors are showing the damage the storm did to them. Every standing tree's leaves look gray. They were all wind-whipped and battered. Many were shredded, flying through the air on wild gales of wind. Leaves on the trees near the coast got a coating of salt water, too. Excess salt outside a cell draws water out through the cell wall and membrane. That means the leaf wilts in place. All this damage means there is no holpe for a beautiful fall of red and yellow foliage this month and next.

But the trees will survive. They'll soon lose their traumatized leaves. They've already begun putting out next spring's buds. This has been a good growing season in Connecticut, flush with sunlight and water. Trees were vigorously healthy up until last week. They have plenty of life in them left to start making millions of perfect new leaves again in only seven months. Spring is coming in all its beauty!

Leslie Bulion, author of the hilarious HEY, STINK BUG and AT THE SEA FLOOR CAFE, ODD OCEAN CRITTER POEMS manages to combine kid-friendly humor, ground-breaking scientific fact, and classic poetic forms in every book of poetry she writes. She is a wonder, and I had the perfect gift for her birthday: a pair of big tropical scorpions mounted in a dance-like position. They've been in my writing office for a decade, reminding me to share my love of naure's unlovables. Leslie laughed at the gift, reminding me that Italians long ago created a dance, the Tarantella" for victims of tarantula bites. Luckily there are no real tarantulas in our New England, but there are plenty of unlovables to keep both of us writing for decades to come!