Jeepers Peepers...

The common name is Spring Peeper, the diminutive frog with a big voice. Scientifically it is known as a hyla, and the one best known in our area is Pseudacris crucifer (= Hyla crucifer), the hyla with a cross on its back. The cross is a darker marking roughly in the shape of an "X" on the hyla's skin. It is a small cross because the hyla, or peeper, is no bigger than a man's thumbnail. But when the peepers begin to call you would think they were big as bullfrogs, at least.

Spring peepers, like all their amphibian tribe, hibernate. During the fall they work their way down in the mud in the marshes where they lived all summer, and their bodily processes slow down and thus they they spend the winter, comatose. When the vernal equinox arrives, when the warmth of spring begins to penetrate the bog, the peepers awaken, dig their way up into daylight, climb onto a alder bush or a cattail stem, and begin to call. It may be late March or early April. The temperature, not the date, provides the clue.

The calls of the peepers are perhaps the oldest sounds of spring. Their kind seem to have had the first vocal cords, and they use them in loud voice to proclaim the coming of spring, an ancient echo out of the very springtime of life itself. Perhaps that is why their shrill voices are so pleasant to our ears. They are elemental life at the eternal springtime, celebrating life and proclaiming the fecundity of this fruitful earth.

--The Spring Peeper provided the inspiration for Otschodela Council's Cub Scout Day Camp patch in 1979. Cub Scouts, as far as we know, do not hibernate in the winter.

Walking in the Paths of Righteousness with Dinosaurs

(Article in progress)

Dinosaur tracks are truly remarkable and can be found almost all over the world. In fact, they have been found in over one thousand locations. Tracks provide rich sources of information to paleontologists on dinosaur behavior, movement, foot anatomy, and geographic distributions. Many excellent dinosaur track and trace exhibits are now available to the public through parks and museums. Standing near the footprints of these amazing prehistoric beasts can be a thrilling experience!

The rocks exposed in Lesotho are almost entirely of Triassic and Jurassic age, belonging to the Karoo Supergroup. The Karoo sediments were largely deposited in subcontinental marine environments, or as alluvial outwash plains (think Mississippi River Delta), These sedimentary rocks sometimes expose the tracks of dinosaurs that trod the primeval shores, and are becoming popular tourist attractions for Lesotho trekkers during the summer.

Lesothosaurus is a member of the herbivorous clade of dinosaurs, the Ornithischia. It was named by paleontologist Peter M. Galton in 1978, the name meaning "lizard from Lesotho". The genus is monotypic, meaning there is only one valid species, Lesothosaurus diagnosticus, within the genus.

Lesothosaurus was originally considered an ornithopod. However, more recent work by paleontologist Paul Sereno has suggested that it may actually represent one of the most primitive of all known ornithischian dinosaurs. Lesothosaurus was a small (one meter in length), bipedal plant-eater. Skeletal remains suggest that it was a fast runner. The small skull was short and flat, with large eye sockets. The hind limbs of Lesothosaurus were much longer than the fore limbs, which were quite short with small 'hands'.

Sumac Fire

Some say that sumac's color signals the autumnal equinox, though they cannot readily explain why an occassional branch or even a whole clump suddenly turns color in late August. In any case, by late September (the autumnal equinox this year occurred on Sept. 23, 2006, 12:03 A.M. EDT), most of the sumacs along the roadsides of our woodlands and in the corners of the pastures begin to look like Sioux war bonnets, ready to lead a parade right into Indian summer. They are full of the most brillient reds one can see until the maples take over.

Sumac is native to almost every area of the world except the polar regions, and the name comes almost unchanged from the the Arabic down through the Old French. Here in the northeast region of the U.S., the wild species of Rhus are outcasts in most places, but in earlier times people found many uses for them, in tanning, in the dyeing of cloth, in cabinet work, as condiments or a refreshing citruslike drink, as a varnish base, even as an oil for candles. Birds everywhere feed on the generous seed heads of the common Staghorn Sumac, Rhus typhina, which remain on the branches until spring when the new velvety "antlers" push them off. There is a poisonous species, Toxicodendron vernix, whose leaves are as dangerous to the unwary as those of poison ivy; but it is rare in my area. Its leaves too are compound, but they are short and rounded, not long and feathery.

Sumac, like a favorite Catskill uncle of mine, is stubborn and persistent. Give it an inch at the edge of a field or along a back road and the whole tribe will move in. But it does have its own beauty, particularly when authum turns the equinoctial corner. Crimson is its basic color, but it can also achieve a fine, clean yellow, a rich orange and, at times, a splendid purple. One wonders why the legend-makers did not credit it for lighting the autumnal flame in the forest, the torch setting off the whole blaze of color. Legend or not, sumac, full of cool autumn fire, meets the equinox sun, ready to set the whole woodland aflame.

Winter's Majesty

There is an awesome majesty in the first heavy snowfall of winter. It is a reminder that the celestial machinery is in good working order and that the cycle of the year will complete itself as it always has done and will again and again.

The first snowfall may be “announced by all the trumpets of the sky” as Emerson observed, but at its best it should come silently, almost tentatively, in the brittle crispness of a windless night. Then in the morning the first snow gleams and dazzles the eye in the slanting morning sunlight; ice-blue shadows chased away by bright radience over the white landscape.

We think of winter as the waning of one year and the promise of the next—no more whir of midsummer insect buzz or the riot of roadside color as the goldenrod and asters rush to bloom. In winter, the streams sound muted, their currents slowed by the frost in the ground and ice fringing silent pools. Woodchucks hibernate; gray squirrels go chatterless about their treetop rounds on gray days. December’s sounds are quiet sounds, the dull pelt of winter rain on the window, the swish of driven snow, the crack of expanding ice on the pond and the groan of ledges riven by the wedge of frost. This is the time of year when the great primal forces of ice and cold drive one indoors to the cheerful warmth of the fire and to quiet reflection. Basking in the glow of a crackling blaze one can grow enthusiastic with Emerson over the “tumultuous privacy of storm” and with him take comfort, even find some security in the knowledge that no troubles last forever, nor does the weather, good or bad. It is fitting and proper that we should welcome the New Year with anticipation made rich and full by all the previous year has given us.

The ultimate substance of faith in the future reaches out beyond the winter of despair to the spring of hope. Something deep within us responds to the change of seasons. Whatever our religion or spiritual belief we are part and partial of these elements of life that endure: sunrises and sunsets, full moons on starry nights, winter storms and spring delights. Migratory birds will come and go as before, flowers will bloom and seeds ripen, leaves will blaze into autumn again. The pageantry of the cycle of the seasons is a show not to be missed.

Moth Notes or Designs from Nature for a Patch

The moth, and all insects, for that matter, has no lungs as man possesses, but breathe through tubes called tracheae. These tracheae penetrate into the moth’s body, branching much like our bronchioles do. Air enters the tracheae by openings called spiracles found on each side of the moth’s abdomen, a pair to each segment. When the moth grows large, the tracheae cannot grow in ratio to the increasing size of the body of the insect. It is this breathing system of insects that keeps them so small, hence there has never been a moth more than a dozen inches long…there could never be a moth of truly great size.

Still, some moths manage to overcome their tracheal handicap by unfurling wings like huge parasails in a solar wind, pumping a watery, yellowish hydraulic fluid through the membranous wings as they emerge from the cocoon. Since the wings do not need to be supplied with oxygen, they dry into papery appendages adorned with muted scales, in the case of the Luna Moth, of lunar green and mauve, creamy white or russet gold.

--Henderson Scout Reservation, Oneonta, NY, featured the Luna Moth on it's camp patch in 1996.