Gems of Nature: Look Closely

The technician from Century Link was taking apart the old cable box in front of the cabin as he installed a new Internet connection. “Look at this,” he said, showing me an old paper wasp nest. A symmetrical whorl of delicate layers of paper, it’s a smaller version of the larger nests that I find under the eaves of the cabin. But attached on the bottom was an even smaller piece  (below, on the left) that resembled the spinning tops I played with as a child. I can only guess that the wasps were trying to create another nest inside this cable box but ran into space limitations, so it’s only half formed or a miniature nest, long abandoned. But the larger question for me is: how can an insect with such a small brain create something so perfectly shaped?

Everywhere I go in the natural landscape I find small bits of beauty that surprise and delight me. If I look hard enough, I’ll find something I’ve never seen before, that makes me appreciate this natural world and realize how much more complex it is than I ever imagined. Even an object as common and simple as a pine cone is something to admire: a perfectly symmetrical structure with layered and spaced scales from which the squirrels pry out the seeds for eating.

 

 

 

On one of my walks, I found a skull (left) that likely comes from a small mammal, perhaps a weasel. I love the simplicity and shape.  It’s also a reminder of life and death, a totem of something that once lived but is gone. In Georgia O’Keeffe’s home in New Mexico hangs a cattle skull with curved horns, a skull she painted many times. It was a thing of beauty to her, and I think of power also.

 

A tree is a good place to find nature’s handiwork. It’s always a treat to find bird nests— each one a different size and shape, a display of a bird’s inventiveness in using whatever it can find in its environment: weaving together grasses, loose string or downy seeds. I have one sitting on my mantel, where my resident mice occasionally appropriate some of the nest for their own.

I always stop for dead trees, especially if they’ve been stripped of their bark. The insects that once lived below the bark left behind their tracings (right)— circuitous routes up and down and around, deeper into the trunk than I could imagine a small insect making. I admire their steadfastness, although I’m not sure of the purpose of their travels. That’s another mystery of nature.  

 

 

 

 

Nature effortlessly provides abstract paintings. This aspen leaf (top) landed on a boulder with different shades and patterns of lichen, and then raindrops fell on the leaf. This accidental juxtaposition is a combination of the trajectory of the wind that dropped this leaf, fragile and short-lived, on this boulder, which has been sitting here for hundreds of years at least and plays host to the lichen, one of the oldest organisms in the world. Everything came together perfectly.

In summer I’m dazzled by the dragonflies (left) who swarm my kayak on Lily Lake. When I look closely, I can see the parts of their tiny bodies, the different shades of blue, and their gossamer wings that look so fragile. If they were in an art museum, we would be dazzled by just one. But there are hundreds on Lily Lake.

So much in nature is circular: ponds, aspen leaves, flower heads, the eddies in a river, sea shells, clouds, mushroom caps. Time goes in spirals and is not linear, writes Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass, when she talks about  the indigenous perspective. Like this tree trunk (below), where the tree’s patterns form almost a spiral. The older the tree, I’ve noticed, the more delineated are the lines in the bark.

I'll keep taking my circular route around Meeker Park, keeping my eyes open, waiting to be surprised and dazzled by what I find.

Comments

[Susan R]

It's your eye for detail that makes every hike unique. Sure, the tourists come for the spectacular landscapes, but there's so much more there to enjoy.

[Rosemary Carstens]

Lovely post, Kathy. When I was doing a lot of hiking/walking outdoors, I tried to always remind myself of something a naturalist taught me: look up, look down, look all around. It's the same beneath the seas where sometimes the most amazing things of all are tiny, exquisite creations of nature.

[Carol Christenson]

Shoney and I read this aloud on a rainy Saturday morning and were delighted by your great descriptions and beautiful photos. Thanks Kathy!