They Can Stay Like This for Three Hours

Maybe because I don't watch TV or hang around children I'm slow to pick up on the latest vulgarisms, but "bumpin' the uglies" was the phrase that came to mind when I happened upon this scene between Three-Toed Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina triunguis) at Babler State Park, but in fact they're creating new life and that's of course a beautiful thing, and the male's immobile expression let me know it was a quite serious and intensely personal matter and I should take my photo and move along. Spring is the time for creating and laying new turtle eggs, preferably in a hole the female digs in deep leaf litter; the warm weather helps incubate them.

Because they are territorial, with one turtle per territory, they can find each other only if their territories overlap.

Doin' the Wild Thing

Returned from a hike and in my absence two huge mosquitoes had hooked up and were doing the wild thing on my kitchen screen door. I spent half a hour getting a good photo and they are still there. The least I could do was continue my Divine tradition of bringing you photographs that no one else will.

It's been very rainy and just got warm enough to turn off the furnace, so I think this photo might be a hint of things to come. All Eastern Missouri is one big puddle of standing water. I got the last bottle of lavender-scented soap that was on the shelf at Wal-Mart. (Lavender is a mosquito repellent.)

Song of the Cicadas

The band you will shortly hear is called "The 13-Year Cicadas" and these cicadas singing their #1 hit will rock your world, make yo' liver quiver and yo' knees freeze! The video, taken on the Timberstone trail, lasts 35 seconds. Be there or be square. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k-dRyQJCBw

The 13-Year Cicadas Emerge

After 13 years underground, cicadas (genus "Magicicada"; top that!) emerge all brown and ugly, climb a leaf, molt off the brown shell and become, for a few weeks, glamorous winged reproducing adults. Their famous earth-rattling, nighttime choral song is the males' mating song. It happens to be the 13th year here in rugged rural Missouri. (Northern states have 17-year cicadas). But I didn't know that. I was cutting some purple irises for my table and saw bugs all over the iris leaves and said, "What's this, inch-long bugs hanging in pairs on my iris leaves? Eww!"

Once I saw them, I saw them everywhere! All doing the same. And I plucked up a brown one and saw it was just a translucent shell, still clinging to the leaf, but empty. And near every shell was a live cicada entirely new to the world, quietly drying off like a butterfly, and waiting a few days for its exoskeleton to harden. Then off to the party, which will last just a few weeks, until July. I ran for the camera to show you. Once in every 13 years!

Woodpecker Apartments

Tried the Flint Quarry Trail hoping to see a flint quarry. But instead I saw Pileated Woodpecker luxury highrise apartments. Woodpeckers pair up, and you'll notice they all have the same address, but each pecks out his or her own place, giving each other space. This must be what keeps them cheerfully whooping and yammering, biggest and noisiest birds in the forest, always raising more kids just like themselves, and my favorite birds of all time.

Nobody was home.

Friend of mine once said the best name for a human apartment building would be "The Balzac Apartments." I never laughed so hard.

Black and White

Black and white rule the country right now -- especially because sunshine here has been rare -- so the pink nose and elegant toes of this young lady caught my eye as she feasted on fallen birdseed and cracked corn. (Thought it would attract turkeys! Not yet!) Unusual to see an opossum in daylight. But free food, early in the evening, changes everything. Beautiful fur! She's a marsupial, and I wonder if she's looking for a boyfriend right now.

Doin' the Wild Thing

Such goin's-on, on the garage wall, in broad daylight -- these ASSASSIN BUGS (thank you for the comments that helped me make a positive ID). I liked their attitude. They didn't care who saw them or knew, nor what anyone thought; they weren't scared of me and the camera, just intent on their very important task. Reminds me of [censored]. I hope it was fun for them and wished them well and to be fruitful and multiply. Specifically these are "sailback" or "dinosaur" bugs; Arilus cristatus in Latin. I show 'em in silhouette so as to be discreet.