You may think the mourning dove is a sweet bird, gently-colored and cooing owl-like tragedies day and night. But this summer, I’ve learned the truth: mourning doves are berry marauders of incredible wiliness. This fellow managed to get into our blueberry patch even after we’d constructed a net monstrosity to keep him (and his very large extended family) out. We eventually had to stake the net all the way to the ground, securing it with ground staples every six inches or so. We can barely get in ourselves, for crying out loud! And yet this guy finds a way in most mornings. He calmly devours every nearly-ripe berry he can get his beak on, and then waits not-so-patiently for me to let him out. On Sunday, I made him wait until I got a good picture. Maybe that’ll teach him?
I hope there was a little wild in your Wednesday …
That there is a photo I recently took in my garden. The baskets are filled with turnips, under them sit the weeds I haven’t managed to clear yet and behind them the paste tomatoes desperately in need of staking. This garden is the number one reason I have not blogged much since May.
The number two reason? I’ve been working on finishing up this book.
The number three reason? I’ve been working on a new Scientists in the Field book.
I’d tell you more, but I’m working on a website update (it’ll coincide with the publication of these two books next year) and getting ready for our family vacation, too!
But sometime soon, when all these summer 2013 activities have been enjoyed to their fullest, I plan to share the details here. Until then, I hope you are having yourself a fabulously wild summer!
It’s raining eggshells in central Massachusetts. These lovelies were collected over the past two days in various parts of our yard. There’s so much to see when you slow down and look …
This butterfly spent an hour fluttering around my garden last week. It’s certainly a duskywing, but to tell exactly which kind (Juvenal’s? Horace’s?) I’d need to get a closer look at parts of the wing I didn’t study when I had the chance. Drats.
“Scientists know this for sure: dead people do not come back to life and start walking around, looking for trouble.
But are there … things … that can take over the bodies and brains of innocent creatures? Turn them into senseless slaves? Force them to create new zombies so the zombie makers can spread?
Absolutely.
And they’re closer than you think.”
Is there anything I could add to these introductory sentences from ZOMBIE MAKERS that would make you want to pick up this book more? I don’t think so. I read it alone in my office, in the wee hours, turning page after page and getting seriously creeped out (Do you know what a guinea worms is?), and yet unable to stop turning the pages. This book is disgusting and irresistible at the same time. Kids are going to eat it up.
And then they are going to want to know about this citizen science project involving zombie-making flies and honey bees. It’s called, appropriately enough, Zombee Watch. Check it out after you’ve read the book. And watch out for those … things.
Do you remember what a ghost net is? Here’s the definition from the book’s glossary: lost or discarded fishing nets that continue to drift at sea, threatening marine animals and coral reefs.
Do you also remember Tim Veenstra? He’s the Alaskan pilot who helped launch a debris tagging program so that he could keep an eye on the biggest ghost nets found in the ocean. Tim and his colleagues asked seafarers to carry GPS-equipped tags on board their vessels and to attach these tags to any large debris they came across but were unable to remove from the ocean. Tim would then track movement of the debris and, if necessary, dispatch a ship to pull it out of the sea.
Tim recently sent me the story of one GhostNet tag. 15FXZ (cute name, no?) was attached to a large piece of debris in the Pacific Ocean on April 2, 2008 and has been sending its location to Tim’s computer twice each day ever since. On March 22, 2013, however, 15FXZ abruptly stopped sending location updates. Tim’s not sure what happened to the tag, but it appears its journey is over. “The buoy (and debris if still attached) has been through numerous storms, sun soaked days and adventures we can only imagine,” Tim says. He sent the photo above showing the ocean path over which those five years of adventures took place.
If 15FXZ is heard from again, Tim will let us know. In the meantime, I can’t help but imagine those adventures …
I spotted this opossum about six weeks ago (3/21/13) in my backyard, where he spent several days living under our back porch and exploring the place. He snacked on birdseed every afternoon and I saw him check out the beehive once. While Mr. Burns was busy concocting plans for Operation Move Opossum (said plans involved staking out the under-porch den until the opossum left and then boarding up all the entrances), the target left of his own accord.
There are lots of reasons I admire the tree in the leftmost photo above, not the least of which is that it shades a lovely corner of our yard. When we moved here in December 2011 the tree had no leaves, so I wasn’t able to identify it. But as soon as it put out its abundance of green, oval, toothed leaves, I became intrigued. They were pretty distinctive. See the picture up there in the middle? Notice how the base of the leave meets up with the petiole, the little leaf stem, unevenly? According to my memory–and later to my favorite field guide to trees–this was the leaf of the American elm tree.
Did you know that most of the American elms that once lived in the United States are now dead? They were killed by Dutch elm disease, a fungal affliction spread by elm bark beetles. It says all this in my field guide, and yet here was an American elm-ish tree, standing taller than our two-story roofline, holding up an ample canopy and a hammock.
I told Mr. Burns my suspicions last summer and asked him to keep an eye out for elm fruits. Within days, he brought me the small fruit pictured with the leaf, which he’d found while sweeping the patio under the tree. (Mr. Burns is an incessant patio sweeper. And he has good eyes.) The fruit verified my identification: our tree was a healthy American elm.
I’ve asked around, and people who should know tell me the tree is a fluke. It has avoided the plague so far, but probably by chance alone. It will surely contract the disease and, eventually, die of it. Just like the millions of other American elms that once grew here in Massachusetts. Maybe so. But until that happens, I plan to swing under it and admire the heck out of its sturdy limbs. I plan to press its leaves into books and against my cheek and send prayers to the botanical gods. I plan to lie in its shade as often as possible and dream healthy survivor dreams. And on spring days like today, I plan to believe those dreams might come true. Because today, as you can see in the rightmost photo, it is raining American elm fruits at my house. Pouring, actually.
A few weeks ago, after blogging about my own Next Big Thing, I promised to share the Next Big Thing blog meme responses of a couple of my nonfiction writer pals who don’t keep blogs. Pamela Turner shared her Next Big Thing (a Scientists in the Field book about dolphins) here. And this week, the one-and-only Alexandra Siy shares hers: a new collaboration with scientist and microscopist Dennis Kunkel. Their subject? Spiders! Here’s a sneak peak …
1. What is the working title of your book?
The title is Spiderbook: Friends on the Web. Like most of my books, it started out with a different title, but I think this one will stick because the format of the books is loosely based on Facebook’s “friend” theme. After all, we should all be friends with spiders, and always “like” them.
2. Where did the idea come from for the book?
This will be my fourth book with Dennis Kunkel, Ph.D., an electron microscopist who images all kinds of tiny things! Our most recent collaboration was BUG SHOTS: The Good, the Bad, and the Bugly, which looked closely at insects. A book about spiders was the natural sequel.
3. What genre does your book come under?
Spiderbook is nonfiction for young readers ages 8 and up and illustrated with color micrographs, photos, and drawings.
4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
The main characters in Spiderbook are, of course, spiders! Certainly, the orb web weaver would be played by Julia Roberts, who was the voice of Charlotte from the movie “Charlotte’s Web.” Indeed, my original proposal for the book was based on a horror movie theme. My editor didn’t think children would get the references to all the old movies and then it wouldn’t seem fun (which was the point). But since you asked, here is a peak at what could have been: “Sacula” featuring the sac spider; “The Woflman” featuring the wolf spider; “Daddy Dearest,” you guessed it, the famous daddy long legs spider (not to be confused with Daddy Long Legs); “Claws,” starring the crab spider; and of course “The Black Widow Project.”
5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Spiderbook: Friends on the Web takes a close look (literally) at ten spiders from some of the common spider families, linking a narrative text and accompanying images to reveal some of the fascinating secrets that will make you love spiders, instead of running away in fear.
6. Who is publishing your book?
Holiday House in 2014
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I worked on the manuscript for several months, on and off, with an intense period of writing that lasted about three weeks. The three-week writing binge was the result of much prior research and study, outlining, and thinking.
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Nic Bishop’s Spiders was an inspiration, but very different in style and design. I quote from Charlotte’s Web in the text, and hope E.B. White would approve.
9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I’ve always been a bit “put-off” by spiders…not exactly afraid, but not a big fan. When I realized a book about spiders would be a good follow-up to my book about insects, I dove into the subject, and now I am truly amazed. I count more than 43,000 spider families as my “friends” and “like” them all. (If you could click “love” I would.) There will be a Facebook page called Spiderbook, and a website called spiderbook.info… here’s an interesting tidbit: the domain name spiderbook.com is for sale and I tried to buy it for $99, but the owner wants thousands, so dot info will have to do.
10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Dennis’s electron micrographs, as always, are amazing. Readers might be interested to know that some of the images Dennis made are from spiders that were collected by my friends—mostly children and young people. One such specimen, known to me as Devon’s spider, created a stir on the internet for a few minutes as spider experts from around the country attempted to identify it. There was some controversy, but in the end, we were able to assign it to a family and genus. Science at work in real time! Spiders really are our friends on the web.
That right there is my new vegetable garden. You can’t tell yet, but this corner is home to the spinach, the lettuce, the rhubarb (see the two lonely plants?) and the asparagus. It’s been cold and wettish here in New England this spring, which means the work is slow. Also, it means that I’ve been a muddy mess for weeks. But today I’m spiffing up and getting myself ready for something more civilized: a literary road trip.
First: school visits. I’m looking forward to stops in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and Wallkill, New York in the coming days. It’s fun to meet the parents and teachers and library specialists who help coordinate these visits, and I’m thrilled that my days of talking science with these particular students, long planned, are finally here.
I’ve got a couple public events to tell you about, too …
The very next weekend– Friday, May 3 and Saturday, May 4–I’ll be in New York City for the PEN World Voices Literary Festival. I’ll be reading as part of the A Literary Safari and speaking alongside authors Eliot Schrefer and Padma Venkatramen on a children’s literature panel called Braving our Endangered World. (Venue locations and ticket pricing can be found at the links.) This Festival promises to be magnificent: talented authors, incredible venues, endless creativity throughout the city, throughout the week; do check out the website for details.
After that? Back to the mud, I suspect.
ps. One of the best parts of a road trip? Audio books, of course. I’m bringing this one and this one.
