Small Wonders

(Note: this post includes our weekly Friday Photos.)

Dear husband brought this letter to my attention yesterday morning. It was tucked at the bottom of the Boston Globe's opinion page:

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Reverie takes wing as butterfly flits ...

"When I turned 15, an adult friend of mine sent me a card that read, "Do you remember when a butterfly was more beautiful than a girl?"

Standing at the Yawkey stop on the T recently, I thought of that message. A Red Sox game had just ended and there were scores of people waiting to catch the train. A monarch butterfly flew around a growth of milkweed, and I watched it in fascination. Although there were many parents with their kids, no one seemed interested. The sight of this small wonder delighted me, but the apathy of the crowd had the opposite effect.

Observing - and appreciating - such a remarkable creature should be a tonic moment, as much so as the excitement of a baseball game."

Ethan Shimony, Wellesley

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You're preaching to the choir here, Ethan, but very well said!

I like to share (appropriate) snippets from the daily news with the boys. This one inspired our ongoing conversation about how to slow down and take joy in the world around us. We talked about whether it would have been a good idea for Ethan to point out the butterfly to the crowd around him, because maybe those folks weren't disinterested, but just coudn't "see" the butterfly. Sometimes you just have to get the ball rolling; the more you stop to notice things, the more things you notice! Train your senses to be on constant alert, and no matter where you are, nature will make itself known to you ...

So a quick little rabbit trail about "urban wildlife" was in order ~ and we have a great field guide to get us started (see below).

From the introduction:

"Many people, when they think of urban wildlife, imagine squirrels and pigeons or perhaps even foxes and peregrine falcons. It is true that compared with the great diversity of species on Earth, there are relatively few species of urban wildlife. But we have more nonhuman neighbors than we might suppose ... Like most neighbors, these living things become less foreign and more interesting once we come to know and understand them better."

Here are a few other resources that explore this concept:

• Urban Wildlife (Pocket Naturalist Guide) - just the size for a backpack
• Urban Roosts: Where Birds Nest in the City
• Fledgling
• Cricket in Times Square
• Perry's Baltimore Adventure: A Bird's Eye-View of the City
• Fifty Birds of Town and City
• Magic School Bus in the City - we'll rent the video from the library

A fun field trip would be to visit a nearby city for the sole purpose of searching out signs of nature between the sidewalks and buildings. We don't get to town too often, but maybe we'll send Daddy to work with the camera one day next week! (He's agreed - stay tuned!)

In the meantime, we took the camera along with us to Crackerjack's doctor's appointment yesterday morning. While not technically "downtown," the office is in a decidedly non-suburban area ~ there's a shopping center, lots of buildings and pavement, and a highway nearby.

On our way into the office building, I asked the boys if they thought we'd find much nature in the area. That seemed iffy, because at first glance, the landscaping seemed pretty formal and it all seemed so busy with cars coming and going. Most people were rushing in and out of the building ~ and most times that would be us too, but on our way out today, we took 10 extra minutes to look around for small wonders of nature, and here's what we found: (pictures by Mama; narrations a combined effort):

These are tiny green acorns way up in a tree. We knew it was an oak tree and that possibly squirrels might live here as acorns are a good food source for them.

There were a lot of birds flying around, but the only one we could get a picture of was this poor goldfinch we found on the ground. We feel very badly about this bird - our own goldfinches are beautiful and cheerful little songbirds.

Crackerjack adds: "Now if there was a dead goldfinch, then what kind of bird do you think would be around here? I think it was just maybe a turkey vulture!"

This field behind the parking lot attracted a lot of buzzing, flying insects. The bugs probably feed lots of hungry birds!

Crackerjack says: "There was a biiiig field in front of our car. I would think a mouse could live in there."

Bookworm adds: "By the look of it maybe even a few snakes could live in there. And Crackerjack's suggestion would just support the snake idea."

Crackerjack noticed this small patch of red leaves:"The whole tree was green except one circle of orange leaves. At first I thought it was some kind of flower, then I thought it was a kite and then I realized it was leaves! It's a sign of autumn!"

Bookworm adds: "That means that part of the tree is dead and can no longer supply enough food to those leaves."

These are mushrooms that we found growing all over the grass - squirrels and many kind of bugs would eat them.

There was a small grove of pine (or possibly spruce) trees there as well. Lots of pretty little cones - they look nothing like ours so we will look them up in our tree books. More squirrel food!

At the end of our "experiment" we were delighted to discover what seemed like a secret world of nature right out in the open! But we wondered if we were the only ones "in" on the secret?

Of course a woman and two little boys walking all over a busy parking lot taking pictures got a lot of second glances. Our hope is that maybe those folks were wondering what we were looking at and might just have stopped and looked for themselves! :)

What small wonders will you notice today?