Galls and Nests

I have noticed in myself a tendency to become fascinated by things that I wasn't exposed to as a child. Squirrels are a great example; they are commonplace, but none live on the island on which I was raised. I've lived in a squirrel-infested city for over a decade, but I still get excited to see them playing, fighting, and stealing food right off people's plates.

Oak trees are another such thing. An oak blight hit the islands before I was born, and though some stands of oaks are making a comeback in the area, I wasn't raised with this type of tree. The variety of oaks in California is astonishing, and I love to see their various adaptations to arid, coastal, or mountain environments.

One thing I am particularly hooked on is oak galls. Galls are an abnormal outgrowth of tissue caused by a parasite, and in the case of oak trees that parasite is a gall wasp. Galls can form on leaves or branches; leaf galls are mostly harmless, but those on branches and twigs can harm the limb by rerouting resources from it to the gall. There are over 1,300 known species of gall wasp, and about 70% of them use oak trees as a part of their reproductive cycle. The female gall wasp lays an egg on the tree and, due to an unknown trigger (chemical, viral?), a gall forms around the eggs. When the egg hatches, the larvae feeds on the accumulated tissue of the gall. The gall also provides a sturdy shelter for the larvae.*

The thing that is incredible to me is that one can identify the species of wasp causing the gall by the physical appearance of the gall itself. Some of them are really, really beautiful, too.

I've been thinking a lot lately, as I try to articulate some of the opinions I have about design and aesthetics, about designs that echo nature -- not necessarily mimic, but reference in a more vague and even unintentional way. And while I was out walking yesterday, looking at oak galls forming along the trails around the lake, I realized that nothing reminds me more of an oak gall quite so much as NestRest shelter/swings (pictures here are from this site).

True, they are called NestRest and obviously mimic a bird's nest, especially the nests of orioles or weaver birds, and I won't deny that's probably what they're based on -- those nests are also really remarkable. But in concept, NestRest reminds me strongly of galls: an attachment to the limb with a hard shell and soft interior in which one can often find something squishy and alive. Maybe it's a person, maybe a cat, or if you leave your NestRest out all winter, maybe another forest critter. It is an organism glomming on to a tree limb; nest or gall, I think both apply... but one has a much better marketing potential.

This might sound a bit insulting to NestRest, but I assure you, it isn't. In fact, I though the big swings looked rather silly until I came to this perspective on them. Now I find myself really interested in hanging out in one. Maybe I'm more of a bug than a bird?

Have you ever been inside a NestRest or similar swing? Will you tell me about it? 

*Though, true to nature, another type of insect has developed a very long, sturdy proboscis and ovipositor that can penetrate the shell of a gall to prey on the larvae. Evolution: can't survive with it, can't survive without it.

Updates from the Field

Spring is rolling along in Sacramento. Thanks to my daily walks on the trails around Lake Natoma, I've noticed some of the more minute changes that have happened since the official first day.

Wildflowers over the bank

Lupin, monarda, and other wildflowers are out. The series of blooming is always of interest to me; Dutchman's Pipe is long gone. It disappeared in a matter of a week or so, while tiny white forget-me-not type flowers have persisted since before the Dutchman's Pipe and are still going strong. On Monday I saw my first California poppy of the season. I'm still awaiting the blooming of the water iris. I see them standing like spears all along the lake shore. I'm very eager...





Patiently awaiting water iris.

Tiger Swallowtails are here. Spotted Imperials still account for most of the butterflies I see, but in the past week I have seen two of these beauties. They are larger and less frenetic than the Spotted Imperials. I wonder what the right mix of temperature and blooming is that has lured them out?

Duck and goose mating season appears to be solidified. There are no longer raucous territorial battles every day, no geese chasing each other across the surface of the water. I now see pairs of waterfowl bobbing together in the rushes at the water's edge, so I assume they are nesting. I don't want to get closer to find out.

Things are pollenating. My sinuses are quite sure of this.

And last but certainly not least...

Turtle time!

It's turtle time! Turtles are out basking on logs in the sun. I just adore them. I didn't grow up with certain critters, so things like turtles and squirrels delight me. They're oh-so-exotic, you know. Most of the turtles I have seen are the native western pond turtle, which is good! I can't resist creeping up on basking turtles, but they have very good Spidey senses, so they always plop into the water long before I get a good look. My creeping, however, has revealed that it is also frog season. There are big green ones lurking just under the surface of the water in weedy areas. I need to keep an eye out for them, too...

***

How has spring sprung in your area?

This is Science

My current office is in a building beside a lake. A system of trails, paved and unpaved, leads around the lake on both sides. Every day at lunch time, I eat for about 15 minutes* and then set off from our parking lot, on to those trails, for the rest of my hour. I've walked from the winter into the spring since I started working here, on sunny days and rainy ones, in the wind and the warmth. I get to pick from about four branches of trails, and I try to go down each at least once a week.

When I walk, I look around. I look up into the tree canopy and at the sky, and I look down at the sides of the path and into ditches. I see squirrels, birds, moths, butterflies, and lizards. I don't listen to music while I walk, nor do I take phone calls or texts. I listen to the world around me and the people that pass by. I listen to the scolding mockingbirds and the whirring of bike tires.

Sometimes, I see plants or animals that I don't recognize. If I'm curious about them, I'll try to take a quick photo (the moment a cell phone is allowed on my walk) and look them up when I get back to my office. I don't always do this, though; sometimes I just let the strange flower or unknown butterfly linger in my brain, and look for it again on the next walk.

I started walking in late December. I wore waterproof boots and a coat with a warm scarf at my neck. Sometimes I carried an umbrella. I had the trails mostly to myself. I looked at the lake edges and saw the water level rise and fall, dictated not only by falling rain but by the activity at the dam that created the lake. I saw squirrels taking shelter. I slipped on rocks.

For a month and a half I braved the colder weather, the wind, and the drizzle. Braved is a funny word because, being a transplant to California from the Pacific Northwest, I really don't mind days like that. I enjoy the solitude it gives me and the bright, emerald wetness of trees and ferns. I like walking to warm up. The only person I saw regularly on these days was a quiet man, probably ten years my senior, in a dark red jacket. We never spoke to each other (and still haven't), but we gave smiles and nods in passing.

A few weeks ago, something changed. I started to get warm on my walks. I would walk out wearing a light coat or sweater, and walk back with it slung over my arm. As a big fan of autumn and winter, I wondered if my sweater-and-soup season was coming to an end...

It did, abruptly, over a weekend. In just two days of absence from my walking paths, everything changed. On that Monday that I will always think of as the real start of spring, I saw butterflies for the first time -- the black and iridescent blue of the Red-Spotted Purple, who loves to feast on oaks as a caterpillar, and who flits charmingly to animal droppings as an adult. I saw squirrels chase each other on looping routes up trees, chattering away. Ducks and geese were honking their loud calls of anger and lust (who can tell the difference with geese?), and frogs were piping away in the little ponds beside the road.

Only a week after the animal outpouring, the plants followed suit. Dutchman's Pipe cast its lime green tendrils over last year's dead brush, and the tender leaves of Liliaceae pushed through the dry, scrubby grass on banks. A few brief rains came and went, and suddenly catkins were out here and there, like little Christmas bulbs. Wild onions and mustard bloomed, the deli in the wilderness, and new grass started replacing old, tired blades.

The people changed, too. The few lone cyclists and frustrated looking joggers** multiplied, and more people were bringing their babies along for the ride. Single mountain bikers became pairs and packs, and the winter tights peeled away in favor of the ever-flattering Spandex shorts. Others started walking, too, and chatting, filling the air with conversation as well as goose rage.

I knew it was spring before the calendar told me. I knew before Daylight Saving Time. I knew because I was there, and I felt the undeniable urge to bounce back to the office with a flower behind one ear. I experienced the change and recognized it because of my familiarity with what preceded it.

This is science.

To walk in the world, to revisit the same ideas and routes over and over, until they are familiar enough that minute changes leap easily to our eyes. Science treads the same steps until they are predictable, routine, and then introduces one new element -- to witness the change and absorb the repercussions.

Science isn't dry, or boring, or removed from the world at hand. It doesn't exist only in a lab, and you certainly don't need a degree to do it. Some science looks stodgy, but that doesn't make the fun science any less real.

Science is alive, vibrant, and exciting. It happens when you cook, when you train your dog, when we meet, and all that we do. It is merely the act of observing a situation, thinking about the elements that make it up, and perhaps seeing those things play out, over and over, until a pattern becomes clear. There is power in that pattern, the power to predict and effect change.

I do science by walking around. Everyone can. We just need to clear away the distractions and not worry about being "bored," because there is plenty happening around us to keep our minds occupied.

Today, when I went for a walk, there were little orange flowers blooming. I need to go look them up...

---

*Don't worry, I don't scarf my food. I'm just a light eater... at lunch...

**Joggers always look unhappy, to me. I will ride my bike, walk, and hike, but jogging just looks and feels unpleasant! Sorry to any joggers reading this.