Naughtiness in the Landscape: GARDEN INTRUDERS

The development of the private garden as an important element of the sophisticated home reaches its apex in the 'Charleston Garden', praise for which is expressed poetically in our previous post. The current collection features elements of the downside of investment of time, effort, hope and dollars in the private gardening enterprise.    

  

Authors' Note: Clathrus ruber is a startlingly shaped species of saprophytic fungus that resembles an orange plastic toy ball. Its interior surfaces are coated with a foul-smelling slime that attracts flies, which then disperse the fungal spores. The characteristic fetid odor of the fungus resembles that of rotting meat. Other common names include latticed stinkhorn, red cage (fungus), and basket stinkhorn. 

Authors' Note:  

Lantana camara, native to a few regions in the tropical Americas and Africa, is tolerant of varied growing conditions other than harsh winters. After extensive blooming of multi-colored flowers (yellow, orangy-pink and purple), each plant produces hundreds of berries that are loved by and distributed by birds. Introduced commercially as an ornamental, it spread invasively in 50 other countries, and with foliage toxic to grazing mammals, became an agricultural detriment, particularly in Australia.

In the US, although hybridized with less-obtrusive species native to south Florida, Lantana spp. continues to be an environmental threat, but a favorite in plant nurseries.

                                                                                                 

 

Authors' Note:

specs: frequently used jargon for specifications

  The specs for deer fencing, also known as deer fence, agricultural fencing or deer exclusion fencing, include a height of eight feet (250 cm), with no sharp protuberances that might injure the deer.

Authors' Note:  The authors bemoan the ongoing arbitrary depredations of the human garden by these untutored rodents. Although they have not personally participated in violence against squirrels, they reluctantly admit that they sympathize with other human victims who are drawn in that direction. Where are the hawks when we need them?

urban-dwelling squirrel in a Canadian tree

                                                                                                                    

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Poems about Avian Life: BIRDLORE, part#2

  Our postings at this blogsite will pique your interest for a longer duration with entire collections about a particular topic (the individual short poems, usually with illustrations are published at 'Daily Illustrated Nonsense'.) But, even devoted readers can develop fatigue, so as verses are added over time, and the total verses exceed a dozen, we tend to invoke binary fission, and split the group into two informative servings.

This post represents the continuation of an earlier series dealing with LANDBIRDS. To see the blogpost with the first group of illustrated verses on this topic, dated September 2021, click HERE. 

But bear in mind that these accumulations only represent a portion of our outpourings for birdwatchers and lovers. You can view an even more extensive collection concerning WATERFOWL by following the links at the end of this post. 

Authors' Note: Regal in appearance, the red-tailed hawk, the most common North American member of the raptor genus Buteo, is a year-round denizen of southern Ontario, and is frequently seen in urban residential areas. 

Note that Fred the robin has also appeared with his colleague Carl the cardinal in the blogpost "Curtained Verse", a collection of illustrated verses that you can find by clicking HERE.

Authors' Note:   This is a true story. I very recently received from friends vacationing in Costa Rica an e-mail with a marvellous attached video closeup of toucans shot with a cellphone camera. I felt compelled to pass the photo on to others.

  In fact, no toucans make a sound that would be described as a 'tweet'. With respect to sound production, members of the more than forty species comprising the family are divided into 'yelpers' and 'croakers'. The social networking entity, Twitter, on the other hand, highlights in words and with their logo the tweetiness of short, chirping birdsong communication.

   The bird-photo above was kindly contributed by Betsy Crosswell.

(Ed. note) If you enjoyed these illustrated verses about landbirds, you might also want to work your way through our collection of some forty illustrated short poems about waterfowl. Proceed to 'Immersible Verse: Limericks about Waterfowl', here on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. 

ADDITIONAL PHOTO-COLLAGES: 

Turkey in our Subdivision, Mt. Pleasant SC

Turkey on the Roof, Berkeley CA

'Portraits of Couples': domestic turkeys, domestic French geese, Harris hawks, emus, toucans.

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MAMMALIAN WILDLIFE, part #2

This post is a continuation of 'MAMMALIAN WILDLIFE part#1', posted for your entertainment on this blog on June 15, 2021.

Authors' Note:  The above is iambic verse, unlike most of what we post here, which is anapestic (limerick-based); therefore this brief doggerel scans like this: 

'MOST of US to QUELL the FUSSes'

PreSUME we're HIPpoPOTaMUSes'.

Authors' Note:

Honest Herb(ie), a westponder, concedes that pronouncing the herbal 'H' in Britain and Australia may be the norm there, but he prefers the more common North American way to say it with the 'H' silent, as in 'hour', and 'honest'.  In fact, language detectives may correctly intuit that Herb is a Canadian, as he spells offence with a 'c', rather than the 's' used by Americans.

The Mongolian gerbil, Meriones unguiculatus, a hardy small herbivorous rodent  has become a popular pet. Originally a resident of Asia transported for use as a research subject, it was introduced from the US to the UK in 1964; its pronunciation preferences currently remain unrecorded.

Authors' Note: For a somewhat different take on concupiscence, check out the illustrated verse 'Horny Rhino' by clicking HERE. 

Authors' Note: In the last century, raccoons have readapted themselves as urban denizens, often relatively unnoticed, but sometimes disturbing their neighbours. And be sure to review our subsequent illustrated poem with respect to their role as nest robbers. 

Authors' Note: We are indebted to Bill Wingfield for contributing the idea for the previous poem. 

Authors' Note:  You can find a song about the star-nosed mole on our blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to access it! 

Authors' Note:  A falling birth rate due to 'nutritional stress' in females (along with ongoing hunting) has been proposed as a principal factor in the decline in the last century of Pacific Ocean populations of the Steller sea lion, Eumetopias jubatus. Although wanton polygamy has, to be honest, always been an option for females of this species of magnificent marine mammals, the particular efforts of concerned individuals like our heroine Bella may have contributed to a recent recovery.

   Current ecological terminology denotes a species whose population is stable in the wild and not threatened as of 'lesser concern'. In 2013, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) took the Steller sea lion off its US Endangered Species List.

Authors' Note:  The woodchuck or groundhog is a large squirrel-like animal

best know for its extensive tunneling. Although herbivorous, it is not normally interested in eating or tossing wood, the latter being an activity for which 

it is poorly physically adapted. 

   Apparently, the name woodchuck is a corruption of the Algonquian word wejack; the name also is responsible for the American tongue-twister: 

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

 

You might also enjoy a post on a related topic. To review the brief saga "A Hellenic Paean: the AEGEAN CAT", click HERE. 

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To resume daily titillations on our related blog 'Daily Illustrated Nonsense', click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings in the righthand margin, and check the daily offerings for any month in the years 2020 to the present. (As of September 2023, there are over 1200 unique entries available on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on 'Edifying Nonsense' in topic-based collections.) The 'Daily' format also has the advantage of including some videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.