Seabrooke Leckie

Today at Kingsford – Blister beetle

Right. So the purpose of yesterday’s post and all those headstones wasn’t actually to ramble on about life and death, but actually to introduce this guy, who I stumbled across in the grass and pine needles among the stones as I was slowly meandering through the cemetery. Its gleaming blue sheen caught my eye as it crawled through the obstacles. I knew what it was, so I coaxed it onto an oak leaf and gingerly moved it to the top of a stump where I could get better photos.

It’s a blister beetle, in the genus Meloe (oil beetles). There are 22 species in the genus, but they’re difficult to tell apart. All but one occur only in North America. Blister beetles get their name from their characteristic of exuding a skin-blistering chemical when they’re squeezed or unduly disturbed, a behaviour called “reflex bleeding”. The chemical, cantharidin, is contained in their haemolymph, or blood, and is exuded from pores at their joints. Members of the genus are generally quite plump, and flightless, though they have shortened, residual wing-covers.

You’d think that would be interesting enough, but even more so is that individuals go through multiple larval life stages (not just instars, but actual different types of larva), more than the average insect, which is called “hypermetamorphosis”. Eggs are laid on vegetation, and when the larvae, called triungulins at this stage, hatch they crawl up flower stems to wait on flowers for a passing bee. They hitch a ride on a female bee when she comes around, and are taken back to the burrow she’s created for her own eggs and larva(e). There, the triungulin moults into a grub and sits and consumes the pollen and nectar that the female bee brings to provision her own larva, and then eat the bee’s larva itself once it hatches from its egg. Each Meloe species generally targets a single species of bee, and while it will eat the larva, it can, if necessary, survive just on the pollen and nectar and so doesn’t qualify as a true parasitoid.

BugGuide.net also adds, “In at least one Meloe species, the larvae climb to the top of a grass or weed stalk as a group, clump together in the shape of a female solitary ground bee, exude a scent that is the same as, or closely resembles, the pheromones of the female bee, and wait for a male ground bee to come along. When he does, he tries to mate with the clump of larvae, whereupon they individually clamp onto his hairs. He then flies away, finds and mates with one or several real female bees, and the larvae transfer to the female(s).”

I presume this to be a female, both because she’s exceptionally plump, but also because her antennae are straight. Males have little hooks in the middle of their antennae which they use to grasp the female when mating.

Among other uses for the blister beetle – the males of some beetle species “collect” the cantharidin from the blister beetles and use it to impress females, and then includes the chemical in the sperm packet that’s transferred to the female. When she lays her eggs, they’re coated in the chemical, which protects them from predators. The chemical has also been used by humans for centuries in the production of the aphrodisiac “Spanish Fly”, frequently used nowadays as a date rape drug.

Life after death

Near the foot of our road, just before where the old gray pavement turns to rutted, packed dirt, there is a small white church. It’s an old church, one of the one-room sorts, seating perhaps thirty or forty people at full capacity. It dates back to the mid-1800s, and is typical of the structures of the time, with a small belfry and a mudroom off the front where churchgoers would enter.

I’m sure there was probably a plaque on the side of the building, or a stone set into the foundation, that would tell me the exact age of the church, but I didn’t think to look. I was distracted by the stones that were set, in rows, in the carefully groomed area surrounding the church. I find cemeteries fascinating, particularly the old ones. Looking at the stones and contemplating the lives of those people who came before us, who may have been gone for a hundred years or more.

This was the oldest stone I noticed there. These days headstones are often granite, a sturdy rock that stands up to time well, but old stones of the 1800s were virtually all carved into marble or limestone, because they’re soft rocks and easy to manipulate, but also easy to obtain. There are some marble deposits along the shore of Birch Lake, one lake south of us, noted on the map for Frontenac Provincial Park (which points out interesting sights and sites of historical interest within the park). Over the years the marble slowly erodes and the text, which presumably was crisp and easily legible when it was first carved, gradually becomes softened and hard to discern.

Given the age of this stone, I’m impressed that it still retains such a clear engraving; I attribute it in part to the fact that the stone had started to lean forward, sheltering the carved side from the direct effects of the weather. The name is hard to make out now – does it say Terrey Berley? Tellen Burle? – but the date is clear: Christmas eve, 1856. Aged 41 years. Even just reading this information makes you pause and wonder about their life. Did he (or she) die of natural causes? Perhaps they were ill, pneumonia wouldn’t’ve been uncommon, particularly in winter. What would they have been doing that Christmas eve if they weren’t ill? They died quite young, just 41 years.

Grown over, scattered with fallen pine needles and covered in lichen, this stone was the second-oldest I came across. The date on the left side reads 1889, though I can’t make out the month. At the top of the left it reads “In Memory of Mary Timmerman, wife of”, but her husband’s name is obscured. Under the date it gives her age at death. I only noticed this additional line once I got home, but I think it says aged 35 years. On the right are two of her children, Elizabeth, aged 5 yrs, and Catherine, aged 8 months. Child mortality during the 1800s was about 20%, due to various diseases and infections, so seeing the two daughters listed isn’t a surprise. Given her age, 35, she herself may have died during childbirth, also not unusual during that time period. In modern North America the rate of mortality of the mothers is only about 9 in 100,000 births, while in developing worlds, and in times pre-dating modern medicine, it can be as high as 900 in 100,000 births or more. That’s nearly 1 in every 100 births. One of the primary reasons was hemorrhaging or other injury due to a large baby and small pelvis, or improper delivery position of the baby.

Alarmingly, while it still remains exceptionally rare, the rate of women dying during childbirth is beginning to creep upwards again. A report (as summarized in this article) indicates that the death rate of mothers has increased by about 40% in the last 20 years, and the reason is because in the relatively rich cultures of developed nations more mothers are overweight or obese, which can lead to serious complications. Of nearly 300 mothers who died in childbirth between 2003 and 2005, half were overweight or obese, and 15% were considered extremely obese. The primary cause of death in these cases is heart disease, and the complications in care as a result of it.

This is another woman who died young. The stone says, “In memory of Jenny Fyfe, wife of Oliver Orser. Died May 13, 1902, aged 35 years.” Perhaps she died in childbirth, perhaps she fell ill, the stone doesn’t say. On the right is her husband’s engraving, on the same stone: “In memory of Oliver Orser. Died June 6, 1936, aged 66 years.” He outlived his wife by quite a few years. It’s interesting that on these stones the women’s all say, if they were married, who their husband was, while the men’s make no mention of a spouse. Most women didn’t have their own identity back then, they were either associated with their father or their husband.

There were two families that made up the majority of the stones in the old section of the cemetery. The Orsers were one of them, with half a dozen stones all from about the same date range. The men, perhaps brothers, and their wives and children. The Orsers seemed to prefer these tall, obelisk-ish stones, with multiple family members engraved on each, one per side.

The other family were the Snooks, who preferred this shorter, but more imposing, style of stone. This stone belongs to Oliver Snook (Oliver seemed to be a common name then) and his daughter Maggie. Maggie died at 7 years old, and under her dates of birth and death it says “At rest.” I didn’t notice such a statement on any of the other stones, so does that mean that she was violently ill during her last days, and now she’s finally at rest? Or is it just one of those generic statements that goes on headstones, but has no particular circumstantial meaning. Oliver died 14 years after his daughter, aged 64 years. That means he was 50 when Maggie was born. Perhaps Maggie wasn’t his daughter after all, but then what relation would she have been, to share a headstone with Oliver? On the other hand, men are capable of having children when they’re older, and if he had a younger wife or a large family, having a new child at age 50 wouldn’t be too surprising.

Visiting cemeteries and reading the headstones, wondering about the people whose names are engraved into the monument and what their life must have been like, it always makes me feel very contemplative. It also makes me keenly aware of my own mortality, and that of all the people I know and love, and inevitably I end up feeling sad at our inevitable demise. Perhaps not so much my own, but of those near to me. We don’t know when death will come to take any of us, but knowing that our time with our loved ones is unavoidably limited, we should make sure we spend time with them now, while they’re here with us (or we’re here with them), while they’re (or we’re) in good health, while there’s still lots of time to enjoy life and being alive. I think all of us, in today’s busy, fast-paced culture, concentrating on working out our own lives, we’re all guilty of not doing this nearly enough.

The White Stallions

I grew up with horses. My mom got her first horse when she was 16, and there have been horses in her life since. I remember reading kids’ stories such as The Black Stallion when I was younger. We took riding lessons at the local stable, competed in the stable’s beginner classes. We knew the names of all the international-circuit riders and their horses, we’d go to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto and watch some of them compete. Watched the Triple Crown races every spring, hoping to see a new star come on the scene who’d sweep all three (it still hasn’t happened in my lifetime, the last one was 1977). We knew the stories of famous historical horses, we went and saw the grave of the original Morgan horse when we were in Vermont on a family trip. One of those groups we knew were the white Lipizzaner stallions.

The Lipizzaners date back to the late 1500s. Two stud farms were established by the Habsburg emperor and his brother, using horses of Spanish stock. The original farms were in Kladrub, Austria, and Lippiza, now known as Lipica and located in what is now modern-day Slovenia. The breed takes its name from the latter. During the formative years of the stud farms, the stallions were crossed with Spanish and Italian horses. The Kladrub farm specialized in breeding heavier carriage horses, while the Lippiza stud bred riding and light carriage horses.

All Lipizzans are branded with four brands, which uniquely identify the horse and its heritage and ownership. You can only see two in this photo; the other two are hidden under the saddle. The one on the horse’s cheek is an L, which indicates he is of the Lipizzan breed. The one on his haunch indicates his lineage. All Lipizzan stallions originate from one of six primary foundation stallions, who lived in the late 1700s. Nearly all of the stallions in the performance we saw were from the Pluto line, and the P with the crown over it symbolizes this heritage, that’s Pluto’s specific brand. Lipizzan stallions are named in two parts – the first part is their lineage, and the second is their mother’s name. This horse would be Pluto Somethingorother (all the horses were introduced but I wasn’t able to catch what their full names were, much less keep track of them all). I’m not sure what happens if the mare produces two Pluto foals. Somethingorother A and Somethingorother B?

There’s a neat true story, presented by Disney in their movie Miracle of the White Stallions, involving the Lipizzans. During World War II the Nazis took the stallions to a German-run farm. When the farm was threatened by bombing raids the stallions were evacuated to upper Austria. However, there they faced starvation, and also theft by hungry refugees who viewed them as a source of meat. Eventually, General George S. Patton, of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry, heard of the horses and their predicament, got to see a demonstration of their skills, and issued the orders that eventually saved the breed from extinction. There were only 250 Lipizzans left after the war; their numbers have rebounded since then, and there are now about 3,000 in the official Lipizzaner registry.

Virtually all Lipizzaner horses are white these days, but they didn’t start out that way. The original horses of those two stud farms were all colours: bay, brown, black, white, dun, grey. Some were even pintos, spotted black/brown and white. The royalty that they were bred for preferred grey horses, however, so preference was given to breeding horses of that coat colour. Grey is a dominant gene, and eventually nearly all horses bore that dominant gene. Of course, there are still some grey horses that carry the recessive dark-coat gene, and when two of these are bred, and by chance the recessive gene from both parents is inherited by the offspring, you’ll end up with a black or bay foal. These dark Lipizzans have been considered good luck, and it’s a long-standing tradition for Lipizzan studs and schools to have one in their herd.

Most grey horses are only grey for their young years, and Lipizzans are no exception. They are dark-skinned, and are born dark, often bay or black, but gradually grey as they grow older. They only reach their full white colour sometime between 6 and 10 years of age. Most of the horses we saw at the show were white, but there was one greyish horse who was still in that younger age bracket, a new recruit to the performance.

Lipizzans are slow to reach maturity. Thoroughbreds are on the racetrack by the time they’re two years old, but a Lipizzan is usually only started under saddle at age four. Maturity is considered to be about age seven. To make up for this late blooming, though, they are rather long-lived as horses go, routinely reaching their 30s, while other breeds may only live to mid- to late 20s. At the age where other horses might be contemplating retirement (if they’re even still alive), Lipizzaners are often still performing. It’s just as well that they live so long, because to teach them everything well enough to perform usually takes about 6-8 years.

The Spanish Riding School was established in 1572, and though it is located in Austria, it’s named for the Spanish horses that made up those first stud farms. The original wooden riding hall was replaced in 1729 by a white one that is still used today. Here the stallions (mares are never broken to saddle, and geldings – males who have been “fixed” – are only extremely rarely) are taught the movements of Haute Ecole, or “high school”, the really advanced movements such as half-pass (where the horse moves on a diagonal sideways, as shown above), the flying change (where the horse switches which foot strikes the ground first in the stride; if done every other stride, it looks like the horse is skipping), or the piaffe (where the horse trots in place, without moving forward).

Much of what Lipizzaners are trained to do is groundwork – that is, different gaits and movements that are all done on the ground, basically everything that isn’t jumping. More than 3/4 of the show we saw was of this sort of performance. But what Lipizzans are really known for are the “airs above the ground”. These are movements that require great strength and control on the horse’s part to execute, and often require leaping from the ground (hence the name). I had gone to the show with great anticipation for this segment, and was disappointed that it wasn’t longer. However, it was still pretty neat to get to see. The above “air” is the levade, where the horse balances on his hind legs at a 35 degree angle.

This is the pesade, very similar except the horse rears up higher and can be trained to strike out with his front hooves. It’s unclear the origin of these moves, but what we were told in the show was that they were battle moves. The levade was used to get the rider out of the reach of a foot soldier’s sword, while the pesade was used to strike out at soldiers when surrounded. However, while the schools where these movements were originally taught were indeed military academies, the moves would all typically expose the vulnerable underbelly of the horse so it’s unlikely they were actually used in combat. Instead, they were probably used in training to strengthen the horse and rider, both physically and mentally. Or perhaps they just thought they were fun.

This one is the courbette, where the horse rears up and then hops forward. Supposedly this was used to break through enemy lines, but I would think it’d be easier just to run in at full speed (who’s going to stand in the way of a charging stallion?). You can see how moves like this, especially, would require exceptional strength and control in the hindquarters of the horse.

This final one is the capriole, where the horse leaps into the air and then kicks out backwards at the height of the jump, with a supposedly similar effect as the pesade. There are actually seven different airs, but we were only shown four. It takes a long time for a horse to learn to perform one of these moves, and most horses learn only one or two during their lifetime. We saw all of them except this final one also performed with a rider in the saddle (I have to imagine the capriole is much more strenuous on the horse and a rider doesn’t help), but my photos weren’t as good.

Finally, to wrap up the post, a different horse. This is an Andalusian, another strong, graceful breed and one of the breeds used in creating the Lipizanner. The Andalusian did many of the same groundwork movements that the Lipizzans did, but had a couple all his own, as well. This was one, where he was asked to reach out with one leg, and then the other, as he moved down the carpet. I imagine the final goal is to create a high-stepping slow walk, but right now they were just working on getting the movement down. I noticed that a few of the horses, even though they were performing, were still mastering some of the moves, and it’s kind of neat to watch the training of a young horse, like peeking in on a puppy and its owner learning how to sit, or a young child performing in their first school play.

He had this one down pat, though, the classic Spanish bow. Thank you, and good night!

Today at Kingsford – New at the feeder

I had grand plans for a long entry tonight, on one of three subjects I have percolating in the brewer. However, none of the three happened, for various reasons. One was that I decided, on a whim, to make chicken pot pie for dinner tonight. Of course, anything that requires a crust is a bit time-consuming, so that took up more time than planned, which then ran into the other little tasks. So a short one tonight.

This afternoon there was a lot of activity at the feeders and in the surrounding yard. We’ve had a few more birds coming to the feeders, new species for that list though we’ve seen them in the area. The first new species was Dark-eyed Junco, which was visiting some seed spilled on the driveway, but either hadn’t discovered, or preferred not to visit, the platform feeder. The second was a Downy Woodpecker that came and checked out the peanut feeder.

And the third one was this Hairy Woodpecker pair, a male and a female. Whether or not they were a bonded pair or it was just serendipitous that they were different sexes I don’t know. The female quickly discovered my suet feeder and would come back to that, but the male stuck to the platform feeder, perhaps not having noticed the suet yet. At the platform he had to contend with the Blue Jays, however. He’d duck down around the rim of the platform when the jays got pushy, which I caught in the above shot.

Before the female found the suet, I watched her climb up the wooden pole the platform is mounted on and then hang from its underside. The platform has holes drilled in it to allow moisture out, and she was reaching up through these holes to grab the seed. That’s one way to avoid the jays!

Today at Kingsford – Marbled Orbweaver

I took Raven out for her regular walk this afternoon. I took my camera with me even though it was overcast and threatening to rain, since you never know what you might come across. Thank goodness I did, or I would’ve missed documenting this wild spider. It was walking across the road, and both its size and colour made it exceptionally eye-catching on the bare surface. It was huge. Its abdomen was about the size of my thumbnail. I have no idea why it was crawling across the road, but I couldn’t resist pausing to run off a series of photos.

Such a distinctive spider was pretty easy to ID. I already knew it was an orb weaver because of the giant abdomen, and shortened third legs. A search for “orange orb weaver” on BugGuide.net turned up a bunch of photos, including several of my critter. It’s a Marbled Orbweaver, Araneus marmoreus, a fairly common spider of woodland clearings and long-grassed meadows. It’s been recorded in all of the Canadian provinces, with the majority in the more open southern Ontario and prairie provinces. There aren’t many records from the US on that page (it is CanadianArachnology.org, after all), but BugGuide.net shows records for most of the eastern states. Worldwide, it’s a holarctic species, found in Eurasia as well.

Its abdomen is intricately patterned, almost looking like bubbles, but the thing that I thought was particularly neat is that the pattern is asymmetrical, especially right at the front. There’s actually two morphs of this species, this one (which can also come in yellowish versions with dark markings), and one whose abdomen is mostly pale with a large dark blotch at the back. The latter form is only found in Eurasia, and rarely overlaps in range with the orange version. How they know they’re the same species is a mystery of science. The large size makes this a female. Females can reach 14mm (body size minus the legs) while males are much smaller, reaching just 9mm. Being a member of the Araneus it ought to show a longitudinal crease down the abdomen (as opposed to Neoscona, which has horizontal creases), but if there were any creases at all, they weren’t visibly obvious to me.