Skeletonizer

To St Olaf. Temperature near freezing. The wooded pond, frozen now for the third or fourth time, seems frozen for good now. The surface is smooth and free of snow, perfect for skating. Fox tracks and mink tracks left on a shoreline margin of snow enticed me to try out the ice as well. Just six days ago the pond was open, but the subsequent cold weather closed it, providing a clear four inches or more of ice.

I crossed the pond and entered the woods on the north side. Just over the hill is a stand of Red Oak trees. The fierce winds of the last week had removed most of the leaves across the tops of the trees, though many red-orange leaves remained on the lower branches. I examined a couple trees, looking for leaf mines, noticing the wind had broken many of the stems, finding only a few incomplete mines or blotches left by leaf skeletonizers.

Later, photographing one of the leaves, back-lighting the mined blotches, I couldn't help but see the net-work of veins as similar to those in the wings of dragonflies.

Posted on December 11, 2017 03:52 AM by scottking