Beagle eagles

Posted: Nov. 24th, 2009

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Here in Seattle, we’re in what I call “The Season of the Longtime Rain.” Every day, it seems, the clouds hang low and the rains descend. Welcome to late autumn.

But earlier this year, I read a great book: “Summer World: A Season of Bounty,” by Bernd Heinrich. It’s a lovely little book wherein Heinrich, a nature writer living in Vermont, tells stories about — and draws pictures of — the flora and fauna nearby. Wasps parastizing other insects, frogs overcome with passion, woodpeckers looking for love: he writes about it beautifully.

One thing I learned from him that I never knew was that some deciduous trees, once they’ve leafed out in the summer, create a second set of buds. These buds stay on the tree all summer, throughout the fall and in winter, and then, when the spring rolls around, the buds leaf out. This allows the plant to produce buds when it has the most reserves. And the earlier the buds unfurl their leaves, the sooner it can hop aboard the photosynthesis train.

At least, that’s what Heinrich said. I wasn’t sure I believed him. But then, with the leaves gone from the lilac bush next to the house during this “Longtime Rain” season, I saw the buds he spoke of, already formed, waiting for spring. Then I noticed them on the horse chestnut tree. I couldn’t believe, all these years I’ve been looking at trees, I’d missed it. I ate several slices of humble-berry pie.

But the tree-show got me thinking about evolution and how the world’s living creatures, over millennia, have created ways for themselves that help perpetuate their long-term survival. Lucky for me, I found images that spoke to this: pix from the “Darwin Photo Competition.” Here, you can see frogs and lichens and spiders and a tulip and more, all beautifully rendered, all fantastically glorious in their representations of our ever-continual season of discovery.