Earth Almanac
By Ted Williams

Crabby Lady
Summer Flutter
Stay-at-Home Dads
Sheep in Frog’s Clothing
Hated to Abundance
Edible Lead

Crabby Lady
“[M]olly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles,” wrote E.E. Cummings. But it wasn’t a lady crab because this, the crabbiest of crabs, seeks refuge from predators and wave action by burying itself in the sand with only its eyestalks protruding. When you’re wading in the summer-warmed ocean from Canada to Georgia and something nips your toe, it’s almost always a lady crab. The iridescent, purple-spotted carapace may be four inches wide and two from front to back. These “beautiful color patterns” gave the lady crab its name, reports the University of Rhode Island, assuring biologically challenged readers that “there are male lady crabs as well as females.” Look for lady crabs next time you wade on Atlantic sand. Even if one fails to introduce itself to your toe, you may discover something important because, as Cummings noted in the same poem, “whatever we lose (like a you or a me), it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.”
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Summer Flutter
Where sunlight washes woodland stream banks in our nation’s eastern two-thirds, ebony jewelwings are taking to the air. These icons of high summer don’t dart like other damselflies. Instead they flutter on iridescent black wings—slow as the now songless current, drowsy as the day. So languid is their flight, in fact, that one is left wondering how they can catch the small insects they prey on. The male’s green body is darker than the slightly smaller female’s, and he lacks the glistening white spot at his wingtips. When a courting male hovers in front of a perched female she may reject him by opening her wings and leaving them extended. But if she responds with a flutter, he’ll land on her, and when she takes to the air he’ll seize her behind the head with his tail. If she’s been previously mated, he’ll use his penis to extract his rival’s sperm before inserting his own. She’ll deposit eggs inside the soft stems of aquatic plants, and the predacious larvae, or naiads (aptly named for the woodland water nymphs of Greek mythology), will hatch and grow in the stream. Adult ebony jewelwings apparently can’t detect their peers unless their wings are moving, but they have no trouble seeing people. Walk by one and watch it follow you with its eyes.
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Stay-at-Home Dads
Wilson’s phalaropes are moving from prairie country to saline lakes, where they’ll molt and put on fat for their migration to South America. This species differs from the other two members of the genus in that it’s larger, breeds exclusively in North America, and spends no time at sea. Like its cousins, though, it has reversed sex roles. The female acquires colorful breeding plumage, defends territory, and attracts a mate vocally and with displays that include neck stretches and feather puffing. After the male scrapes out a nest site and lines it with grass, the female lays about four eggs and departs, leaving incubation and rearing to her mate. An estimated three-quarters of a million Wilson’s phalaropes, something like half the planet’s population, congregate on Utah’s Great Salt Lake before pressing south. Watch for them as they swim rapidly in tight circles, creating whirlpools that bring invertebrate prey to the surface. Or you may find them facing breaking waves as they let the wind do the work for them. Recent sightings of Wilson’s phalaropes in Alaska, New Mexico, and even Massachusetts may indicate early compensation for loss of wetland breeding habitat.
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Sheep in Frog’s Clothing
The answer: “sheep frogging.” The question: What’s there to do late at night in Costa Rica, Mexico, and south Texas during heavy summer rainstorms? All you’ll need is a slicker and a flashlight. These pointy-headed, sharp-nosed frogs spend most of their lives in moist burrows in woods or fields, where they feed on subterranean insects, especially ants and termites. But sustained rain brings sheep frogs into the open where, in wetlands that may be short-lived, they breed. Floating free or grasping vegetation, males call in females with sheeplike bleats that last two or three seconds and are uttered at 10- to 20-second intervals. (To hear them, go to californiaherps.com and search for sheep frogs.) Eggs and tadpoles develop quickly in the standing water, and newly metamorphosed frogs migrate to upland sites, seeking refuge on the way under such objects as litter, discarded shoes, and cow dung.
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Hated to Abundance
You can hear the music of song dogs, as coyotes are often called, any time of year. But there’s more of it now that pups are testing their independence and being yelled at by nervous parents. As they wrestle and play tug-of-war with bones and sticks, pups will mat down wide swaths of meadow grass. At this age learning to fear humans is a work in progress, so you may be able to get close to them and perhaps perceive the species in a new light. Human hatred of the coyote and its major predator, the gray wolf, has been largely responsible for the former’s astonishing success. When humans started exterminating wolves, coyotes expanded their range. And when humans finished with wolves and concentrated on coyote “control,” coyotes expanded their range still further, compensating for increased mortality by producing more pups. Today they abide virtually everywhere in North America not permanently covered by ice. Morphological differences among the 19 subspecies can be dramatic. For example, the Mearns coyote of our western deserts rarely reaches 25 pounds, while the more wolflike northeastern coyote can hit 60. In the West and Midwest coyotes form hunting partnerships with badgers. The badger will reject a coyote’s invitation to romp but may allow it to lay down beside it and even make contact. At the approach of a badger, a coyote will often wag its tail and roll on its back in delight.
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Edible Lead
All kinds of creatures, from cattle to sheep to rabbits, from deer to pronghorns to insects and people, appreciate the leadplant, a member of the bean family now in spectacular bloom in Ontario, Manitoba, and the central two-thirds of our nation. Butterflies swill its nectar, and humans have found it useful for stabilizing soil, beautifying yards, and, less recently, combating intestinal worms. Its stems support two- to seven-inch masses of tiny purple flowers. And while the plant doesn’t get much taller than three feet, its roots can penetrate 16 feet into the earth, a feature that gave the plant its alternative name: prairie shoestring. The name leadplant probably came from the fine, lead-colored hairs on the leaves and stems or possibly from the early settlers’ claim that the plant grew best over lead deposits (although that superstition more likely derived from the leaden coloration).
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