Point, Laugh

Day 121: Here's a little Crow humour to start your morning off right...another one of those "things found in unattended cameras" from last week. Yesterday's contribution was a profile of George Washington at Mount Rushmore as viewed on a computer screen.

Earlier in the day, Kevin had suggested to me that we might stop by Kautz Creek for a short hike in pursuit of a specific lichen where Red Alder is abundant. I had declined, saying, "You'd be bored to tears with me stopping every five feet to spend ten minutes looking at tree bark," but the crestfallen look on his face haunted me for the remainder of the day. As we were preparing to leave the office, I reopened the proposal and he quickly agreed, saying that we should at least check the trees closest to the boardwalk. The end result was a 45-minute exploration of approximately half an acre of new-growth alder interspersed heavily with Doug fir. We did not find Graphis scripta, although we discovered several other species of interest.

At one point in our adventure, I had gone to examine a long-dead standing trunk some 15' in height and about 5" in diameter. As I rested the camera against the tree to photograph a developing slime mold, it snapped off eight inches from ground level and went crashing down. Behind a stump and therefore unable to see me, Kevin called out, "Are you all right? What happened?" I paused for effect, and replied, "Termites?" Indeed, the base of the tree was riddled with holes in the core. With the trunk on the ground, the slime mold was much easier to photograph, Kevin holding his cell phone to light it while I took the picture (bottom left).

Having a field day (literally) with a like-minded friend is not something I do often, and sometimes I forget how enjoyable it can be. Two sets of eyes are always better than one when searching for the unusual or rare, and the delight in discovery is exhilarating regardless of who makes the find. Perhaps there is no Graphis scripta in the Kautz Creek drainage. We won't know until we've surveyed every tree. We're weird and we know it, out there with our magnifiers studying bark with infinite curiosity, but at least we're in good company.