Of Tadpoles And Gall Mites

     Lured by tales of Red-throated Loons, we ventured forth to Herrick's Cove in beautiful Rockingham, Vermont. After several laps around the dirt track which proceeds from one bucolic picnic area to another [1], we elected to park and set out on foot. Predictably, I was almost immediately wronged [2] by several bovine intellects who had the temerity to pilot their kayak-laden family fun wagons on intercept-courses to where I was futilely attempting to locate untold numbers of rare species amongst the quivering leaves of proud catalpas and maples. Undaunted but not unfazed, I was stopped in my tracks by an unfamiliar bird call. A sort of trilled quirk issued three times in quick succession from the tree tops on the far side of the road [3]. Deft manipulation of my binocular's focus wheel brought a Great-crested Flycatcher [4] into sharp relief. The bird quickly retreated into the canopy and we continued on our way.
     Herrick's Cove is a small marshy peninsula in the estuary of the Williams River and the mighty Connecticut. To your average barbecuing, sun-bathing, frisbee tosser, it's a shaded grassy wonderland of American summer afternoon r&r. We had received well-substantiated reports [5] that among a general abundance of bird species, several rare birds could be found. Your correspondent is sad to report that we were unable [6] to realize the full promise of this location [7]. Stepping gingerly down runoff cutouts and other wooded paths to the marsh's edge, we were able to see many of the typical denizens of this type of environment [8]. What initially presented as a beaver nosing gracefully through the murky shallows, in fact, turned out to be an enormous snapping turtle with an incredibly long and prehistoric looking tail. Unwilling to submit to paparazzi-esque attempts at candid photography, this beast melted from view to chase its hapless prey in the muck of the marsh's bottom [9]. Said prey undoubtedly being the parents of the profusion of tadpoles pictured below in figure 1.
     We spent another hour between glassing the open marsh and the wooded roadside. Chestnut-sided Warblers cavorted precociously, landing tentatively on branches and vines and waiting patiently to be in the frame of a focused camera before flitting away as the shutter closes [10]. A Brown Thrasher plied his dusty trade in the road before us only to be frightened off by the approach of a mid 90s Buick Century. Operating this craft was a late-middle-aged gentleman with pasty hair and Jeffrey Dahmer glasses who was blasting what I can only describe as "ice cream truck" music at high volume as he completed his fourth lap around Herrick's Cove's circuitous road. While it would be fair to be concerned that this individual was some kind of child predator, it could also be posited that this was simply a retired man out for a Sunday [11] drive, windows rolled down against the heat in the A/C-less cabin of his Elks Club mobile [12], and playing his favorite soothing musical intonations at deafening volume in hopes of overpowering the limitations of grave hearing loss. We may never know.
    We will undoubtedly return to Herrick's Cove at a time of day more conducive to well-planned birding. Despite my juvenile reactions to the necessity of my coexistence with other humans, this trip was by no means a loss. The Great-crested Flycatcher was a bird I had never seen before [13]. Just as the words of Alice Walker echoed through my thoughts- "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it"- my eye was drawn to the color pink where it had no business being. Stuck like Nerds candies to a maple leaf was something else I had never seen before. After exhausting the Audubon field guide to mushrooms and fungus, I resorted to a simple Google search to identify what turns out to be Maple Gall mites (figure 2). These delicious looking nubules are actually microscopic mites that irritate the plant in such a way that it produces an ostentatious cocoon which protects the mite from the rest of the outside world. Reflecting on the poetry in this [14], I recommitted myself  to avoiding angry and self-centered mental states. I was doing pretty well until we started driving again.
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Notes:

1. Narrowly dodging sugar-fueled, Evel Knievel impersonating children throughout.
2. My wife quite rightly points out the irony in my frequent perceptions of being "wronged" by people merely conducting the commonplace business of daily life when such business necessarily shares the same space I am occupying. This is a common trait among alcoholics. I do poorly in a grocery store.
3. ...that I was standing in the middle of. See note 2, supra.
4. Positively identified only after consulting the field guide. I am still, and will likely for some time remain a rank amateur.
5. Rare bird alerts. It's a thing.
6. In this brief and poorly planned trip...
7. Which is almost certainly not to be had smack-dab in the middle of a very bright, sunny, and windy day after the intensity of the spring migration has subsided.
8. The ever-present and highly regarded Great Blue Heron, Mallards, Canada Geese, Red-winged Blackbirds in their cackling legions, etc, etc.
9. In retrospect, it may have taken offense to my loudly exclaiming "Holy shit! Look at the size of that turtle!".
10. Or opens for 1/250th of a second and then closes. However that works.
11. Saturday.
12. No offense.
13. A "life bird" in birding parlance- as common as this bird is.
14. i.e., irritating behavior as a defense mechanism to insulate one from one's environment.

Figure 1

Figure 2