Dry Humor
Mimi Cavender
The Drought of 2022 crackles along the calendar, and water restrictions tighten like a noose. We know we can’t make rain. So we’ve just got to find some humor in this.
See those shoe insoles floating in my bird watering station? This morning, there they were, three yards from where I’d laid them out yesterday afternoon in the sun. Now, these are not some new shoe inserts that do the walking for you. I can’t afford those. So how did they go for a swim? I’ll wait while you think.
Yep. Had to be a raccoon. With the drought drying up berries on the bushes and frogs in the pond, our neighborhood raccoon families are more than ever scavenging our decks and bird feeders. Gotta love the imagination on this one. She grabbed what looked like a nice black fish and—as is her habit—plopped it into the nearest water to eat it. Tough. Went back for the blue one. Rubbery. I’d pay money to know how long she tried to make it work. It must have killed her sole to leave it.
Then there’s this pair of Bewick’s Wrens, who’d scouted nesting sites around my deck for two months. He chose a roomier bird house high on a porch post. All tweety and fussy, she built the bottom inch of nest—then gave up. In late July heat, her beak hanging open, her bird brain fried, she settled into the stupidest choice of the lot: a short shallow joke of a box designed more decorative than functional. But it had that painted pair of birds on the front eyeing each other suggestively—or maybe breaking up?—whatever—what bird can resist a soap opera! Whether it was the cramped quarters or effects of the drought, our girl laid only three eggs—the minimum of the 3-to-8 eggs for Bewick’s. All three chicks fledged plump and chirpy and fluttered off into a brush pile across the yard. A Red-shouldered Hawk swooped above them for hours. Needing moisture from small animal meals and with those animals drought–affected, the hawk had her problems, too.
That open beak thing birds do—panting with thirst?—is not funny. So when you see your drought-parched yard full of open-mouthed birds, first put out water. Then sit back and imagine them in the biker bar out on Devil’s Backbone (bird photos by Betsy Cross):
Hey, baby. Come here often?
Take off, creep. (These are biker birds.)
Aw, c’mon, sweetheart. Le’me buy you a drink?
Don’t keep following me—Oh, there’s my date.
Thought you’d never get a table, darlin’.
(Uhhh…what’s her name again?)
Another funny thing is the way a healthy Fire Ant mound will explode when in a fit of frivolity you poke it with a stick. Oh, you’ve never poked one with a stick? Well, I did again recently, and… nothing. That’s no fun. I stabbed down about 8 inches into the center and stirred for maximum effect. The entire perfectly sealed mound was hollow! Texas A&M University AgriLife sobered me up.
Fire ants require water to survive and are often found near creeks, run-off ditches, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes and other bodies of water. If surface water is unavailable, they tunnel down to the water table many feet below the ground.
There’s eco-friendly mound treatment advice on the AgriLife site for when our little friends are back for more frivolity when the rains return. Poisoning the water table is NOT the way to go.
The same powder-dry soil that sent fire ants in panic to the basement has another species loving it. Remember doodle-bugs—Ant Lions? As a kid, did you drop an ant into the funnel-shaped pit and, your face close to the soil, watch the monster surface and drag its victim deep deep underground? About two inches. But did you wait long enough to see him throw out the corpse—sucked dry? Oh, yeah.
Photo: H.A. Turney, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service
Ant lions are the larvae of Myrmeleon, a glass-winged damselfly-like member of Neuroptera.
In both larval and adult stages, they’re beneficial insects.
Check your property’s areas of fine, dry, bare soil. You’ll see dozens of their pit traps this year.
And then there’s this hair-raising video from the Smithsonian if you think you’re ready for “catapulted corpses” and “the spawn of the netherworld!”
And now everybody’s favorite. All together now, “Aaaaaaw, soooo cute!” Then you remember that this fawn is still nursing in our drought-stricken late summer from a boney-ribbed mother who can’t find green forbs to eat among all that useless dry grass. The fawn will get reduced milk—and at the expense of the mother’s own fat reserves. To make matters worse, that little spike buck from last season is still hungrily following mom around. Look at him trailing them down the slope. Follows her everywhere.
Through my screened bathroom window, I caught the drama. For a moment, I felt a—sorry—dry humor in it. Here was this pathetic little family seeking dappled shade in the 55th day of 100+° heat. Baby’s sucking skim milk, big brother’s fruitlessly waiting his turn, and mom’s just a filling station.
Don’t forget to put out food and fresh water for the wildlife that visits you. They were here first. Nature often finds a way, and fall rains may bring a flush of green to save us all.