Autumn too is "mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful"

E.E. Cummings' poem about "mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful" refers to Spring time. Our experience suggests those conditions are available any time the ground isn't snow-covered and frozen solid. That experience is largely based on watching the low spot in our driveway over a number of years. At one time this afternoon there were five robins and two goldfinches in that low spot's mud puddle, created by recent rains. We have a [heated] "bird bath"attached to our deck rail. Yesterday one of the local frogs/toads (Can you tell which? Our guess is gray tree frog, but we've also seen several little toads recently.) took a swim in the bird bath attached to the deck railing.

a frog (or toad) in the bird bath

Photo by J. Harrington

Most times birds drink from this bird bath. Only a couple of birds have been seen bathing in it over the years it's been there. Other times we've seen frogs, they've been hunkered under the bird bath, not swimming in it. Squirrels, mostly red ones, also seem to enjoy drinking from the bird bath. The mud puddle is a little shallower and has more gradual slopes toward the center than the bird bath. Perhaps that's why birds prefer the puddle for bathing, or, could it be the mud helps with lice removal? I doubt that we'll ever know. Almost every time I stop to think about it, it turns out that nature is much less orderly than I've been taught or would like to believe. Alternatively, I've an unusual ability to attract anomalous behavior from wild critters. A woodcock no less was observed (during Summer) bathing in an alternative configuration of the drive's mud puddle several years ago.

a woodcock bathing in the driveway's puddle

Photo by J. Harrington

Soon the frogs and toads will be embedded in mud for the Winter. Robins, at least many of them, will have migrated South. Many goldfinches help themselves to the feeders all Winter. Hummingbirds are still showing up and we think we saw a monarch butterfly yesterday. A few dragonflies are still in the air. Although an Urge for Going is beginning to affect many creatures, we've still several weeks (we hope) until serious migratory flights are underway. By then the local leaves should be approaching peak color and many folks will be getting ready to celebrate Halloween and/or Samhain. But let's not get too far ahead of the season. We're still a couple of weeks until the Autumnal Equinox, on September 23, when astronomical Autumn catches up with meteorological Autumn's September 1 start date in the Northern Hemisphere.

Said the Toad

By J. Patrick Lewis

I was really in a muddle

looking over a mud puddle

'cause I didn't have a paddle

or a twig to ride the reef.

But I said, Oh, fiddle-faddle,

this is just a little piddle

of a second fiddle puddle

so I saddled up a leaf.

I set sail on the puddle,

but I reached the muddy middle

and I rocked the leaf a little,

then I gave it all I had.

And I solved the mighty riddle

of the whole caboodle puddle

when I hopped up on the middle

of a beetle launching pad.

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