Down the Hatch
June 23, 2024
Summer solstice. The days have gotten hot and humid but the mornings have still been quite tolerable. There have been glorious colors in the sunrise the past two days and even though I left my house at 5:30 AM it wasn’t quite early enough. I had to find a spot to stop along the road and capture the red-hot sky.
There was a time - not so long ago - when I would have tried to force my body into getting up earlier and rushing out the door so as not to miss that color over the lake, but 2024 me is committed to being kind to myself and giving my body what it needs. In another month the sunrise will be 15 minutes later, sunset will be 10 minutes earlier and it will get easier. For now, sometimes I might have to stop on the side of the road.
I watched the swallows swoop over the water, then took a walk to see what I might find. As I reached a spot in a nearby cove, I noticed what looked like little flowers all over the water willow. Water willow has small white flowers, but there was something different about this. As I looked closer I realized the plants were covered in mayflies!
I’ve been waiting for a mayfly hatch. I experienced one last year in mid-June (read about it here) and before that the first one I noticed was in August of 2022 (as noted here). I don’t know enough about mayflies to know how predictable the hatches are, but I do know that when they hatch it is a veritable feast for my bird friends.
A few mayflies were flying around but most were just hanging on to the plants. It was a very wet morning and I’m guessing they had just hatched. Perhaps their wings have to dry a little, like butterflies do when they hatch? As I was taking pictures of the mayflies, I kept wondering where all the birds were and why they weren’t feasting on this amazing breakfast buffet.
After taking dozens of photos, I walked around another corner - and realized there were a LOT more mayflies than I thought. The trees and bushes were covered with thousands of mayflies. Was this happening all around the lake or only in this one cove? This is one of those moments I wish I could fly, just so I could look everywhere.
As I looked at all the mayflies, I heard a song lyric in my head that made me laugh. “Holy Moses, I have been deceived.” Indeed, I had been photographing a few hundred mayflies a dozen feet away when there were a few thousand right around the corner. After I laughed, I found myself tearing up. The voice of my soul often speaks to me in song lyrics, but I couldn’t remember the last time it happened. It’s funny how sometimes you don’t know what is absent until you are reminded of it.
Perhaps mayflies taste better when they have time to dry out or perhaps many of the birds prefer to catch them in the air. Whatever the case, it was the next morning when the fiesta was in full swing. On Friday I walked back to the area to find that school was in session with a class of tree swallow fledglings.
What better way to both feed your youngsters and start training them to catch bugs in the air than with a mayfly hatch? By day two, the mayflies were swarming. I found it nearly impossible to get a photo that would give you a feel for what that swarm was like, so I took some video. Standing in a swarm of bugs is a strange and slightly uncomfortable thing to do, even if you know they are harmless! As you watch the video, imagine them landing on your head, your face, your glasses, your hands, and your camera and you’ll have the whole experience.
Plenty of birds did come for the feast. You can see the grackle in the video and you can see how the mayflies respond as he flies out of the branch. If you watch further in the video you can see that the swarm of mayflies above my head actually respond almost as a unit when the swallows fly through. I was fascinating thinking about how they move individually yet also as a whole unit, much the way flocks of birds move.
The fledgling tree swallows made attempts of their own, though I didn’t see them catch any bugs. The swarm made the job of the adult swallows easier though! Mayflies are a little big for the youngsters and I saw a few failed attempts where mom or dad had to pull the mayfly out, circle around, and try again.
Swallow parents have a challenging job, trying to get food down the throat of a moving target. Luckily baby birds are born with a beak that opens extra wide. Of course this means the parent has to stick their entire head into that beak - while flying! Every time the poor parents try to land and rest, the little ones fly over and scream at them. Being a parent is hard work!
Plenty of other birds came for the feast. Orioles, bluejays, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, purple martins, barn swallows, eastern kingbirds and even a killdeer flew in for a meal. Nature’s timing is exquisite, providing a huge feast just as the baby birds need it most.
It was a feast for the photographer too, I’m so glad I got invited to the party. Watching the way one part of nature provides for another with just the right timing fascinates my curiosity. Watching baby birds fills me with joy. Hearing a song in my head again after a long drought helped me drop a load of tension I didn’t realize I was carrying. I found myself singing the song in the car on the way home and when I couldn’t remember the rest of the lyrics, Siri was happy to oblige. As I listened I heard another message - “let us live in peace”. Then I looked it up and found this version:
The songs in my head are the gift that keeps on giving. I hope my singer is done with her hiatus and will return on a more regular basis, my life is better the more present she is. Maybe it’s not surprising I am drawn to birds?
What are you seeing in your corner of the planet?
Amazing photos, thanks so much for sharing them with us.
Music and lyrics are also how my heart sends me messages! I wonder if it’s like they say, that music is the language across all the dimensions of this mysterious universe.