Figure 1 – Long-tailed ducks on the Merrimack, Newburyport, MA (c) DE Wolf 2025

The days are definitely getting milder, and all our thoughts are turning to spring. I have begun schlepping by big birding lens with me on my morning walks and have returned to the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge to watch the spring migration come in. It is mud season! The red-wings are creating a cacophony of their trumpet blasts. There are bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, mallards, wood ducks, and tree swallows. The ever present Canadian Geese seem to be focused on mating and are ignoring the tariff war.

Two weekends back, TC and I were watching the long-tailed ducks (Clangula hyemalis) float by on the Merrimack, contemplating a bit sadly the devastation that bird influenza is taking on our avian populations. We were eating sandwiches. They are fighting for their lives. It is as if the gulls have fallen silent.

The long-tailed duck (Clangula hyemalis) is one of the most distinctive and fascinating waterfowl species of cold northern waters of the world. With its unique appearance, remarkable behavior, and captivating migration patterns, the long-tailed ducks are truly eye-catching. Adult males, particularly during the winter, are known for their dramatic plumage. Their most iconic feature is, of course, the long, flowing tail feathers that extend far behind their body—hence the name “long-tailed” duck. These tail feathers are especially prominent during the breeding season, where they can measure up to 10 inches (25 cm) long, adding an elegant flair to their otherwise compact body.

Males are adorned with a mixture of black, white, and chestnut hues, paired with bright orange bills, making them easily recognizable. Females and younger ducks, on the other hand, have a more subdued, mottled brown plumage, which helps them blend into their surroundings.

Native to the northern hemisphere, long-tailed ducks breed in the Arctic regions of North America, Europe, and Asia. During the summer months, they can be found in remote areas of Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, where they build nests on the ground in tundra wetlands. These areas are cold, windy, and often surrounded by snow and ice, making them ideal for a species that thrives in such harsh conditions.

In winter, however, long-tailed ducks migrate south to more temperate regions, like Newburyport, often spending the colder months in the coastal waters of the North Atlantic, the North Pacific, and along the coasts of the northern United States. Some even make their way to the Mediterranean. So here we are catching them at the start of their northern migration. These are diving ducks. They can dive to 60 meters in search of food.

Figure 1 is a group that I photographed. It is not a world class bird image but has some features that I really like. First, it is very subdued color, almost black and white. Yet you can see the mahogany heads and red tipped bills of the males. Second, the birds are together but each doing its own things. They are like a blissful family The unison of swimming together is very subtle. They almost seem to ignore one another, one looking ahead, one side-wards, and one preening. But the fact is that at any moment one of the ducks will dive and rapidly all of the others will follow.

Figure 1 – The White Rabbit or The March Hare (c) DE Wolf 2025

As I mentioned last week I spent the weekend in Newburyport, MA and on Plum Island. I took the image of Figure 1 in a shop. I was drawn to the White Rabbit in remembrance of Mr. White Rabbit, Esq. or the March Hare of Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland fame. Some of my readers had requested a break from Astrophotography and Astrophysics. That’s fine but one is never truly on vacation from physics – never more than a hare’s breadth away!

“… nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”

Thus begins Alice’s singular and most peculiar adventure. Poor Alice, she hasn’t really escaped physics but actually jumped right into it, so to speak. Of course, the rabbit represents the constrictions of our human world, where everything is on a tight schedule. We are told that “everyone is mad here” in Wonderland, and you very quickly start to wonder where it is that everyone is mad? Now more than a century and a half since Carrol penned the book we know about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and the fact that the time here and now can be quite different there and now and that two simultaneous events here are not necessarily simultaneous there. Poor March Hare his pocket watch has become quite useless, or perhaps more accurately quite meaningless. Time and simultaneity have become quite meaningless in this non-Euclidian universe. While not often used in a anti-theological way, the facts of relativity make a strong case for a rational universe!

Anyway, dear Alice is in free fall along with the March Hare. Rabbit is worried about the time and Alice is just starting to understand the gravity of her situation. GRAVITY! Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) explained that the force of gravity acting on an object, say an Alice or a Rabbit, is proportional to the volume of matter contained withing a sphere at some position in space. This means that while the force of gravity at the surface of the Earth is greatest and the force at the center of the Earth is zero. Therefore, if you were to drill a channel along a diameter through the center of the Earth, the object reaches the center at maximum velocity, starts its return journey, on the other side, only to reach zero velocity when it reaches the surface of the Earth on the other side. Ignoring the mathematics, it can readily be shown that it takes 42.25 min to reach the center. The object is a classical oscillator, going back and forth forever every 84.50 min.

We’ve ignored a few things here, like the crushing pressure, friction in the air column, and scalding temperatures. Mere technicalities!

But things get even more interesting. Suppose you were to drill a tunnel along a chord through the Earth between any two points on its surface, say between London and Paris, or between Paris and New York. If you had a frictionless railroad (that’s mighty good oil!), it would take precisely 82.5 min for the railroad to go between any two destination points!

Now this is of course all fantasy – as was the story of Alice in Wonderland. But it has been suggested that this mathematical paradox was in mathematician Lewis Carrol’s mind when he wrote the story of Alice ,

“A paradox, a paradox
A most ingenious paradox.”

Gilbert and Sullivan the Pirates of Penzance

I apologize for returning us, on vacation, to astrophysics. But it always comes to my mind whenever I see a rabbit resembling the March Hare; rabbits, hares for that matter, do not wear glasses nor pocket watches. Little girls do not float endlessly to soft landings in Wonderland. Still the world, indeed the universe, is filled with what might seem the paradoxical. Such is merely the reflection of the facts that the world is not flat nor time not relative.

Nothing profound today, but I thought I would share the image of Figure 1 of a changing sweetgum leaf against a bed of brown much. I love the star-shaped leaves of the sweet gum and I love the smell of cool damp mulch. Although my sinuses may take exception. But sometimes you just have to go with what is beautiful and touches your photographic fancy!

Yesterday I took notice of the coming of Mabon, the autumnal Equinox and the first leaf of autumn. I love to watch the changes at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord, MA, and special in this parade of life are the lotuses. Right now they are in a confused state. Most are changing color and a few still resist and even bloom. Still others have reached an advanced stage of decay. They have lost essential oils and barely float on the surface.

Such is the case with the giant leaf of Figure 1, the “Summer’s Last Lotus.” It is as if it was dissolving into the pond. Not only has it turned colors, but also there are the colors of mold and decay.

Lotuses bear their association with Lakshmi, thus with birth, death, and reincarnation, fertility and life rooted in primordial water. They grow in the muddiest and darkest of waters, rising as if from the very depths of nothingness.

What a summer it has been! I have been haunting my usual happy places: the North Shore, Ithaca, and the celestial skies. Most of my photographic work has been of astronomical objects – this since purchasing a SeeStar 50S, which is essentially a star camera – have had many adventures with this and I must admit that this is where my interests in astronomy and photography have taken me. Such are my latest photographic wanderings. It all lies at the convergence of my interests in optics, in the beautiful, and the sublime.

But I awake to the realization that today is the Autumnal Equinox, the Mabon, the moment when the night is precisely as long as the day. Here in the Northeast it is cold and rainy creating an earthiness to the world – always evoking our seminal myths of the forest. So I want to share Figure 1 – First Sign of Fall – a nod to this moment of most perfect celestial balance.

Still when i took this photographic, the insect marks on the leaf disturbed me. But I realize that no summer is ever perfect!

New England meadows are filled these days with the call of the red-winged black birds (Agelaius phoeniceus). These are either mating calls or territorial calls. The male red-wings have a tough life by many standards. They are polygynous and each male is typically defending the nest of multiple females. To make matters worse, cow birds love to lay their eggs in red-wing nests. So much so that a recent Standford University study found that “up to 50 percent of Red-winged Blackbird nestings carry no genes of the territorial male.”

So it was not that surprising that last night I encountered the very distressed and aggressive male red-wing of Figure 1 jumping around and squawking his head off as if to shout “beat it.” Did he think I was after one of his harem or did he think I wanted to lay and egg in one of his nests? Did he think I was another male red-wing or a cow bird? Without doubt I was too close.

Yesterday was rain-filled all day but the sun popped out in the late afternoon and the golden light and rain-cleared atmosphere were to irresistible. I headed out to the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord, MA to see what birds and critters were afoot. I was rewarded. Figure 1 shows a gaggle of Canada goose (Branta canadensis) goslings feeding with their parents just off the causeway in the vegetation. The light was kind of magical as the setting sunshine reflected of their fuzzy yellow heads.

I am using Adobe Photoshop with the Topaz Photo AI widget exclusively now for my bird photographs. The only downside is that exporting back to Photoshop is slow becuase of the upscaling.

The parade of nature at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge continues and on schedule the New England Tree Frogs (I think) have appeared. I ran into the fellow of Figure 1 on Monday morning, and he was scared enough of me to freeze riveted in place for a close-up with my cell phone.

There is something about frogs, something almost human. I suspect that it is related to their body shape and the seeming grins on their faces. This has, of course, had the unfortunate effect of making them victims of countless high school dissections. Usually they are not portrayed as evil. The biblical plague of Frogs may be a notable exception.

Frogs feature in Aristophanes’ play be the same name, where Dionysus is tormented by a chorus of frogs. Surprisingly, that is the only reference to frogs in the play.

As I contemplated this little froggy and he me, I was reminded of the puzzlement of the Fairy Queen in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe, the fairy Iolanthe is banished by the Fairy Queen, because she committed the sin of marrying a mortal, from fairyland to a place of her choosing, she chooses to live beneath the stream with the frogs. Nobody knows why.

Fairy Queen: “…and the frogs! Ugh! I never shall enjoy any peace of mind until I know why Iolanthe went to live among the frogs.”

So delightful. But soon it is revealed that the reason is that Iolanthe wanted to live near her son, Strephon – the sacrifices mothers make. Strephon is half human half fairy and this leads to the great and marvelous chaos of the play. This centers around Strephon being sent by the Fairy Queen to Parliment where he magically passes legislature making the House of Lords merit-based. Imagine the implication of that to the American Congress in our times!

It was something to think about as I left the little smiling froggy alone, much to his relief, and of course, the words of the Dance of the Peers rang through my head as I resumed my walk down the path.

“Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes!
Bow, bow, ye tradesmen, bow, ye masses.“

There are so many lovely birds in Southwest Florida. Today I return to the shore birds and specifically to the ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres). The wikipedia defines the turnstone as a cosmopolitan bird. Photographing it with the skyscrapers of Fort Myers in the background makes you think cosmopolitan might refer to “near city,” but in fact, it means “widely distributed around the world.”

You are seeing lots of brownish birds along the Gulf Coast shore and some of the rangers and volunteers carry pamphlets showing size, leg size, beak length, and beak curve as a means of identification. I found the ruddy turnstone of Figure 1 amongst some mangrove debris from the recent hurricane at Lovers Key in Fort Myers, FL