En route from the Mountain House to Cope’s Lookout, with its breathtaking vista of Minnewaska and Millbrook Mountain, we tried to catch sight of a black-throated green warbler, whose pleasant “trees, trees, whistling trees” tune reached our ears from the trailside hemlocks. We never saw this warbler (though we spotted one later), but while we paused there spotted an beautifully patterned spider, suspended below her horizontal web, which turned out to be an orchard spider. Had we been too intent on reaching our destination to stop where we did, we would have missed the intricate, shimmering beauty of this spider and her web.
Though we took in the splendid panoramas from Eagle Cliff above the lake, and from Cope’s Lookout and Humpty Dumpty Carriage Road with immense pleasure, we were also grateful for the chance to zoom in to what a shaft of sunlight revealed right before our eyes. Children know best how to do that, and we were grateful to the day and the place for that child’s eye view.
As we welcome summer, we also bid a fond (or for some, maybe not-so-fond) farewell to this spring’s insect prodigy, the 17-year cicada. Our walks at Mohonk were accompanied by the plaintive swan song they now seem to be singing, as their mating and egg-laying comes to an end and their spent bodies begin to litter the earth. I can think of no better way to observe their passing than to end with this poem by Dylan McQuade-Dolan, a first grader in Rebecca’s class at Duzine Elementary School.
Sing a song of cicadas
Sing a song of cicadas
Whose wings buzz and snap,
Who fly around and sometimes are
On the ground and dance wildly,
And are on leaves staring at you.
Sing a song of cicadas,
Who crack out of their husks
And are white when it is done.
Sing a song of cicadas,
Who burrow and drink sap for 17 years
And when the temperature is 64 degrees,
They will come up again!
