Rick came over around noon, excited to find tiny praying mantises emerging out from their nest-like ootheca. The insects were maybe a fourth to three-eighths of an inch long and were scrambling helter skelter into the sun.
He had discovered their sack on the branch of a Bradford pear tree he had cut down, so it is likely, phenologically speaking, that praying mantises typically hatch when pear trees leaf out just after they lose their petals, at the start of late spring. And the female laid her eggs five to six months earlier in last year’s warm November or December, just before the pear leaves came down.
Later Kathyrin called: She had seen two Baltimore Orioles feeding in her maple tree, some of the very first to arrive. All of which puts praying mantis emergence in sync with the arrival of the Orioles and the hummingbirds (yesterday’s news from Casey) and the end of dandelion bloom and the falling of apple petals.
And over at the nearby pond, parallels to mantises and orioles: pawpaw flowers were soft and dark red like wild ginger. Mountain ash had umbels open, and the buckeyes and sassafras were in bloom, and the red horse chestnut tree was budded. The sawtooth oak was draped with golden three-inch catkins.
And all of these things were happening, always happen, at the same time, together. They are parts of a vast storm of events, particles beyond number and understanding, into which we fit as closely as we will or wish.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the second week of late spring. In the meantime, keep watch: everything you see, and even you yourself, ride this great wind of time.
