It was November 2017, No not a cold, blistery north-wind blowing November. I was in Georgia, and began renting 303. That back garden was Huge compared to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania gardens. I met some of our new neighbors those first days, including the violent, gangsterish Fire ants. This Jeff, whom many of you have learned about in past wingedbeauty posts (streets of Brooklyn, ‘Connected’ friends, Knives, Dean in a NYCity high school, artillery officer, loved attending the Golden Gloves Finals in Madison Square Garden, NYNY) made not one but 2 trips to St. Mary Emergency Room, after Fire Ant bites nearly became ‘septic.’ The mosquitoes of Eatonton included a species of tiny little mosquitoes (species? Don’t know) that bite you without you knowing it, and whose bites blow up immediately and then are ‘itchy’ for the next 24 hours.

The flip side of the not so pleasant Georgia ‘neighbors?’ The butterflies abound! So many new: Giant Swallowtails, Palamedes Swallowtails, Cloudless Sulphurs, Great Purple Hairstreak.  The moths, even there 2 blocks from the center of town brought Ooh! and Aahs! The beetles were all new, the bees too. The birds were nearly all new, and migrating birds often sent me to my bird field guides (The Sibley Guide to Birds).

Butterflies, Birds, Moths? All easy to ‘know,’ their habits and behaviors understandable. There is a Georgia backyard resident that remains cloaked in mystery, the Anole lizard. A near total unknown, the Anoles.

They pretty much remind me of the ‘Spooks’ who have their main offices in Washington, DC, those of the C.I.A. (Central Intelligence Agency), NSA (National Security Agency) and the dozens of other top secret government agencies who are supposed to be gathering information here and abroad.

I study the eyes of this Anole here, and their aloofness, almost coldness remind me of those detectives back in New York City, on the job, and carrying faces that tell? Tell zero about what they’re thinking.

Anoles? Work the shadows of the garden, and maybe snatch a butterfly caterpillar or two, and then . . . disappear . . . .

Jeff