Jim Duke | Author

In the Light of the Morning Sun

The angle and intensity of the early morning sun illuminates many tiny objects otherwise not visible to the human eye. I was walking through a cottonwood grove along a creek in early October when I noticed an unusually thick hatch of some sort of tiny flying insects. Considering how thick they were, I was surprised by how suddenly they seemed to appear in the dappled sunlight filtering through the golden fall leaves. One second, they didn't seem to exist, the next second they were so dense that I instinctively kept my mouth shut to avoid inhaling them.

Turning about, I realized that their visibility depended on my angle to the morning sun. With my back to the sun, as it had been when I started my walk, they completely disappeared. When I turned to face the sun, their tiny wings were illuminated with a bright radiance, but too small to be readily identified. They appeared to be tiny specks of fluff floating randomly about until closer inspection showed them to be moving independently of each other on hovering wings. It was the thickest hatch of the tiniest bugs I've ever seen. I estimated their density at 10-12 bugs per cubic foot.

Moving my hand slowly through the swarm collected 2 or 3 of the bugs on my palm and fingers. This allowed me to discern a tiny black speck of a body with long, translucent wings several times larger than their bodies. Looking back at the hovering swarm, I noticed a yellow jacket hornet swooping around, plucking the little bugs out of the air in rapid succession.

Concentrating on the hornet's activity, I caught glimpses of a twinkle and glitter as tiny wings fell away from the captured insects. The hornets were stripping down and preparing their prey before consuming them. These observations of the hornet and tiny bugs brought on a flood of early morning light related memories, the first of which involved a different variety of hornet consuming a different variety of flying insect.

One morning working as a wrangler for Maroon Bells Wilderness Outfitters, and while feeding horses prior to a day's work, I noticed a hornet of the variety we referred to as a 'white cross' (due to a white 'T' forming the brow and nose of an otherwise mostly black hornet) flying around and capturing horseflies. The hornet, which looked very much like a horsefly, possibly as a form of 'wolf in sheep's clothing' mimicry, would take the captured fly back to a favorite perch on the edge of a horse trough, and would quickly and deftly strip it of wings and other appendages before consuming it.

Another memory brought on by the insect eating hornet happened about a month ago on a sunrise late in September. There was a small, sparce swarm of hovering insects of the sort that hover motionlessly in one place and then dart out periodically after smaller insects. While I'd always heard that hummingbirds ate insects to supplement their sugar diet, I had never, in my 65 years of hummingbird watching, seen a hummingbird eat an insect. With about a dozen of these 'hovercraft' insects gathered loosely in the morning sun, a hummingbird came zipping into the scene, darting up and down and back and forth, effortlessly picking off every one of the bugs, the hummingbird's tiny open beak and extended tongue visible due to the backlight of the morning glow.

It seems that many of my strongest memories are associated with the morning sun. Only in the early morning will you see the pink glow through the translucent ear of a jack rabbit. Only in the morning will you see many of nature's most delicate treasures. Later in the day you will never notice the vast network of sparkling spider webs often bejeweled with the morning dew. I believe my very earliest memory was associated with the morning light.

I would guess I was about four years old when my sister Sally taught me about Dust Fairies. A year older, Sally was my source for all worldly wisdom. Dust Fairies could only be seen in the early morning rays of sun that sliced from the window through the dim background lighting of the bedroom, leaving the shadow of the window pane frame elongated across the floor. The dust fairies could be seen dancing through the rays of light to the rhythm of the far away morning music barely audible in the distance. As soon as they floated out of the direct sunlight, they immediately became invisible. Sally would slowly move her hand through the dancing dust fairies and excite them into new patterns of dance.

Sally also taught me that dust fairies are magic and, while usually friendly, are very powerful and could be dangerous if upset. They could kill our whole family and even our parents if they wanted to. She was a skilled tormentor and I was her only target. Not wanting to take any chances, I mostly just avoided all slots of direct morning sunlight. In our house, with lots of east facing windows, this required many lengthy detours getting around in the morning.

Speaking of fairies, this last memory brings us back to recent times and another tiny bug hatch last spring. I was with my two, then three-year-old, twin grandchildren, James and Addie in their back yard. Once again, I initially thought the fuzzy little specks were some sort of plant fluff floating around. Closer inspection showed them to be moving independently and to have very subtle, pastel shades of pink and turquoise blue like those found in the sunrise. These tiny creatures could also be gathered on fingers by slowly waving a hand through the air allowing a better view of their magical colors. They seemed to be carrying away and dispersing the colors of the sunrise with the coming light of day. Daybreak fairies.

We seem to share an assumption that fairies all look like Tinkerbell. Having seen the awe and fascination in James's and Addie's eyes, I now have a better understanding of fairies and of magic.