Dear Jerry (if I may be allowed to speak personally),

Lucky you! to have seen these charmers. Thanks for sharing,
Carolyn


On Jul 21, 2012, at 6:37 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:

JM: additional echoes from ADa with VN's satire..
 
Van's eye over his umbrella crook traveled around a carousel of Sapsucker paperbacks (with that wee striped woodpecker on every spine): ...

JF: Speaking of echoes, I hope I'm allowed to post two pictures I took today near the Santa Fe Ski Basin (New Mexico) without a thought of Nabokov in my mind.  The first shows two immature Red-naped Sapsuckers.  The second shows a butterfly drinking sap from a hole in the bark of a willow; the sapsuckers may have made the hole and anyway they had presumably been drinking from it and eating insects attracted to it.  I believe the butterfly is a Red Admiral, not a common species around here.  Apparently they like sap.  (No doubt it makes a nice change from dead rabbit.)

For another Nabokovian connection, there's a Sapsucker Woods at Cornell.  The University has used it, under that name, for bird and other nature studies since at least 1957.

<http://books.google.com/books?id=mg4fAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Sapsucker+woods%22+Cornell>

(The sapsucker found near Cornell is the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, which the Red-naped has been considered conspecific with.)

Incidentally, considering both the ecological connection and the bold red and white markings, I wonder whether a thought of the Red Admiral flitted through Nabokov's mind when he put a sapsucker in Ada.

Jerry Friedman
jerry_friedman@yahoo.com for off-list replies
Google Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal" Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options Visit AdaOnline View NSJ Ada Annotations Temporary L-Soft Search the archive

All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.

<butterflyclose03crop.jpg><sapsuckers87crop.jpg>

Google Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal" Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options Visit AdaOnline View NSJ Ada Annotations Temporary L-Soft Search the archive

All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.