Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/16/2020

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Discovered some to go peanut butter in my pantry that are ‘best if used by’ April 2020 which prompted a snack of peanut butter and celery….and taking everything out of the pantry to see if there was more items that needed to be used promptly. There was some cocoa that should have been used by 2014 and some coconut flour by 2017…into the trash they went. The before and after shot of the pantry is below….it was a good ‘cleanup and out’ project for the day.

Continued “Life in the Universe Pandemic Series” videos from Dr. Charles Cockell – Is there life on Mars? And Will Samples from Mars cause a Pandemic?

Cooked pinto beans. I soaked them for a full 24 hours (part on the counter…then in the refrig) then cooked them in the morning and ate a small portion with some leftover stir fry chicken for lunch. Yum!

Learned about Anna Atkins’ Photographs of British Algae Cyanotype Impressions in a Europeana Blog post (one of my news feeds) and then searched to find an online copy. I was frustrated that the Internet Archive only had one print! It turns out that The New York Public Library Digital Collections has a digitized copy of the volumes once owned by Sir John Herschel. I enjoyed the first volume and added the others to my reading list for subsequent days.

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Watched the first Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden Home Safari…daily at 3PM EDT…for children but interesting for adults as well…the first video is about their young hippo Fiona. From their Facebook Page.

Went to dentist to get permanent crowns. I was worried about the temporary ones that I had for over 3 weeks coming loose/off at a bad time….having a painful dental problem when the office might be closed. So - I had a very short breach of social distance…but I decided it was worth the (slight) risk.

Overall, this is my 8th day of adhering to the low density, 6 feet rule (except for the dentist which was low density but could not always achieve the 6 feet separation)…stay at home as much as possible…hand washing with soap/not touching face. The last time I was at a place with more than 25 people in a room was 19 days ago. I’m beginning to realize that some of what I am doing now (like the more frequent hand washing with soap) might be on the way to becoming habits.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15

Chinese Mantis Egg Cases

Update: This blog post is about a visit to Robinson early in March. Like all Howard County Recreation and Parks facilities it is closed today as part of the strategy to slow the spread of COVID-19. Check the county web site for more information.

The dried grasses near the entrance of Robinson Nature Center seem to have a lot of mantis egg cases. They are easy to spot this time of year when the plants are dried and shriveled. The egg cases themselves look a bit like dried foam – about the same color as the grasses. But their shape is distinctive. It’s a Chinese Mantis egg case. The three egg cases I photographed were within a few yards of each other! There are going to be a lot of little mantises looking for food in that garden this spring since each egg case has 100s of eggs.

The species is not native, but it has been around in the US a long time. It was introduced in 1896 to the US and is now throughout the Northeast. It is the largest mantis in North America. It eats mostly other insects and spiders but has also been known to eat small reptiles, amphibians and even hummingbirds. I saw one eating a tiger swallowtail (dark morph) butterfly last July at Brookside Gardens

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/15/2020

I normally do a daily blog post…but during this time, I might do an extra post from time to time. Since I am ‘staying at home as much as possible’ to reduce our COVID-19 exposure (and potentially slow the spread of the virus), I have more time at home.

Normally this time of year I travel, get training for upcoming volunteer activities, and take day trips---as spring is unfurling. This year was no exception, but it all came to a screeching halt last week. So – what am I doing with this extra time at home? Fortunately, I have a house that I enjoy and there is a lot to do. If you are at home and getting a little low on ‘things to do’ maybe these extra posts will give you some ideas.

There are the usual things that I always try to work into my day (but don’t always succeed when I have a lot of other things going on):

• Zentangle (more than one)

• Breathing App (this is an smartphone app that provides tones for breathing – in and out – in a rhythm that people meditating achieve….I find it very relaxing for 15 minutes…better than a substantial nap and makes me even more focused on whatever I do afterward)

• Yoga (I’ve already built up my routine in the past week!)

• Browse through 3-4 books on Internet Archive and other online sources. (I like variety. Today I am still working my way through 1) The Vermont Life magazines – I am up to Autumn 2011; 2) Starting The English Home magazines; 3) Working backwards through the Quarterly Journal of the Audubon Society of Missouri – I am back to 2013 now…getting to know to birds found in the state where my daughter is living; and 4) Keeping in reserve the Internet Archive collection by or about Alphonse Mucha.)

• 12,000 steps (this one is a little harder being at home all the time although I am taking walks around the neighborhood or working in the yard on days that the weather is good)

• Pictures of birds at the feeder or birdbath – right now the feeder is empty because we are discouraging a hawk from frequenting our back yard and it’s been raining so the birds don’t need the birdbath as often

But what I am doing more than the usual today…what are some ‘different’ things that I did today to keep boredom at bay?

• Cleaned the foyer and kitchen floors. I don’t do this often enough.

• Dusted the top of all the door frames. It might have been over a year since I did it. They were dusty!

• Photographed the plum tree (once the rain was over). There were blossoms at different stages of development and the day was cloudy enough to avoid the harsh shadows of sunny days.

• Read a chapter in a physical book (I usually read online these days but have a stack of books I’ve been meaning to read for several years)

• Started soaking some pinto beans (the bag has been in the pantry for over a year, their ‘best if used by’ date was December 2020...I’m going to cook them to use in chili…we have plenty of time to do slow food!)

• Watched Are Viruses Alive? Video by an astrobiology professor from University of Edinburgh (recorded at home for his “Life in the Universe Pandemic Series”). I enjoyed his Coursera course several years ago.

What I am trying not to do?

• Eat more than usual

• Spend too much time looking at COVID-19 news and analysis

Mycology Class Remnants

Way back in the 1970s when I was working on my undergraduate degree in Biology, I took a mycology (study of fungi) class. It was one of the most memorable upper level courses in my undergraduate work…but it’s been a long time. The textbook, lab book and spiral notebooks are long gone. When I was cleaning out the basement (continuing projects during the ‘stay at home as much as possible’ strategy to avoid COVID-19), I found remnants of the course: some black and white negatives in protective sleeves – unlabeled. As soon as I looked at them, I knew they were microphotographs of the microscope slides I made during the mycology lab even though I don’t remember which species they are (some are penicillium species).

The negatives were somewhat deteriorated – maybe they were never crisply focused. I scanned them with my Epson V600 Photo Scanner then clipped the best portions of some of the frames and colored them blue in Microsoft Powerpoint. They have an abstract art look.

I remember that in the lab we inoculated growth medium (agar and other types), let the fungus grow onto the glass…then stained the fungus (methylene blue, I think) to make the filaments and fruiting structures and spores appear blue under the microscope. I would love to take a mycology lab course again….and take lots of pictures!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 14, 2020

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.  

Shrikes: Meet the Bird That Impales Prey on Spikes – The bird creates its “pantry” on barbed wire…other spikey objects. Gruesome…but it’s an adaptation that works for the bird.

The color of your clothing can impact wildlife - ScienceDaily – For water anoles – orange is better than green if you want to see the lizards!

We're Destroying Virgin Forests for Toilet Paper -- What Are the Alternatives? | CleanTechnica – Not good! We in the US are the biggest users…change is hard.

Why Clouds Are the Key to New Troubling Projections on Warming - Yale E360 – Fewer clouds as the planet warms? If so, we’ll heat up more because more solar energy will strike the planet. That’s what the most recent models are predicting and real-world data from satellites suggests that the modelers’ predictions may already be coming true. We’ll have less snow and ice around too to reflect solar energy back into space. It seems like we should make all sky facing manmade surfaces (like roofs) white or lighter colored (unless they are generating energy)…and look for other opportunities to reflect like clouds.

New Research Rewrites the Demise of Easter Island | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – There is mounting evidence that Easter Island people created the statues until at least 1750 – after contact with Europeans. And their population has been relatively stable since the 1400s. By the time the British explorer James Cook arrived in 1774 the statues were in ruins. By 1877, just over 100 people remained on Easter Island.

How do woodpeckers avoid brain injury? – Woodpeckers avoid concussions with some adaptions: 1) specialized skull bones, neck muscles, beaks and tongue bones 2) less internal fluid surrounding their brain to limit the motion of the brain during pecking. Interesting…and maybe can help devise ways to protect and heal human brain injuries.

Anti-solar cells: A photovoltaic cell that works at night -- ScienceDaily – Some research…potentially a way to balance solar power over the day-night cycle.

How did the last Neanderthals live? - BBC Future – From caves in Gibraltar….the insight that they were much more like us than we once believed: they exploited seafood and marine mammals (they could swim…hunted dolphins), wooly mammoths, woolly rhinos, ibex, birds (maybe used their feathers…particularly the black ones); they decorated walls and shells; their hyoid bone was like ours (which means they might have had speech like ours); they made tools of bone that were copied by modern humans.

Florida scientists study health effects from exposure to toxic algae - UPI.com – Blue-green algae toxins make people sick (liver damage/disease, skin rashes, headaches, trouble breathing) but does it cause disease when it is absorbed via breathing (i.e. airborne particles) during algae blooms? Fish kills are bad too. It’s good to research the topic but shouldn’t we do everything we can to prevent the blooms in the first place?

Researchers Find Cell-Free Mitochondria Floating in Human Blood | The Scientist Magazine® - Surprise! Now to figure out their function….

From the basement: pictures from house hunting in 1983

I’ve found boxes of old pictures I hadn’t looked at since we moved into our current house about 25 years ago in the basement during my increased time at home. It’s hard not to go off on a tangent and think about that history while I am scanning pictures (and/or the negatives). This post was prompted by pictures from when my husband and I moved from Texas to the east coast for new jobs in 1983. At the time there were house listings, but they were accessible only to realtors and they didn’t include any pictures. We had a week of house hunting paid for by our new employers and we were in the process of buying a house at the end of that week! We took pictures of the top contenders with a Polaroid as well as my husband’s Canon: the Polaroids to help us decide (not rely totally on our memory of each house while we were debating) and the others to develop after we got back to Texas so that we could make detailed plans on how we would arrange our furniture in the house when we moved in late June/early July.

The pictures of houses we didn’t buy are thrown away…and the ones I’m using in this post are the film photos (I was surprised that the Polaroids were still in good shape as well) of the house we bought. The house was about 30 years old and had some light remodeling. It’s the only house I’ve owned that had a gas stove…and no fireplace. It was my first house with a basement. The yard was the high point of the place: large oak and beech tress…mature boxwood and azaleas…raised beds on two sides of the back yard. The backyard had more moss than grass. It was like a green carpet. It was quite a change from the smaller trees and overall drier conditions in the part of Texas I was moving from.

My favorite aspect of the kitchen was the pantry!

OK – now I’m telling myself to get off this tangent and back to cleaning out the basement….

Early Morning Grocery Shopping

I left the house about 7 AM to do some grocery shopping having decided to ramp up supplies to 3 weeks so that I would always maintain at least a 2-week supply in my house until this initial wave of COVID-19 wanes. With daylight saving time in effect since Sunday, the sun was just rising. I took a quick picture through my car window before I turned out of my neighborhood.

I often shop early but this trip was a little earlier than usual. The store had been open for more than an hour but there weren’t many cars and I didn’t see anyone buying more than an item or two while I was there. They were out of hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, and foaming hand soap. I have some supplies of those items and have backup plans should they run low: regular household cleaners, liquid and bar soaps. We found some additional travel sized hand sanitizers that will last if we use them only when soap and water is not available.

The jarred spaghetti sauces were very picked over, but I managed to find a jar of my second choice. The same was true of non-dairy milk. I was in no mood to wait until the shelves were re-stocked.

I selected fresh veggies that like usually buy (this week it was cauliflower, celery, 3 kinds of potatoes, dandelion greens) and then some freezer veggies that I will keep in case there is a week or two that I don’t want to go to the grocery store at all (so no fresh veggies).

There was only one checker open when I was ready to leave….but no waiting. I loaded everything in the car by shortly before 8 AM. The parking area for the store was still relatively sparse; there were probably more employees in the store than customers!

Staying at Home as much as Possible

The CDC guidance for people at risk for serious illness from COVID-19 has changed over the past week. A few days ago, the first bullet basically said ‘stay at home as much as possible.’ Now that advice is the last bullet and it is only if there is a COVID-19 outbreak in your community. There are some disconcerting cases near where I live (a rector at a church and at person at a large conference) that are not travel related; I guess we will know in 5 or so days how contagious the individuals were. There does not appear to be a lot of testing happening in my area yet so it’s hard to know if there is an outbreak of not.

So - I am trying to chart a middle course….

I am in the higher risk group because I am older although I rarely get sick, so my main concern is for others close to me that are also older and have chronic conditions. I don’t want to be a carrier of COVID-19! At this point I am:

• Stocked up on supplies (food, household supplies)

• Avoiding crowds (when I do need go for groceries, going in the early morning; not going to classes; thinking more about ‘social distancing’)

• Not flying

• Washing hands frequently and practicing not touching my face during times I am out and about.

This is a change from the norm for me….but one that I am enjoying so far. The sudden shift to being at home more has me savoring the place….noticing the red maple blooming as I look out my office window,  cleaning out the basement, pulling weeds/grass in flower beds and noticing the bulbs planted out in the yard by squirrels. I’m getting a lot done that I have been meaning to do but never seemed to have the time available. I’ll be posting more about my ‘living in COVID-19 times’ over the next few day

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 7, 2020

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.  

Chasing Little Frost Trees in a Prairie Wetland | The Prairie Ecologist – We haven’t have many days for me to look for frost trees here in Maryland this year. This is always a matter of taking advantage of a frosty sunny day when it’s fun to look for interesting frost formations on exposed surfaces – grass – windshields, etc.

Stoneflies and mayflies, canaries of our streams – It’s great to see an article about the adult forms of the insects we collect as macroinvertebrates (larval form) when we do water quality monitoring either quarterly or with high school students on a field trip to a river.

Earthquakes in and around Yellowstone: How Often Do They Occur? – There are lots of them! About 5 that are strong enough to be felt have happened each year over the past decade.

Top strategies for successful weight loss maintenance-- ScienceDaily - Choosing healthy food, tracking what you eat and using positive self-talk….seems like common sense, but it is not ‘easy’ and so we struggle on. It comes down to making changes for the long term rather than just for a little while. New habits are always tough but, once truly habitual, become just the way be live our lives.  

Eero Järnefelt, painter of Finnish nature | Europeana Blog – Images of the natural world in the late 1800s. Koli National Park in eastern Finland was visited by the painter frequently.

Sustainable Farming Comes to America's Heartland | CleanTechnica – Iowa farmers…leading with their actions…responding to climate and environmental changes to farm better.

Can we heat buildings without burning fossil fuels? - BBC Future – Capturing heat from nearby places…using it for heating. It’s geothermal in the cities!

Bloom in McMurdo Sound – Green swirls in the water off Antarctica (some of the green color might be on the ice as well.

Camera Trap Chronicles: Cool Critters of New Hampshire – Maybe sometime  we’ll put our camera, currently pointed at the birdfeeder, in another location….see what comes into our backyard. I know we have deer but there could be other things as well. Our camera already picked up what looked like a racoon on our deck.

Top 25 birds of the week: groups of birds – Beautiful birds…a good ‘last addition’ to the gleanings list this week.

Robinson Nature Center - Inside

Last week, I was at Robinson Nature Center for my usual Sunday afternoon volunteering for the saltwater Touch Tank. It was a relatively busy day; there seemed to be more people in the room that usual when I started (I had one of the older children help me set up) and families seemed to just keep stopping by to see and touch the sea critters. The animals were tolerant enough of my handling and the children’s gentle (one finger) touches to still show off when they were on their own: the milk conch eating algae from the sand and the chocolate chip sea star holding firmly to the glass side.

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In the only lull of the afternoon, I took a few pictures of the new extension to the wall painting in the Discovery Room. My favorite is the sycamore trees in winter.

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The tulip poplar seed pods are in the scene too.

And then there are critters!

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There are some people sketched into the scene…maybe the painting will be further along next time I am at Robinson.

Cooper’s Hawk

I caught a flutter in my periphery vision – a bird flying away from house toward the forest. The morning has been very quiet at our feeder; I hadn’t been hearing or seeing any birds while I browsed through an eBook on my PC. Maybe this bird was the reason. It was in the Tulip Poplar tree at the edge of the forest – close enough for my camera’s zoom. I managed several pictures before it took off.

I could tell right away it was a hawk and based on its small size – either a Copper’s or Sharp-shinned. It didn’t appear to have a snack…so maybe the little birds had stayed out of harm’s way.

The head looked flatted on top (squarish) and the coloring on the top of the head was more like a cap. It’s hard to see the tail in any of my pictures but it’s probably rounded. All those details make the ID – a Cooper’s Hawk.

I saw one of these birds about a month ago too…flying across our yard and into the sycamore tree. If I see them too frequently, I’ll take the bird feeder down for a week or so…and hope the predator forgets the location.

Robinson Nature Center - Outside

Last week, I was at Robinson Nature Center on two sunny days. On the first day I was volunteering to photograph a public program (a class for adults teaching or volunteering young children). I took a few pictures of the building through the dried plants in the center of the circular drive

And some witch-hazel that was blooming near the water feature to the right of the walk into the nature center. The bright color of the witch-hazel stands out this time of year.

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I had gone to the training offered by Robinson to photograph for them….the types of photographs they need for grants, brochures, posters. It is a different kind of photography than I normally attempt – a lot of people in action…capturing the essence of a program. As part of the sign-up process for a public program, the participants sign a waiver for the center to photograph them during the program (and that was my assignment). It’s a new photographic challenge for me and I hope Robinson can use some of the results.

There was a short hike during the program and I took a few seconds to photograph some sights along the short trail rather than people. Skunk cabbage was coming up and blooming near the stream that flows into the Middle Patuxent nearby and

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Snowdrops were already blooming.

I couldn’t resist a picture of a tall snag (where piliated woodpeckers nested last year) – its the tall trunk with no branches a little to the right of center. Can you pick out the sycamores too?

The next day I was back for another volunteer gig – opening the saltwater Touch Tank for an hour. I got to Robinson early enough to do a little ‘cell phone’ photography.

I took a picture of the witch-hazel again. It’s interesting to compare this photo – which was taken with the camera close to the subject – and the images taken the previous day with the zoom on my point-and-shoot camera. Note the difference in the backgrounds of the two images.

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I was surprised at how many seeds were still on some of the plants that are milkweed relatives.

Both days were warmer days for February in Maryland…and wonderfully sunny.

Through my Office Window – February 2020

I wasn’t at home for the first part of the month, so the opportunities to see birds through the window were more time limited than usual.

The Downy Woodpecker seemed to be coming to the feeder more frequently. It was always a female. Usually I see them in the trees more than at the feeder, so I wondered if the insects were not as available (maybe because of the cold).

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The House Finches seemed more numerous at the feeder than last month. The males were ‘courting’ – providing a seed to their favorite female. They would occasionally accept another bird at the feeder – like a Carolina Chickadee. They were the birds most impacted by the visit of the bluebirds that we saw on the birdfeeder camera; it was only a short time but I’m sure they were relieved when the bluebirds did not stick around.

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Both the male and female Red-bellied Woodpeckers are active at the feeder periodically – not every day. They had to contort themselves to get the seed they wanted or if the seed was low. The Carolina Wren learned to get a snack from the opposite side of the feeder when the woodpecker was there.

These little birds were frequent visitors to the feeder – often the first ones there in the morning.

There was a Northern Mockingbird that sat on the deck bench on a wet morning. I don’t see them frequently around our yard and wondered if it was injured.

The White-Breasted Nuthatch was around – coming like a bullet to the feeder, getting a snack and leaving again…never sticking around for long.

The Northern Cardinals were around periodically but not as frequently as in January. I wonder if they are not building their nest in the usual place near our house…they’re coming from further afield.

I always am aware when the Blue Jays come (for water) since they are so noisy. I still enjoy seeing them.

The Dark-eye Juncos are still around. They are here in about the same numbers as previous years…our little flock.

And the Mourning Doves were around to clean up any spilled seed from the other birds that were digging through the seed in the feeder to find just the one they want…throwing the seeds they didn’t want onto the deck.

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Ten Little Celebrations – February 2020

So many things to celebrate in February…I’ve picked my top 10 that are in roughly chronological order during the month.

I started out the month in Carrollton, Texas.

Red Yucca. The seed pods always look interesting to me. I like their curves and points. The warm brown and burnt black colors.

Fried catfish and okra. Sometimes a high-fat splurge is OK….delicious.

A sunny and warm day. In February, the days are often gray and cold….so when the weather bucks the trend…it’s time to get outdoors to celebrate.

The Laredo Birding Festival was not that long…but there was something to celebrate every day.

Roadrunner. What a way to start a birding trip…seeing an iconic bird of the area at a rest stop before we even got to Laredo!

Great Horned Owls. We saw these owls on two days! What a thrill.

Sunrise on the Rio Grande. Celebrating the start of another day….the beauty of a river that draws life to a dry area.

American White Pelicans ballet. I had never witnessed pelicans feeding together in a coordinated way. They were synchronized and graceful…the joy of watching the natural world in action.

Audubon’s Oriole. Celebrating a colorful bird that just appeared while we were relaxing on a veranda after lunch.

And then we were home again.

A Day at home. I always celebrate being at home after I’ve been away. The view from my office window…fixing my own favorite foods…relaxing.

NISE Training. Robinson Nature Center provided a class on some kits they’ve purchased from the National Informal STEM Education Network. I enjoyed the gravity well (Exploring Universe Orbiting Objects) activity and hope there are opportunities to share it with visitors to the nature center. I also passed the information (here) along to my daughter since it had potential for physics related outreach activities her university does. So multiple reasons to celebrate this training!

Bluebirds at the Birdfeeder

On the day both we traveled to San Antonio and then on to Laredo (February 5th )– there was a flurry of activity at our birdfeeder between 2:15 and 2:24 PM back home. It was all captured by the camera on the birdfeeder. I’ve created a slide show of the images with the most birds from the video.

Eastern Bluebirds!!! As I watched the video – I was guessing there were 4-6 birds. I looked closely at the images and found one where there are 6 birds!

The bluebirds were in large enough numbers to chase away the house finches that kept trying to reclaim their feeder. In the end, the finches were forced to wait until the little flock of bluebirds moved on after their hefty afternoon snack.

Having a small flock come through our backyard in late January/early February is not unprecedented. In 2018 – our heated birdbath was the focus of the birds’ attention.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 22, 2020

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: February 2020 – Note the new website for these weekly posts: https://wildbirdrevolution.org/ ---The posts are still the beautiful bird pictures collected into a group for a weekly visual celebration of birds.

100% Wind, Water, & Solar Energy Can & Should Be the Goal, Costs Less | CleanTechnica – A short summary of a report with specifics for 143 countries…getting to 80% renewable energy by 2030 and completing the transition by 2050. Now to vote with that goal in mind for a livable future for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren….and onward.

LEDs, Downward Lights Changing the Night in Chicago - News | Planetizen – Chicago will complete the transition to energy efficient LED streetlights in 2021. They’ve calculated that it will save the city $100 million over 10 years. At the same time, they have made an effort to focus the new lights downward to cut light pollution. It’s too early to tell if that aspect of the project will be a success.

Vegetation Filters Harmful Particulates from Air--But How Much? | The Scientist Magazine® - It’s probably better to push for the transition to renewable energy (in school buses, for example) but where that is not happening fast enough – planting a green wall of vegetation can block pollution from school yards…which could reduce the impact of vehicle exhaust on children’s lungs.

Decline in Coal-Fired Power Reduces U.S. Carbon Emissions in 2019 - News | Planetizen – Good news…but it could decline more quickly. The 2019 results are from market forces alone. If there were political will, things would happen even faster.

Archaeologists Excavate 200 More Chinese Terracotta Warriors | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – The first terracotta warriors were found in China’s Shaanxi province in 1974. Now there is more excavation and more soldiers from the same tomb. All the warriors have unique expressions, hairstyle and physical features.

Organic crop practices affect long-term soil health -- ScienceDaily – This study looked closely at organisms in the soils…along with the impact of prior soil disturbance.

Recovery: A Plague of Bullfrogs – The Eastern part of the US is the native range for Bullfrogs…but they are invaders in the West. They are clearing native frogs and eating other animals too (ducklings are an example cited). So various municipalities and conservation groups are acting.

What We Can Learn From Ötzi the Iceman's Hunting Pack | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Ötzi was preserved for 5,300 years in a glacier until he was discovered in 1991. A lot has been studied since that time. He’s a window into Copper Age Europe.

Photography in the National Parks – More favorite spots for photography from Rebecca Larson. This collection included three National Parks I have not visited: Glacier, Olympic and Mount Rainier. Now I want to plan a trip to see them!

Laredo Birding Festival – Day 5

Day 5 of our Laredo Birding Festival experience was reserved for traveling home – not birding. We drove from Laredo to San Antonio in the morning to catch an early afternoon flight. We stopped at all three of the rest stops along that stretch of I35 and it was a very pleasant 3 hour ‘road trip.’

The first stop was the Laredo Travel Center – outside the city, well past the border checkpoint. It’s a welcome center with interesting architecture, colorful tiles, landscaping. I managed one bird photo with my cell phone: some grackles.

The second stop of the morning was at the Lasalle County Rest Stop – across the highway from the rest stop we had made on the way down to Laredo and very similar on the inside. I photographed another of the informational signs outside.

I also noticed one of the trees that I had seen on one of our birding trips – blooming this time of year: Mexican Olive or Texas Wild Olive! It is hardy enough to be used in highway plantings but only in south Texas!

The last stop was close to San Antonio – the Medina County Rest Area. We had decided to rearrange some things in the suitcases because we thought mine might be too heavy; it was sprinkling so we did everything quickly. The rest area is smaller than then other two – more like the Texas rest areas were years ago.

They had a mosaic of the Alamo; many of the older rest stops had mosaics of some local place; I wonder what happened to the mosaics as the new, larger rest stops have been built. This one had some topiary type trees; the grounds people making the place special with what is growing there!

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Laredo Birding Festival – Day 4

The last day of birding at the Laredo Birding Festival started with the van leaving the hotel at 6 AM! It was the earliest start of the festival, but we were accustomed to it by that time. The front of the hotel was alive with activity in the darkness.

Our destination was the La Perla Ranch, prized for its habitat and plentiful birds that thrive near its sensational water features. They had the name of the place on the chairs at the hunting lodge!

The first bird of the morning was a Great Horned Owl on an antennae. What a great start to the day of birding! The bird seemed to be very scrutinizing our van breaking the calm of the morning.

The sun was not quite above the horizon yet…I got a silhouette of a Crested Caracara through a fence. The bird has a very distinctive profile.

And then we arrived at the hunting lodge the ranch provides…the sun came up. I liked the ‘barn’ birdfeeder in one of the trees.

A Turkey Vulture sat hunched in the top of a palm. Others were soring overhead. Some wild turkey moved rapidly our of my camera range…I missed photographing them entirely.

There were quite a few Meadowlarks although almost out of range of my camera’s zoom. This is an area where the Eastern and Western Meadowlarks overlap. They have such minor distinguishing characteristics; I’m just saying the bird in this photo is a Meadowlark.

We did some walking around ponds. Most of the birds were far away.  Pied-billed Grebe are easy to distinguish from the Least Grebe (we saw both). My photo is of a Pied-Billed Grebe because it has dark eyes.

Just barely within the range of my zoom: a Green Kingfisher. The area south Texas along the Rio Grand is the only place to see this bird in the US. This one is female.

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Cinnamon Teal were also on the ponds. The coloring of the male is indeed ‘cinnamon’!

I didn’t get a great picture – but was thrilled to see and get a photo of Peregrine Falcon. All the other ones I’ve photographed were on man-made structures (like bridges).

Sometimes I just paused and looked around at the ranch – glistening water surrounded by dry areas… wildflowers. It was a wonderful place to spend the day.

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A Belted Kingfisher (female) surveyed the water from a dock on one of the ponds. We had seen a Ringed Kingfisher earlier on one of the larger ponds but I didn’t get a picture; I was surprised at how large it was.

How many birds can you identify in this picture?

The largest white bird is a Great Egret The smaller ones are Snowy Egrets.  There are two types of cormorants: the Neotropic Cormorants are the smaller and darker ones; the larger and lighter ones are the Double-crested Cormorants. In the foreground are Ruddy Ducks with their tails pointing upward.

For the last picture of the day – a parade of Egrets (the Great Egret bringing up the rear)!

Laredo Birding Festival – Day 3

Our next day at the Laredo Birding Festival had us boarding the van at 6:40 AM for the Max Mandel Municipal Golf Course for its stunning views of the Rio Grande River waterfront with over 270 acres of old growth mesquite tree and vast arroyos. We road around in golf carts (part of the adventure) staying out of the way of a morning tournament between two schools. The golf course structures were newish, but the course had been laid out to maintain much of the native vegetation along the river. We were there just after the sun came up. The morning was cold, and strands of moisture rose from the river. We had good river views all through the morning.

My first bird picture for the day was a Pyrrhuloxia. There is just barely enough light to distinguish the coloring…definitely not a cardinal.

As we headed over to where the golf carts were parked, I photographed some mistletoe….I liked its shape and density compared with the branches of the winter tree.

We paired up for the golf carts; I let my husband drive; it was a new experience for both of us since we are not golfers. The Red-billed Pigeon is just barely a US bird….and the golf course is known in the area as a good place to spot them.

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The Eurasian Collared Dove was also around. The birds were introduced in the Bahamas in the 1970s…were in Florida by the 1990s…and rapidly colonized most of North America.

We saw Great Kiskadees across the river…and finally saw one on the US side so we could include it in our count of birds seen at the golf course.

The couple in the golf cart in front us spotted some American Pipit foraging in a grassy area. I was glad we were directly behind them and stopped to get some pictures.

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The Yellow-fronted Woodpecker is not one that we see in Maryland. We saw several at the golf course and the sunny day made them easy to photograph.

We had lunch and a walk at the 180 Ranch – a little ways from the golf course along the Rio Grande. We did see some cows near a pond we stopped at on our way into the property.  

Lunch was at the hunting lodge; they had left some snacks for us; I enjoyed the only banana for the trip (they didn’t have any in the breakfast buffet which is my usual source of fresh fruit when I’m traveling). After the hike, we sat in the shade around the hunting large and observed birds coming to feeder and the brush surrounding a very lush (obviously watered) patch of grass. There were small flocks of Northern Cardinals foraging…similar to what we had seen the previous day.

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A Black Vulture posed for a portrait before taking off again to soar. The area also has Turkey Vultures as we do in Maryland.

There were several Pyrrhuloxia around as well. They were more cautious than the Cardinals.

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The Green Jays can be raucous. They are a challenge to photograph because their eyes disappear in to the black around their eyes.  

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The Audubon’s Oriole flew in as our group lounged in our comfortable chairs. Getting a photograph of it was the high point of the day!

Laredo Birding Festival Day 2

We were up at 4:30 AM to prepare for our day of birding at the Laredo Birding Festival. After a delicious breakfast buffet we boarded the van shortly after 6:15 AM and headed to the Yugo Ranch - currently owned and operated by 6th generation descendants of Ygnacio Benavides, who live by the same conservationist philosophy as their ancestor – where we would spend the morning and early afternoon. We parked the van near the ranch buildings, and everyone bundled up since it was a cold morning.

There was a Texas Ebony tree near where we parked. There were a lot of seed pods on the ground around the tree. The birds and other wildlife had already finished off the seeds.

All during the morning we saw Vermilion Flycatchers – the bright red attracting attention.

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Crested Caracara flew overhead and there were a pair in a tree just barely within the range of my camera.

When we made a loop back to the ranch buildings, I managed to photograph a wren which was easily identified later from the picture as a Cactus Wren. It seemed to be very interested in the chimney.

We drove out to look at some ponds on the ranch…and spotted a familiar bird: a Killdeer.

There were also Great Kiskadees like we saw several years ago during the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival.

There were groups of Northern Cardinals…a small flock. In our area of Maryland they are usually only seen in pairs or males contesting turf…the small flock was new to us.

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The high point of the morning was a Great Horned Owl. It was surveying the area from a tree growing on an island of the pond. It sometimes looked our way….decided our group was no threat at all.

Looking closely at the picture I took of a cormorant – I realize that it is a Neotropic Cormorant (rather than a Double-crested Cormorant) because the eye is surrounded by feathers rather than a bare patch of skin.

There was an American Wigeon just barely within the range of my camera zoom.

As we headed down the road in our van, there was a Curve-billed Thrasher in the road. I was ideally positioned to take pictures through the windshield of the van!

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Also on along the road, a Pyrrhuloxia was spotted. For this picture I had to contort a bit to get the picture through a side window.

We had been seeing Harris’s Hawks and I finally got a picture of two that were near each other on a telephone pole. This species hunts as a team!

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​The next stop was Ranchito Road Lagoons. The high point of the afternoon happened at this location: American White Pelicans feeding in unison. I had not seen this behavior before. It was like a ballet and they did it for the whole time we were at the location.  

A Black-necked Stilt and

Lesser Yellowlegs were feeding in the shallows.

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On the way back to hotel we stopped at the Laredo Landfill. It was very windy (dust and some trash flying everywhere) so we didn’t stay long. There were quite a few Cattle Egrets huddled together near the entrance. And lots of Chihuahuan Ravens that were closer to where we stopped. I later wished that I had walked over to get a picture of the Cattle Egrets since we didn’t see them in any other festival location.

What a productive day of birding around Laredo!