Gleanings of the Week Ending November 27, 2020

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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.

Iridescence - from archaeological glass to Art Nouveau – A little history of iridescent glass…how the effect is produced.

Photographer Captures Beauty of Starling Murmurations Across Europe – Awesome coordination of birds in flight. The starlings are not numerous enough in the US to create murmurations like this….but we did see flocks of tree swallows wintering in Florida that did.

New study reveals United States a top source of plastic pollution in coastal environments -- ScienceDaily and Plastic pollution is everywhere. Study reveals how it travels -- ScienceDaily – Plastic everywhere. We need to find a way to stop the waste.

Top 25 birds of the week: Plumage! - Wild Bird Revolution – Shots of color (I appreciated them more because it is a very cloudy day as I write this).

Into The Badlands Of El Morro and El Malpais National Monuments – Two places in New Mexico that I’ve visited several times…appreciated the pictures…reminder of how special these places are.

Which particulate air pollution poses the greatest health risk? -- ScienceDaily – Evidently the oxidative potential of particulate matter is key….wood combustion and metal emissions from brake and tire wear have higher oxidative potential, for example.

How to cut carbon out of your heating - BBC Future – A comparison of different types of heating…and other elements of carbon production related to heating where we live.

Wind & Solar Are Cheaper Than Everything, Lazard Reports – Great trend….now the market forces should push harder toward cleaner electrical generation.

The strange and surprising ways wild animals prepare for winter – The story starts out with bears but quickly moves on to animals not as well known for their winter preparations: moles, honey ants, chickadees, and snakes.

These Four-Foot Lizards Will Eat Anything—and They're Invading the Southeastern U.S. | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – The tegus, native to South America, and brought to the US as pets. They have roamed wild in southern Florida for a decade…and now are spotted around the southeastern US. It loves to eat eggs and thus is a threat to native species like quail, turkeys, alligators, and tortoises. The race is on to try to stop the invasion of this reptile.

Alfred East’s The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour

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I happened upon a book on Internet Archive I had browsed back in 2012 – The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour by Alfred East…and enjoyed the illustrations again.

I particularly enjoyed the ‘Studies of Effect’ series. Since I’ve done a lot more thinking about light as I’ve improved my photographic skills, I probably appreciated them more now than I did 8 years ago.

These days – there are other steps I typically take when I spot something of interest in Internet Archive – either the topic of the book or the author…or maybe just a single picture. I frequently look for the biography of the author in Wikipedia (and maybe follow some of the external links or references). Since East was a British artist, I did a search on The British Museum site and found 32 items! It’s awesome to be able to follow whatever questions I develop looking at old books; perhaps I appreciate the ease more since I remember heavy reference books and card catalogs…and being frustrated when the library didn’t have what I was looking for.  It’s very easy now to find an overwhelming amount of information.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Bald Eagle. As we were driving to put flowers on my mother-in-law’s grave (she died in 1990) on Thanksgiving morning, we drove by a historical manor house set well off the road with outbuildings. I noticed a white blotch near the top of one of the trees near the house. It was almost too far away to figure out what it was but when it moved, I realized it was a bald eagle. It turned further and took off as the light turned green and we moved in the other direction. What a great contribution from the natural world to add to our Thanksgiving!

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 21, 2020

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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.

Photography In The National Parks: The Redwood Forests Are Made For Vertical Shots – Botany (redwoods), photography (including two short videos), natural places…a great way to start the day or boost my mood any time.

Tarantulas: Color, Cancer and Cramps – I remember a tarantula on the sliding glass door of our house in Wichita Falls, TX when I was in my early teens…at eye level. Fortunately, it was on the outside and I was inside. It was about the side of the palm of my hand. This article talks about research on tarantulas; they are probably more interesting than scary!

The cheap pen that changed writing forever - BBC Future – A little history for the week. The ballpoint pen was unveiled on October 29, 1945 in the US. However – the first patent for a ballpoint pen was back in 1888. Laszlo Biro developed a practical ball point pen by perfecting the ink (different than ink used in fountain pens) and got a patent in 1938 in Britain but World War II came along, and he fled to Argentina. His pen was released in Argentina in 1943, but the pen was little-known outside of South America. Find out more from the article.

Biophilic Cities For An Urban Century – During the pandemic, I have appreciated where I live for its proximity to nature; I live at the edge of a forest and the 30 year old development has larger trees in the yards too. Turning our cities from gray to green would be different but there are reasons to make the choice to do it. The authors consider urban economics, environmental health, and ecology…and propose that going forward that we should actively design for biophilic cities. If cities were more like the first picture in this article (and all those cars below were electric) – they would be much more pleasant places to live!

Top 25 birds of the week: Wild Birds! – Can’t resist….I always enjoy the collection of bird photos every week…so include it in the gleanings list.

Slideshow: How Ecologists Study the World’s Apex Predators – Projects from around the world studying the impact of predators…using a variety of techniques.

New solar panel design could lead to wider use of renewable energy: Designing solar panels in checkerboard lines increases their ability to absorb light by 125%, a new study says -- ScienceDaily and Solar Panels + Agriculture: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet – Two articles about solar panels….we’ve seen more of them in the past few years…there are a lot of indicators that it’s only the beginning of the upward trend gaining momentum.

The Craters on Earth – They mapped 200 sites – high resolution topographic maps and satellite images…geological descriptions and photographs…details of each impact event. I followed the links and found that publication is available for pre-order here; the page provides the table of contents and additional sample images.

How Cowbirds raise their young, without raising their young – We had a group of cowbirds at our feeder one day this week. They seemed to be moving through rather than staying. There were some last spring as well, but I didn’t notice any cowbird chicks coming to the feeder like I have in previous years.

Plastic-eating enzyme 'cocktail' heralds new hope for plastic waste -- ScienceDaily – It appears that we are getting closer to a cost effective was to endlessly recycle plastic – which would dramatically reduce the need to produce plastic from fossil fuels. It’s also a good example of the benefit of collaborative research – international…multiple specialties…sophisticated (and rare) equipment.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Bosque del Apache Sandhill Cranes. We are enjoying the Bosque del Apache Crane Fiesta. It started out with a live video of the morning fly-out of the cranes. The recording is now available on the Facebook page of the refuge….remember to turn on your speakers to listen to the birds and enjoy the sunrise (it starts out before sunrise and runs for more than an hour)!

We’ve been to the area twice in November for the Festival of the Cranes and we always enjoy photographing the cranes (and snow geese) each morning. I simulated it by taking screen snaps as I watched the live video. Enjoy my little slideshow…but watch the video from the refuge’s Facebook to get the full effect!

Lincoln Memorial

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Internet Archive has the June 1923 volume of The Architectural Record – which has pictures of the Lincoln Memorial when it was relatively new, since it opened on May 30th, 1922. Note the small size of vegetation and open area around the monument. The area has changed in almost 100 years! Enjoy the pictures! (Note: In the first group of pictures, click on individual photos to see larger versions…the last one is the wall with the Gettysburg address.)

Jumping to 2020 - The Trust for the National Mall site has a live view of the monument from the top of the Washington Monument…looking down to the World War II Memorial and the reflecting pool toward the Lincoln Memorial and the Potomac / Tidal Basic. The area is a mix of vegetation, water, and monuments…with traffic of Washington DC on all sides. The area is an oasis from dense buildings but still embedded in the city. In the springtime, the cherry trees bloom in the area.

My husband and I are looking forward to being able to see the monuments again – post-pandemic. These pictures from 1923 are so detailed….I want to spend time photographing the monument again….and the other monuments that are nearby – Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., Vietnam Vets, Korean Vets, and the Washington monument.

30 years ago – November 1990

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30 years ago I was settling into working full time again even though the work assignment was still very much in flux; the first project was cancelled before it could really get started and I was closing down the work and looking for the ‘what next.’ Concurrently – my 15 month old daughter had acclimated herself to being at day care for the full day 5 days a week…was enjoying cheerios and spaghetti and bubble bath and light switches (not at the same time)…and we flew from Maryland to Texas to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family.

That flight was probably the first flight since she had become mobile; the flight was not full, and she enjoyed small toys and books I had packed to keep her busy on the plane. There was a child a couple of years older in the row behind us on the way down and that helped too; they interacted via the slight crack between the seats. She was still small enough that I could carry her in on my back (we only used the backpack frame for a relatively short time…but it really worked well for those few months); I maneuvered through the airport and onto the plane easily although I noted that contorting myself to get the backpack on and off without assistance caused me to be sore on the travel days.

At my parents’ house, the mulberry leaves had been mostly raked away – but there were still a few to catch the interest of my daughter.

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That was one of the few ‘quiet’ times of the visit. She and her cousin (the same age) did a lot together…enjoying the attention of aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

A very memorable experience happened for me that Thanksgiving Day. I was carrying may daughter into my sister’s house and I slipped in the entry way – almost falling backward. My mother saw the whole thing and commented that she was surprised that I was able to stand back up rather than just sitting down hard. I felt sore in my left hip a few hours later as I helped clear away the dishes after our huge meal. It didn’t bother me enough to see a doctor, but I’ve had some reduction in range of motion in that hip since then.

The day after Thanksgiving, my husband – who had stayed in Maryland – called with the news that his mother had died. I immediately changed my flight home to come back that evening. My daughter must have sensed my emotional stress or simply mimicked my subdued demeanor. She was very quiet…cuddled…then went to sleep on the plane. That weekend we took her with us to plan for the funeral and assess what we needed to do for her grandmother’s apartment. The real work and funeral happened while she was in day care the next week. We brought some of the flowers back to the house after the funeral and she looked at them over the baby gate. They were the only part of the funeral ritual she experienced…my husband pulled out one of the carnations for her to smell.

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And so – from November 1990 onward – we have a tradition of putting flowers at the grave on Thanksgiving or the day after – silk flowers or a wreath at Thanksgiving, fresh cut flowers for her birthday in June.

8 months in COVID-19 Pandemic

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It’s a challenge to stay vigilant with masks…handwashing…distancing from other people – but even more important now with the cases spiking all over the country. Maryland is back to numbers we haven’t seen since June and the trend looks like it will go higher. The metrics that were established to open restaurants and bars are now indicating that the capacity needs to be reduced…and the governor did that this week.

My husband and I got our first haircut of the pandemic in mid-October; our logic was to get it before the anticipated increase in cases as people began spending more time indoors….anticipating that our next haircut would be after we are vaccinated. Our timing was good based on what is happening now…just 3 weeks later.

The CSA ended the third week in October. That was my only weekly errand away from the house and it was one I enjoyed. I am considering some kind of outdoor foray that I can do every week --- someplace not far from home…but a change of scenery once a week. The end of the CSA impacts my grocery shopping as well. I’ve already started buying more produce; it will increase as I clear out the veggies I froze over the course of the summer. I’ll still be shopping every other week rather than my pre-pandemic weekly habit; I’ve discovered that every other week works well for me.

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After the CSA ended and I didn’t have a dusty gravel road to traverse, I got my car washed (drive thru) --- it’s a joy to have a clean car. It’s good for the winter now. I also bought gas – the first tank since January. So now I am back to charging the car and doing my driving as an EV. It was low risk since everything was self-service and I wore a mask just in case someone else pulled into the slot next to me; and used hand sanitizer after I got gas…and after I put the code in for the car wash. My car is probably set with fuel and maintenance until after the vaccination is available.

I had a porch full of stuff to donate. It feels good to get rid of items we no longer need. We also made a trip to the county landfill for some larger trash items and hazardous waste (large fluorescent bulbs). The charities and county facility are probably at lower capacity but functional at this point. Their processes for protecting their employees and the public are established.

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My husband and his doctor have changed his prescriptions from mail delivery to pickup at a local pharmacy based on the challenges with timely delivery from the postal service in our area. I’m not sure if this is related to the pandemic at all…but it is all happening at the same time. There are layers of anxiety that sometimes are separate…but tend to meld together over time, stretching our ability to cope with more and more and more.

We made a field trip to Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant for birding. It was outdoors, small group, distanced, mostly masked. It was OK…but now that the cases in our state are spiking, we might not do something like that again. We can still go to places like that but just on our own.

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There were joys of virtual events over the past month. My favorite was the Hawaii Island Festival of Birds. It was good for the moment…and gave me ideas about the future…things I want to do post-pandemic.

It’s fall. We thought we would take some fall foliage drives but we missed the peak so the main fall activity has been mowing leaves in our yard! Still – the continuity of the natural cycle is something that buoys my spirits.

Right now, I am aware that there are multiple anxieties beyond the pandemic. After 8 months – the pandemic is the one I am coping with the best; I know how to reduce my risk and I have developed habits that are easy to maintain because they incorporate activities in my every day activities that are joyful…it is easily sustainable until the vaccine is available.

My hope for the next few weeks is that several of the other anxieties will reduce dramatically (since I have not discovered good ways to cope with them – who would have guessed that the transition from one US President to the next would be so fraught) and that we’ll be settling in for Thanksgiving and then Christmas with lots of virtual interactions with far flung family and the usual good food/decorations…savoring home and health…looking forward to a post-pandemic sometime in 2021.

9th Anniversary for my Blog

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I started my blog on November 11th, 2011.

The very first post was about making Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins. Maybe I’ll make the recipe again this year. Brookside Gardens and Longwood Gardens had wonderful displays for fall gourds and squashes that year. I was doing some photography then, but a good portion of the blog posts weren’t illustrated. Now the majority of posts have a illustrations and sometimes the topic is the illustrations themselves.

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Travel has continued to be a blog topic all along…which has made this year different from all the preceding ones; it’s been a year dominated by being ‘at home.’ The most frequent destinations in previous years were where my family lives – the Dallas, TX area for my sisters and parents….and then a sequence of places for my daughter: Tucson, AZ for grad school, Pittsburgh and State College, PA for post doc, and Springfield, MO for faculty position. During some of the years I travelled with my sister…to South Carolina, Tennessee, and Rhode Island. My husband and I discovered Birding Festivals as a travel focus beginning in 2016 with Bosque Del Apache’s Festival of the Cranes. As soon as the pandemic wanes (probably with the wide availability of a vaccine), we’ll be traveling again and the blog will pick up that thread again.

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Books have also been a blog topic all along. The trend has been toward eBooks which are now about all I read. The botanical eBooks list has grown to over 2,000 volumes at this point and is still growing! I’ve become more interested in images of all kinds – photographs, paintings, etching, sketches – and I appreciate viewing them online rather than in a museum or physical book; I like to take my time, sometimes enlarge a particular portion of the image, view them on just about any device and almost anywhere!

I have made pattern-like doodles for as long as I can remember, and they have been part of the blog posts for most of the 9 years. Now they follow the Zentangle tile process – most of the time. I’ve diverged in several ways and that will change over time. At present I am making tiles in black ink with the idea of coloring them….adding white highlights as the last step. I am not using a pencil at all (for strings or for shading).

Gleanings have also been in the blog for most of the 9 years. My feeds have changed slightly but are still skewed toward science related topics. One trend I noticed is that the solutions to address climate change have matured over the past 9 years. There are a lot of effective technologies available to choose from (see Project Drawdown) – which add some hope to an otherwise dystopian future for the Earth and humanity.

My outdoor volunteering ramped up over the 9 years and I enjoyed writing about it…then that aspect of life came crashing down with the pandemic. I am hopeful about it starting again sometime in 2021. Giving back to the community, interacting with schools on field trips and people visiting Brookside’s butterfly exhibit is a joy I’ve missed in 2020.

I’ve been in my same home office for the entire 9 years and the view through the window is always fabulous – out to the bird feeder/bath on our deck and back into the forest. The view is inspiring and pictures I take through the window often make it into blog posts. Probably my favorite sequence is of bluebirds bathing from back in February 2018. I collected a sequence of ‘through the window’ pictures from 2012 through 2019 for the slideshow below. The feeder was added in 2015 which was a big attraction for November birds. I also noticed that the zoom on my cameras improved over the time period!

The very first post about little celebrations was back in August 2012 and then I started the listing of 10 each month in September 2012. Noting the joys of life is one of the ways I keep myself optimistic…which I’ve needed more than usual in 2020. Stream through the ‘celebration’ posts via this link.

The blog continues on….documenting my post-career journey. These pandemic and political upheaval months of 2020 have probably been the most unusual – and anxious - of my life; I am looking forward to the new year and documenting the events that unfold – finding celebrations.

Mt. Pleasant – November 2020 (part 2)

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The Davis Branch was serene as usual in the rocky beach area. A family with children was at the water’s edge so I focused more on the shed with beech trees still retaining a few leaves, the upstream and downstream view, and the path up the hill.

I noticed that the treey with the damaged trunk (maybe from a lightning strike) had been cut at the top. Or perhaps the top fell and it was the sawed pieces that I photographed were facing the path.

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A path that was mostly grown over last year at this time is now a clear track…maybe a little too close to the stream, but everyone likes it too much to close it off. I enjoyed some colorful leaves along the way back toward the stone wall.

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There is now a new bridge across the Davis Branch! I had missed that news and found it by accident. There are riffles right at the bridge then deeper water. I hope the little trees planted around the bridge survive. It is a great vantage point now and will get better as the trees get bigger.

Overall – our little field trip to Mt. Pleasant was too short to do everything. Maybe we’ll go again some weekday morning ….when there will be fewer people around.

Mt. Pleasant – November 2020 (part 1)

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Our second field trip of the pandemic – birding at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant. We met the group at the Robbins Skywatch – distancing and wearing masks - to watch for hawks flying over. It was not an optimal morning with calm sunny weather. In terms of numbers we saw more vultures and crows than hawks…and the high point – for me – was a raven. I wasn’t trying to get pictures of the birds…felt lucky enough to track them with my binoculars.

I took some pictures from the vantage point of the skywatch: horse nettle fruits,

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Fall foliage across the meadow and on the other side of the Davis Branch,

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And some new houses that have been built in the past year or so (they change the feel of that area of the meadow for me…I prefer areas of the conservancy where surrounding development is not visible).

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I took a break to walk down to the Davis Branch ‘beach’ area (more about that area tomorrow). Along the way I started taking pictures of seeds spilling out of seed pods.

I walked across the meadow on the path where the chunk of quartz was taken out of the path to keep it from damaging the mower – has been just to the side of the path since. The indentation where was until a couple of years ago has almost filled in now.

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On the way back to the car I noticed that there are new doors on Montjoy Barn.

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I also walked around the other areas near where we had parked…taking in scenes from previous falls when I volunteered to hike with elementary school field trips: the old farm house,

The leaves under the gingko tree in the picnic area,

The witch hazel blooming in front of the Gudelsky Environmental Center.

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And then we were heading home after a pleasant fall morning at Mt. Pleasant.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

The sound of fall leaves. I ate lunch outdoors on our covered deck…listening to the leaves. The ones still on the trees are getting drier… and they make a different noise as they bump into each other than spring or summer leaves. They are the wind chimes of nature this time of year.

Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge

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E. A. Wallis Budge worked for the British Museum from 1883 to 1924 and published many books about Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities…many of which are now available online via Internet Archive. I’ve enjoyed browsing through them over the past month or so and have selected some of my favorites to feature with sample images below. I’m always a little surprised at how much was already discovered by the late 1800s/early 1900s….and that there are still new finds in the region every year (when the frequent wars/political upheaval don’t get in the way). Of course – our understanding of these artifacts has increased over time; it’s wise to keep in mind when the books were written/published.  Each book title is a link to the book on Internet Archive. Enjoy

Books on Egypt and Chaldaea

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Gleanings of the Week Ending November 7, 2020

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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.

Taking the measure of sea level rise - ocean altimetry, land motion, ice height, gravimetry – NASA missions that measure some aspect of sea level rise…there is a lot to work to measure and analyze – to better understand that is happening.

Health Care Facilities Maintain Indoor Air Quality Through Smoke and Wildfires | U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit – Some of the HEPA filters purchased for the pandemic were available and were used to keep hospitals operational in areas where the outside air was smokey. Are we going to need this type of filters in our homes as well – for air quality more than the pandemic?

Top 25 birds of the week: Seabirds – Beautiful birds…from all around the world.

From Palmyra to the Pacific: Realigning a Rainforest – Cool Green Science – An atoll 1000 miles southeast of Hawaii…marred by human intervention…now owned by The Nature Conservancy…inspiring the creation of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument in 2008. Restoration is ongoing to maximize Palmyra’s resilience to climate change: eradicating black rats, realigning native rainforest (not restoring because what was there originally is unknown), and reintroducing native bird species.

Red maples doing better in the city -- ScienceDaily – Hurray for red maples. The study was done in Philadelphia which is a couple of hours from where I live….and I have a health red maple in my back yard!

Deformed Beaks: What We Know About An Alarming Bird Disease  - Avian Keratin Disorder (AKD) which might be caused by a poecivirus. The birds in the article are from Alaska but some are species we have hear in Maryland too. Hopefully, this is not a disease that will become widespread.

Top US States for Percentage of Electricity from Solar – Even states that aren’t normally viewed as ‘high sun’ are near the top of the list! This chart will probably change a lot over the next few years as more and more utility companies and individuals transition to renewables. Government can help but it is quickly becoming the more cost-effective path forward…market forces will drive the transition.

Scientists Discover New Human Salivary Glands | The Scientist Magazine® - Tubarial glands…what a surprise that they haven’t been discovered previously!

Floating gardens: More than just a pretty place -- ScienceDaily – It is a small experiment…but there was measurable nitrate reduction by the garden….maybe it is something that could be scaled to reduce accumulation of nitrate (from agricultural and yard runoff) that causes algal blooms.

Largest Arctic Expedition Ever Comes to a Close | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – The Polarstern, a German research vessel, is back in port after spending a year drifting with the ice floe across the Arctic. It will take 2 years to fully process all the data collected but the initial assessment of the Arctic environment is summarized as grim: ice gone in places it should be meters thick.

eBotanical Prints – October 2020

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20 new items added to the collection in October and, like September, they are all volumes of Annals of Botany. The Biodiversity Heritage Library has the volumes fully available from 1888 (when the publication started) until 1923; the access page has a pull down to select the volume of interest. I finished the series in October and am thrilled to be looking at some very different individual works already in November. By the end of the series, it seemed like I needed to just slog through to the last one. The images in the Annals were for research and I found myself looking at them more as starting points for Zentangle pattern development than as botanical prints.

The whole list of 2002 books can be accessed here. Sample images and links for the 20 new ones are provided below. (click on the sample image to see a larger view). Enjoy!

Annals of Botany V20 (1906) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1906

Annals of Botany V21 (1907) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1907

Annals of Botany V22 (1908) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1908

Annals of Botany V23 (1909) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1909

Annals of Botany V24 (1910) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1910

Annals of Botany V25 pt1 (1911) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1911

Annals of Botany V25 pt2 (1911) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1911

Annals of Botany V26 pt1 (1912) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1912

Annals of Botany V26 pt2 (1912) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1912

Annals of Botany V27 (1913) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1913

Annals of Botany V28 (1914) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1914

Annals of Botany V29 (1915) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1915

Annals of Botany V30 (1916) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1916

Annals of Botany V31 (1917) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1916

Annals of Botany V32 (1918) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1918

Annals of Botany V33 (1919) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1919

Annals of Botany V34 (1920) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1920

Annals of Botany V35 (1921) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1921

Annals of Botany V36 (1922) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1922

Annals of Botany V37 (1923) * Balfour, Isaac Bayley * sample image * 1923

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 31, 2020

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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.

What’s That Cloud? Your Guide to Cloudspotting – A little tutorial. Maybe a prompt to do some cloud photography too.

This white paint keeps surfaces cooler than surroundings, even under direct sunlight -- ScienceDaily – I remember being at White Sands National Park on a hot day and walking on the sand barefoot (i.e. the sand was not hot!). Hopefully the architectural norms will begin to shift toward white roofs and then durable paints/shingles will be readily available to make it affordable. The heat islands of cities would be reduced…which could be helpful now and an increasing benefit as climate change continues.

Google Maps Gets More Electric-Car Friendly – Android Auto (not the phone app) adding features.

Top 25 birds of the week: Land-birds - Wild Bird Revolution – Enjoy bird images!

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully touches asteroid -- ScienceDaily – We went down to Florida for the launch back in 2016 so I try to at least scan articles with updates. The sample is now safely stored away and will be heading back to Earth…arriving in 2023.

Why older people are harder to vaccinate - BBC Future – What vaccines can do…what they might not do. For example – did you know that the flu vaccine reduces disease but does not do much to reduce transmission because a vaccinated person can still shed virus particles?

Black Witch Moths: A Night-Time Trick or Treat – Because it’s Halloween….it will be a very quiet one this year with the regular form of trick-or-treating called off in our area.

The rats evicted from paradise - BBC Future – A positive result for humans correcting a problem we caused….only able to succeed because of the resilience of nature (and because we corrected before it was too late for recovery).

Flowers Are Changing Color in Response to Climate Change | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Adjusting UV pigmentation to protect themselves (rising temperatures/thinning ozone)…maybe confusing pollinators.

Nature Nerd Trivia: Wild Canids – Dog relatives from around the world.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Firsts for the season at our deck. We saw our first Dark-eye Junco for the season. A small flock has spent the winter in our area – frequently visiting our feeder – for many years. We think they go to the Appalachians/Alleghenies for the rest of the year rather than the far north.

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I finally managed to get a picture of a Red-breasted Nuthatch enjoying the seed spilled under our feeder. There were other times recently that I thought I saw one but was never fast enough with my camera.

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Hawai’i Island Festival of Birds Swag pack arrived. It took more than 10 days for the small envelope to get from Hawai’i to Maryland. I don’t know for sure how long it took because there was no postmark. I will use the field notebook (upper left, a nice fit for one of my photo vest pockets) and the magnet (lower right) is already on our refrigerator to remind us of the virtual festival…and we’ll sign up to go to the festival when it is held ‘in person’!

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Marguerite Henry

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I was browsing through children’s books available on Internet Archive and encountered a familiar name: Marguerite Henry. My family discover her Misty of Chincoteague book back in the 1990s when my daughter was at the perfect age to enjoy the story; during one of our visits to Chincoteague, we purchased a set that included the book and some of the sequels. One that I had not seen before was A Pictorial Life Story of Misty. It can be borrowed for an hour from Internet Archive…and since it is mostly pictures…that’s plenty of time to browse through it.

The author wrote a lot of other books and quite of few of them are available on Internet Archive – mostly for an hour checkout and, if there is another copy available, it will show as available for a 14 day checkout after it has been initially checked out for an hour.

One of my favorites of these ‘other’ books was Brighty of the Grand Canyon.

I also enjoyed Auno and Tauno – a Story of Finland – which was one that was available without checking out. The illustrator was Gladys Rourke Blackwood who, according to Wikipedia, illustrated some other Henry books.

The stories are dated at this point…but I enjoy the historical perspective – directly from the book and thinking about children enjoying the books when they were written and for 20+ years after. Misty of Chincoteague was published in 1947 – and my daughter and I were enjoying it in the 1990s and I assume the book is still stocked in books stores around Chincoteague! It has remained ‘current’ because the Pony Penning depicted in the book still happens annually.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

A wet day. There was a lot of rain from Zeta in Maryland on Thursday. There were flood warnings from 11:30 AM to 5:30 PM; we didn’t get out and our neighborhood had no flooding, so it didn’t impact us directly. And the wind was not bad either. We still have a few leaves on our trees.

Ten Little Celebrations – October 2020

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When I wrote the blog post about October 1990, I realized what a happy month it had been and now looking back at October 2020 and the things I recorded as little celebrations…the same is true. Maybe October is always my favorite month of the fall….lots of things that make me happy in this transition time of the year.

The celebrations that are could happen in any October:

The grand finale of the CSA season. The abundance of the last weeks of veggies from the farm….I have a freezer full to enjoy well into November…plenty of winter squash puree to make Thanksgiving dessert and breads and soups (maybe not all for the same meal). It happens every year….the celebration of the bounty.

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Conwingo outing. We didn’t know about the bald eagles congregating at Conowingo dam 30 years ago, but now that we do…there is almost always a trek to the place every October. Even if it isn’t a great day for lots of eagles (which it wasn’t this year)…we celebrate the field trip. This year it was appreciated even more because field trips have been such a rarity for us this year.



Fall leaves. Yes – cleaning up the leaves and acorns is a fall chore…but it also is a joy: the colors, the textures, the breeze made visible by leaves wafting from the treetops. The trees in our yard and in the forest behind our house fill our views; I’m realizing that I am celebrating the extra time I’ve had this year to observe them. Home has become more special during this pandemic year.

Wild turkey in our back yard. I missed it – but my husband saw it. He said there may have been more than one, but he only saw one clearly. We’d heard that there were wild turkeys in the forest but had never seen any until a few day ago. I am celebrating that they really exist…and hoping they return so I can see them too.

Flowers still available in the cutting garden. I thought the cutting garden might fade before the CSA ended…but it didn’t. I love having cut flowers in my office and on the island in the kitchen. Seeing them is an automatic mood brightener. Now I am beginning to realize that the strawflowers will last long into the winter – dried and arranged on a blue glass plate they remind me of water lily flowers.

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Letting go of more stuff. Cleaning out stuff that has collected in over 25 years we’ve lived in our house is tough. But I managed a big pile that I donated (picked up from our front porch) and am working on another. It feels good to clean out the house…particularly if it is something others could use.

And then there are the celebrations that are unique to 2020:

Cape May Fall Festival (virtual). I celebrated the whole festival of videos but particularly the roving reporters at the morning flight of songbirds. It would be wonderful be there some future year to see it in the field.

Hawai’i Festival of Birds (virtual). When I first discovered that the festival was going virtual, I thought it was a great opportunity because I probably would not make the trek to the Big Island again….but now I’m wavering…leaning toward making the trek for the festival and to see how things have changed since we were there in 2015. Maybe next year…or the year after. It’s an opportunity to celebrate an environment very different than the one where we live.

Telephone conversations with family. I normally take telephone conversations for granted…they happen often enough. During this pandemic year when I am not traveling to visit with my family, phone conversations have increased in importance….worthy of celebration.

Voting. In years past, we voted but it wasn’t something that made it to my little celebrations list and we usually did it on election day. This year we requested a mail-in ballot and returned it to a drop box….and checked the online site to track that it was received and accepted/counted. Voting is a celebration this year because of the challenges the country is facing on many levels….and a heightened awareness on our part of how much it matters.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Old monitor heading off to a new home. I’ve had my old monitor mostly idle for the past year – since I got a new one – and finally found a way to give it a new home. There was an article in the Baltimore Sun about a teacher in our area trying to find monitors for teachers that need a second monitor as they forge ahead teaching virtually. I sent an email letting them know I had one to donate and someone came to pick it up! I’m thrilled to let it go!

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 23, 2020

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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.

Painless paper patch test for glucose levels uses microneedles -- ScienceDaily – A technology (microneedles) looking for a problem to solve (prediabetic testing). So far - it’s just a lab exercise but they were readying for human trials. They didn’t explain why it was focused on pre-diabetic testing and not for diabetics.

Top 25 birds of the week: Non-migratory – Beautiful birds…always a visual treat.

These are some of America’s most beautiful urban parks – The one in Greenville, SC looked very non-urban!

Food mechanics recipe to serve up healthy food that lasts -- ScienceDaily – Basic research in plant-tissue response to heat and drought…preserving food through drying.

Doing Something About Global Warming Is Cheaper Than Doing Nothing – I selected a series of gleaning for this week that are focused on various aspects of climate change – with a mix of perspectives. This is the first one. For the pure capitalists…this one makes the argument for action in their terms. This first article came out back in September…so it is a little dated…but still makes some good points.

The daring plan to save the Arctic ice with glass - BBC Future – Do we want to consider Geoengineering?

40% of O'ahu, Hawai'i beaches could be lost by mid-century -- ScienceDaily – Sea level rise…and our response to it.

6 Graphics Explain The Climate Feedback Loop Fueling US Fires – Some good graphics about the fires on the west coast of the US. In recent days, fires in Colorado have been added to the news. At a time when forests sequestration of carbon is important for the health of the planet….the fires are reversing that benefit.

Natural Debate: Do Forests Grow Better With Our Help or Without? - Yale E360 – Hurray for natural regeneration – unless the land is too degraded for that to be possible…then our help is needed.

The Best Places for Solar Power If You Want to Clean The US Grid – Where investing in solar power would do the most toward reducing grid emissions…by state.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

A busy morning. The only extra activity I’d planned yesterday morning was to get my car washed since the dirt road into the CSA is history for the year. The car is cleaner (at least on the outside) than it has been for months! The weather was so great when I got back that I swept the leaves from the driveway, street gutter, and deck onto the yard so that the mower would mulch them when my husband mowed later in the day. When I got back inside – I noticed my husband had called from the vet parking lot saying his battery was too low to start his car (and the vet had resolved the cat’s bleeding claw issue)….so I was off to help that car situation. We managed to get home just in time to cook lunch. The level of activity was greater than any recent morning (months and months of mornings!) …and I felt a little discombobulated! I’ve begun to enjoy the pace of pandemic life!

Browsing Old Architectural Record Volumes

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Browsing through The Architectural Record volumes from the late 1800s and early 1900s available on Internet Archive, there are some articles that capture my attention – for example, two articles about Frank Lloyd Wright. The first one is in the volume for 1908 which features the Dana House (along with other houses and a building). The architecture still looks ‘modern.’ For some info about the Dana House today: Frank Lloyd Wright Trust and Dana Thomas House Foundation.

The second article was in the January-July 1913 volume – about Wright’s studio-home in Wisconsin. Enjoy the slideshow of the exterior of the place. For info about the place today see the Taliesin page on the Wright in Wisconsin page.

Another series of pictures I noticed were exterior pictures of the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina (starting at page 154) in the 1895-1896 volume as introductory picture series to the article “The works of the late Richard M. Hunt” – the architect of the house. The landscape was ‘new’ around the house when the pictures were taken. For information about Biltmore today, see Biltmore Estate website and the Wikipedia page.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Going for groceries in the foggy dark. It’s that time of year – at 6:15 AM it is dark. Add the fog and the short drive would have been disorienting if the route were unfamiliar. I was worried about not seeing a deer at the edge or in the road before it was too late – fortunately, I made it to the grocery store without incident. I have skewed my grocery shopping time an hour earlier during the pandemic…so I am going to be ‘in the dark’ starting out for groceries for months. It was lighter on the way home, but the fog was still around.

Ballot ‘accepted.’ I checked the website for the status of the ballot I put in the drop box on Oct. 5th and it shows that it is ‘accepted’ – which means that it’s been counted! It’s great to get confirmation that I voted successfully.

Haircut. My last haircut was in January, so it was long overdue. There were a few people allowed into the shop (no waiting area and appointments only), the doors were open (outdoor temperature was pleasant), and everyone wore masks. I chose not to get a shampoo, so my hair was just sprayed to wet it…and then it was cut. My husband got his haircut at the same time. We were done in about 20 minutes. My husband gave a tip that doubled the cost of our haircuts…reasoning that the workers are still trying to bounce back from the shop being closed for 3 months.

Images of Bridges – October 2020

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I gleaned paintings/photographs of bridges from the slideshow collections I enjoyed from Internet Archive back in June….as a themed perspective into 8 artists. Clicking on the artists name will access the slideshow on Internet Archive (i.e. more than just bridges!).

The artists were capturing moments of the world in which they lived. Bridges are part of the architecture they observed. The materials were varied – stone, steel, concrete, wood – depending on the time, place, and function of the bridge. I noticed that the bridges were either empty or painted with people (except for one that includes cattle and a man riding a horse). In one a person is walking in the rocky creek under the bridge.

Enjoy the color and beauty of these bridges!

Gustave Caillebotte (1848 - 1894)

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Hawai’i Island Festival of Birds

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Wow – 5 days of the virtual Hawai’i Island Festival of Birds. Like the other virtual festivals we’ve seen….I want to go to the Hawai’i festival some year…the sooner the better! When we travelled to the big island in 2015, it was before we’d been to any birding festivals and I took only a few (poor) pictures of birds.

When we go back – I’ll be more prepared after having the experience of this virtual festival. My cameras (and photographic skills) are better than in 2015 too.

The sessions were pre-recorded and not as lengthy some of the other festivals. This was the only festival where native names and language (Hawaiian) were an integral part of the festival.

I listened to all the sessions…even the ones that were readings of books for children about Hawaiian birds….and I learned something from them all.

Day 1 was the longest because I also watch the two virtual field trip sessions:

  • An interview with the authors/photographer for the Field Guide to the Birds of Hawai’i…how it was put together and introducing a topic woven throughout the conference - the extinctions of native birds and actions to help the surviving species

  • Natural history and status of Hawaii’s seabirds….the impact of sea level rise on Midway Atoll where 91% of seabirds nest in Hawaii…and translocation projects to higher islands (islands within islands to keep mammalian predators out of nesting areas). Pacific Rim Conservation

  •  A Virtual Tour of Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge…only place in Hawaii where native forest birds are stable and increasing…We’d get a guide or go with a tour group from the festival when we go. Birds are hard to see in the forest!

  • A Virtual Tour of Kaulana Manu Nature Trail … newly opened…off the saddle road on the big island. There is good signage and it’s something we could do on our own. There was a decontamination station for cleaning boots; there is a fungus that causes Rapid Ohi’a Death…a tree that many native birds depend on.

  • The status of eBird, Merlin, and Community Science in Hawaii….I need to remember to load Merlin’s Hawaii pack before we go!

  • Choosing the best binocular for You!...some binoculars have a short enough minimum focus distance that they can be used for butterfly watching; I quickly decided that, for me, I’d rather use my camera’s zoom to get close images of butterflies rather than watching them through binoculars. But – I did hear about Insect Shield Scarves…which might be something to have for warm weather birding!

Day 2:

  • Marvelous Moli…The albatross…The speaker wrote a book – Holy Moli….If we want to see them on nests we’ll have to go to Kauai. Maybe the festival will have a field trip for that.

  • Kolea…Pacific Golden Plover…learned a lot about how tagging has evolved over the years and how sophisticated tagging has shown how long and exact their migration is. The book by the speaker found here.

  • Hula and storytelling….listening and watching…like a meditation

  • Albatross of Kauai, the story of Kaloakulua…a particular Laysan Albratross from 2013/2014 season

Day 3:

  • Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument…a big place…not sure how we would ever be able to visit

  • Garbage guts…a children’s book about plastic garbage in the sea and a Laysan albatross

  • Tracking the endangered ‘Akiapola’au…with transmitters and receivers in the Pu’u maka’ala Natural Area Reserve. I remembered that my daughter and I walked around part of that reserve in 2015. I didn’t photograph any birds, but I did take one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip just as we left the fenced area heading back to the car – a camellia among tree fern fronds

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Day 4:

  • Albatross…doing nest counts….they live very long lives (there is a female that was tagged in 1956 on Midway Atoll that is still producing healthy chicks there!)…World Albatross Day was June 19, 2020

  • A Perfect Day for an Albatross (book)… the author talked about producing the book and demonstrated her block print technique before the book was read by 2 educators at Kauai

  • Manu, the Boy who Loved Birds (book)…author talking with the publisher and the expert that helped with the book…and then a reading of the book…thinking about recent extinctions and what we can do to help surviving species in Hawaii

Day 5

  • Hawaii Wildlife Center…bird assistance/hospital and conservation programs…I learned that warm water is required if birds need to be washed because their normal temperature is higher than ours and if they are injured/oily/emaciated, they will go into shock if washed with room temperature water!

  • Manu-o-Ku (white tern) nesting in Honolulu…what happens when the chick falls out of the nest? Most of the time, volunteers are called and it’s put back in the nest or in the tree close to the nest…and the parents welcome it back!

  • No Ka Manu Hea Keia Nuku? (To which bird does this beak belong) (book) – In Hawaiian and about Hawaiian birds! It was a great finale to the Festival.

And after all the joy of the videos, I won a drawing for a festival swag pack that will be coming in the mail! The virtual festival was a great addition to our mid-October during this pandemic year!

30 Years Ago – October 1990

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Looking back through pictures and notes from 30 years ago – it was a happy month…but full of big changes that my family handled better than we’d anticipated. I went back to work full time…straight into to proposal team that required full time in the office plus some work at home time. I had just set up an office of my own at home the month before…was still using the IBM PC AT that was over 5 years old. My daughter was already trying to help. Note that I didn’t have a rolling chair yet. We purchased two that month for my husband and I (evidently after the picture was taken) and we still have them!

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My planning wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough that we all felt like things were going well. I made pumpkin muffins several times during the month since they were tasty snacks (or mini-meals) that we all enjoyed. And made meal plans each week for my daughter’s lunches packed for day care and our dinners.

My husband and I were thrilled that she took her first steps with us rather than in day care late in September…and then she was off and climbing. Even though we thought we had baby-proofed the house…but we had typical calamities of her running into her indoor tree house face first, hitting her head on the foot board of the bed while climbing up, and almost tilting over the back of her little rocking chair.

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We all enjoyed the fall foliage day trip to Catoctin with her riding in the backpack more than walking around. When we got her out to walk around in the leaves, they were deep enough to be at least knee deep for her…and she didn’t want to move around in them!

I was busy making the rounds of yard sales to stock up on larger clothes for her and found some bargains. Most of her clothes were bought used but I couldn’t resist a new green velveteen dress with a big white color that she wore for several holiday pictures in the coming months…and it got handed down to her cousins after it got too small for her…and probably sold at a yard sale 10 years or so later.