Ten Little Celebrations – June 2018

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The ten little celebrations for June started out like other months:

  • Celebrating the last of the spring field trips and the end of schools. I enjoy hiking with school groups….but am always ready to have a summer break!
  • The Frederick MD garden day was full of garden treasures. I celebrated formal gardens…a children’s’ garden…and most of all a woodland garden.

 

  • My daughter managed a weekend to drive down for a weekend visit. She is closer now that she lives in Pennsylvania rather than Arizona, but we are all so busy that we don’t see each other any more frequently.

Then something unique happened: my mother fell and broke her femur…and I went off to Texas for almost 3 weeks. The rest of the little celebrations were all stem from that event:

  • The surgery to fix the break happened within 24 hours and was success.
  • I managed to get to Texas before she left the hospital – barely.
  • She walked about 100 feet with a walker before she left the hospital….and only spent 2 days at a rehab place before going home.
  • I manage a short walk around Josey Ranch lake while one of my sister was with my parents and saw 4 types of herons in about 30 minutes…two were ‘firsts’ for me: a yellow crowned heron and juvenile green herons. It was my only photography away from my parents’ house and was short…but very satisfying.

 

  • Last but not least – the physical therapy milestones just before my left: my mother walked down a paved alley and across a grassy lawn with her walker….and we’d already gotten a cane to be ready for her next milestone! The she – and the whole family – celebrates every milestone!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 30, 2018

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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.

The Mysterious Demise of Africa’s Oldest Trees - Yale E360 – Baobab trees that are over 1000 years old are dying quickly…and there is not yet a definitive explanation.

History and Seaports in Charleston : Image of the Day – I visited Charlestown a few years ago on vacation…this picture from the International Space Station brought back memories and provided a different perspective of the place.

Top 25 Birds of Europe – National Geographic Blog – Last week it was Africa…this week it’s Europe.

New study examines impacts of fracking on water supplies worldwide - GeoSpace - AGU Blogosphere – Maps make it easy to look at complex data in a visual way. My take away from these maps of water supply and shale basin areas is that Texas has a lot of shale in areas that are already under water stress….fresh water is already being consumed unsustainably.

BBC - Future - Why non-smokers are getting lung cancer – I’ve wondered about non-smokers and lung cancer. The numbers are not huge…but they are often diagnosed late and are, therefore, more deadly.

Seventeenth-Century Danish Latrines Analyzed - Archaeology Magazine – Diet and parasites from more than 300 years ago.

Move Over, Monarchs: Another Butterfly Makes a Longer One-Way Migration - Yale E360 – Painted Lady Butterflies from southern Europe migrate across the Mediterranean through the Sahara to tropical Africa!

Discover Landscape Architecture Activity Books – THE DIRT – There are activity books for younger students and then teens/adults. I am reading the adult version and then will try to apply some of the activities when I travel…encourage new appreciation of the as-built landscape architecture of the places I visit.

2018 Lotus And Water Lily Festival At Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens – My husband and I don’t go to the festival but we do go the Kenilworth several times in July…expect lotus and water lily (and dragon fly) posts soon!

Lives before and after Stonehenge: An osteobiographical study of four prehistoric burials recently excavated from the Stonehenge World Heritage Site – Lifestyle rather than ethnicity seems to determine burial practices in this instance.

Texas Vegetation

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Dallas in June – hot and mostly dry. There is some native vegetation that thrives in the heat. Everything benefits from a little water. The red yucca has become more and more popular in recent decades. It looks delicate but is prolific enough to sometimes be used in public landscaping.

Crape myrtles need extra water but do well in the heat. I photographed a crape myrtle with white blooms in the early morning on the day the sprinklers watered the garden.

The desert willows are even more resilient to the heat and dryness since they are native to the desert southwest and have only recently become common in landscaping in Dallas.

The blue run juniper my parents planted year ago to fill in around the other plants in their front yard (replacing grass) is mature and full of blue ‘berries.’

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June is the peak of summer vegetation color in Texas!

Josey Ranch Lake – Other Birds

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I’ve posted about the herons and mallards at Josey Ranch Lake earlier this week. There were some other birds at the lake.

The grackles are probably the most numerous birds at the lake. I like to photograph the birds showing their attitude.

The next most numerous birds are pigeons. Most of them were on the roofs of the senior center or library – surveying the lake or grooming.

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A Great Egret was feeding in the shallows near the Great Blue Heron….the lake seems to have enough food to support quite a few birds.

I saw one swan. I wondered if something had happened to the others. In April I saw two and several times in previous years that have been 3 or more.

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Josey Ranch Lake - Mallards

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When I first got to Josey Ranch Lake, I thought I all I would see was Mallard Ducks and grackles! All the ducks I usually see when I visit Texas in the winter had gone north to their nesting grounds. When I looked closer at the Mallards, I realized that the ones that appeared to be napping in the shade were either molting males or juveniles just getting their adult plumage. I decided that they were probably juveniles – maybe the same ones I had seen as ducklings in April.

A pair of males on the lake also looked scruffy – probably juveniles getting their plumage.

Then I saw a female with a large number of mid-sized ducklings on the lake….probably the second group of the season. The lake is a good place for duck families evidently!

Josey Ranch Lake – Blue Herons

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I saw two types of blue herons at Josey Ranch Lake (along with green herons and a yellow crowned night heron…for a total of 4 different kinds of herons): little blue and great blue. Great Blue Herons are birds I see frequently in Maryland and in Texas. They are large beautiful birds…and I enjoy photographing them. There was one at Josey Ranch Lake – standing serene in the lake shallows.

The  Little Blue Heron is not a bird I see in Maryland, so I was thrilled to see one at Josey Ranch Lake. It was the first heron I saw when I arrived for my walk. It was fishing in the shallows near the senior center. The bird looked a little battered – had some feathered missing in its neck – but seemed healthy and finding edible tidbits in the water.

Josey Ranch Lake – Yellow Crowned Night Heron

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Another heron I saw at Josey Ranch Lank was  Yellow Crowned Night Heron. This heron is much larger than the green heron; in the image below the yellow crowned night heron is on the right and the green heron (adult) is on the left (a ball is in the center).

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Both herons were in the fallen reeds looking for breakfast and both found a crayfish. The pictures of the green heron catch were not clear enough to see the crayfish…but the shape and antennae or evident for the night heron’s catch.

This was a bid I had to look up in AllAboutBirds when I got back from my walk. I’d taken enough pictures from various angles to make the identification. It looked like a heron although the head looked more rounded that some of the other herons. The markings give it a different ‘facial expression’ as well – our minds always jump to that thinking, assigning a ‘personality’ to the bird that overlays assumptions made for our species onto the bird.

Josey Ranch Lake – Green Herons

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Josey Ranch Lake is near where my parents live in Carrollton, TX and I try to make a walk around it ever time I visit. This time I’ve been busy with other things but managed to get over one morning – and saw 4 kinds of heron in less than 30 minutes! The most numerous were the Green Herons. They are only slightly larger than a grackle….so hard to distinguish at a distance. I was thrilled when I zoomed in on some fallen reeds at the edge of the lake and spotted one that hunting. Another bird appeared in the standing reeds. One caught something a gobbled it down – not sure whether it was a small fish or crayfish.

But the thrill of the day was few feet way at the edge of large stand of cattails….2 juvenile green herons! They were hunting on the logs and seemingly finding tidbits to eat. Their wings did not appear developed enough to allow then to fly; they still had a lot of down and coloring more like a starling than a green heron. But look at the legs!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 23, 2018

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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.

Civil War Battlefield ‘Limb Pit’ Reveals Work of Combat Surgeons – History from bones…a different perspective on the Civil War.

Seeing Through the Eyes of Your Camera | The Prairie Ecologist – A little photography tutorial….it’s great to understand your camera well enough to (sometimes) see more than you easily can with your eyes!

Forensic dentistry and how teeth are used to identify a person – Emerging technologies are making it realistic to identify a person from a single tooth.

What Americans Told Us About Online Shopping Says A Lot About Amazon : NPR – Shopping has changed so much….I like the change too.

Carbon Bubble About To Burst, Leaving Trillions In Stranded Assets Behind, Claims New Research | CleanTechnica – A thought provoking article about the inevitable transition from fossil fuels…and the value of these assets.

A new material capable of the adsorption of organic pollutants in water: The organomica C18-Mica-4 eliminates between 70 and 100 percent of these toxic compounds in less than 24 hours -- ScienceDaily – There are a lot of pollutants that the old style water treatment does not remove. I’m glad there is active research on increasing what can be removed from waste (industrial and sewage) water before it is released from the treatment facility.

 2017 set a new record for renewable power, but emissions are still rising — Quartz – I hope we can turn a corner soon – stabilize and then reduce emissions. Otherwise the future is a very different world. Many will not fare very well.

Age-related diseases may be a negative outcome of human evolution – In 1957, evolutionary biologist George Williams proposed a theory: adaptations that made species more fit in the early years of life likely made them more vulnerable to diseases in the post-reproductive years. This article is about some recent work investigating this theory in relation to brain development in humans.

Photography in the National Parks: Adding a Sunburst to your Sunshine – Getting up to photograph sunrise…some ideas to add pizzazz.

Top 25 Birds of Africa – I can’t resist including a ’25 birds’ post in the gleanings for the week.

Butterfly Heads

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I am in Texas and missing my frequent visits to Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy in Maryland. The pictures I took right before I left are something to savor. The theme of my photography inside the conservatory was ‘butterfly heads! The blue morphos have orange and white papillae --- nothing iridescent blue about their heads.

Some butterflies have papillae that are very large. The proboscis is between the papillae and extend for feeding on bananas or flowers.

Sometimes the papillae are damaged. I notice the owls often have broken papillae. The brown and black stripes of the owl eyes are different than other butterfly eyes.

Some butterflies have antennae that seem to glow at the ends.

In the conservatory, butterflies are sometimes resting upside down under leaves. Its always a thrill to notice one in the foliage.

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Some of the larger butterflies feed on multiple flowers in succession – wings almost always in motion. The last day I was at Brookside was sunny enough that the camera was fast enough to freeze the motion.

I tell children that the butterfly’s proboscis is like a straw…and they do seem to handle it like one…although the way they coil it under their head is different from straws we use!

Butterflies feeding on flowers are my favorites, but some prefer bananas (or other rotting fruit). I inevitability decide that all of them are worth trying to photograph.

Hot in Texas

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Coming from Maryland to Texas has been a shock in terms of temperature. It is hot. Most of the time I’ve been indoors – staying with my mom at the hospital and rehab and now home. Every time I venture outside, I move as fast as I can to get to the next air-conditioned place. And this is only June. It will be even hotter in Texas as the summer progresses. At this point the plants are still flourishing if they are watered regularly. I took a few pictures of the plants at the rehab facility when I walked around the place when my mother’s room overflowed with other visitors.

I wondered how well the fern would last as the summer progressed. In Maryland they seem to do best in shady moist places. This plant was in partial shade…and it would take a lot to keep it moist on a 100-degree day.

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Chipmunk Hide and Seek

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Last time I was at Brookside Gardens, a butterfly was an effective blind to photograph a chipmunk. There are many chipmunks at Brookside this year (seemingly more than in previous years); they usually do not allow people to get close before scampering off under foliage and further down the path. With the bench between me and the chipmunk, this one seemed oblivious to me. I got several pictures before I made the mistake of taking a step and the chipmunk startled…scampered away…disappeared.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 16, 2018

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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.

Reading habits in the past | Europeana Blog – When I travel, I tend to do most of my reading on my phone (light weight, easy to carry, and ambient light does not have to be good). It’s a recent development for me. This blog post goes back further in history.

Man against machine: AI is better than dermatologists at diagnosing skin cancer -- ScienceDaily – There are still limitations to the AI but it might be close to a tipping point to begin transitioning into system. It seems like it would be most in demand for screening where there were not highly trained dermatologists available….as long as the imaging technology was not tremendously expensive or hard to use.

BBC - Future - Is it really healthier to live in the countryside? – I thought it would be…but it’s complicated because so many factors contribute to ‘health.’

Mapping Modern Threats to Ancient Chacoan Sites : Image of the Day – Posts about places I’ve visited always get my attention. A study using satellite data and projections for population growth/oil and gas exploration in the area shows that 44 of the 123 known Chaco sites included in the study are threatened by development. Of those, 19 are already protected by the National Park Service.

Paper Art Details Similarities Between Human Microbiome and Coral Reef – Nature inspired art!

Researchers Grow Veggies in Space | The Scientist Magazine® - Progress in a technology required for longer space missions…and then colonies on other planets.

Schoolyard Habitats Provide Resiliency in Houston Independent School District : The National Wildlife Federation Blog – Schools in Maryland have similar projects. I hope the monarchs have shown up in Houston…I haven’t seen any in Maryland yet this year.

US Still Subsidizing Fossil Fuels To Tune Of $27 Billion | CleanTechnica – This post included more detail on what subsidies are…how the US compares to other developed countries.

Thank A Rare Fungus For The Sustainable Solar Cell Of The Future | CleanTechnica – It’s a beautiful color…if it really works, it won’t be ‘rare’ for long. It will be come a commercially grown fungus!

Bright warning colors on poison dart frogs also act as camouflage -- ScienceDaily – Learning a bit more about these little frogs.

Milkweed Buds

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June is the time the milkweeds bloom. In our area the buds on the common milkweed are about ready to open in our area. They are turning from green to pink. There is a fragrance around the plants already.

There are no Monarch caterpillars that yet. I have seen any Monarch butterflies (i.e. no eggs either). Hopefully they will start appearing soon. There are plenty of plants in my yard and other places I’ve been recently. People are planting milkweed for the Monarchs, so I hope we have butterflies show up! Other insects depend on the plant as well but none of the others have the cachet of the Monarch.

There are other kinds of milkweed too. I’m not sure how well the butterflies like them – but they are getting ready to bloom as well. I did notice that some of the leaves looked like something was eating them but didn’t see any in action.

Back to the common milkweed – when they start blooming they should be full of bumble bees and butterflies….a great place to point a camera for insect pictures!

Sharing Wings of Fancy

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I enjoy Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy so much that it’s my favorite place to take guests. This past weekend, my daughter was visiting, and we headed to the exhibit just at it opened. The caterpillars are big enough to see easily – particularly the spicebush swallowtail caterpillars with their eye spots that make them appear more ferocious than they are.

The high point of the morning was when a blue morpho butterfly decided that my daughter’s nail polish was like its own color. The blue (or pink/purple in different light) in both cases is a mechanical color rather than a pigment. The butterfly ‘tasted’ the color with its proboscis on each toenail then crawled up onto the sandal before flying way!

Last Spring Field Trips at Belmont

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Last Wednesday was the last the Howard County Conservancy school field trips at Belmont….and it was a large group of 4th grade students. Fortunately, there were enough people around to lead the hiking portion of the field trips so I enjoy the calm before the students arrived –

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The path down toward the pond along the line of blue bird boxes (the black dots in the picture are birds!),

A knot with branches sprouting on the side of a large English Elm near the Carriage house and a mocking bird miffed at the people activity beginning to occur.

There were muddy ruts in some places and a place on the lawn of the manor house was roped off to keep mowers out of the very soggy low place.

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Then the 4 buses arrived and there was a very solid 2 hours of hiking with two different groups for me. I got in most of the steps for the day! I took two different routes into the forest and both had some very muddy stretches. I was glad that no one slipped in the mud (including me)!

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Then the student were eating their lunches and I was done…I did my usual roll from the Manor House down to the bridge over Rockburn Branch; it part of the transition from the Piedmont down to the coastal plane. The last bit of Belmont Woods Road is not well maintained…muddy ruts on both sides…lots of pot holes. But the trees on both sides and overhead make the metropolitan area seem very far away.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 9, 2018

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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.

Monument Valley: An Icon of American West : Image of the Day – It’s interesting to see a place I’ve been (on the ground) from a different perspective.

How to Be Happy: A Cheat Sheet – A summary of a course on the topic from Yale.

Biologist advocates ecological approach to improving human health -- ScienceDaily – Thinking about the body (particularly the gut) as an ecosystem in need of restoration!

Compound Interest - Why is milk white? The chemistry of milk – The white is from the clusters of proteins and calcium that make up ‘micelles’!

Top 25: Birds of America – National Geographic Blog – How many of these birds do you recognize? I recognized almost all of them…and have seen at least 20 in the wild!

Colorful Architectural Watercolors of International Cities by Maja Wroń – Some are easier to recognize that others. I liked the vivid colors too.

Supermarket Buying Guide | Berkeley Wellness – A guide from 2013…but still good overall.

Lighting intervention improves sleep and mood for Alzheimer’s patients: Daytime light exposure decreases sleep disturbances, depression and agitation -- ScienceDaily – I wonder if this is not true for almost everyone…not just Alzheimer’s patients. Artificial light (and computer/tablet/phone screens) are disruptive to our circadian rhythm.

Majority of Americans Believe Space Exploration Remains Essential | Pew Research Center – Hurray! The result that surprised me the most in this survey, was that ‘monitor key parts of the Earth’s climate system’ was the top priority!

Photographer Captures the Enchanting Beauty of Mount Fuji at Dawn – I expected more sunrise color…but enjoyed the artistry behind these images more than I initially thought I would.

Last Spring Field Trips at Mt. Pleasant

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The last of the Howard County Conservancy school field trips at Mt. Pleasant. The last three were between the heavy rains in our area the past couple of weeks. The first one was for 7th graders; my station was down at the Davis Branch helping them capture and identify macroinvertebrates to assess the water quality in the stream.

They put on boots and waded into the stream (and we didn’t have anyone step into a deep pool…fill their boots with water).

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The water was surprising clear before they arrived. The upstream portion that was restored has slowed the flow enough to help the sediment carried by the recent rains.

The forest near the stream and the meadow was thick with late spring vegetation (some invasive plants too – like the multiflora rose).

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I stopped at the old foundation (now a retaining wall) on the next field trips…fascinated by the moss that was propagating, the different kinds of lichen, and what looked like a mold growing on the damp rock.

On the last field trip I checked the milkweed near the nature center for caterpillars; no luck. There was a fly that sat long enough for a picture and the buds of flowers that will open in the next few weeks.

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The butterfly weed was about ready to bloom as well.

The ferns were unfurling…and providing some different color to the shady scene on the way to the nature center.

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It was calm before the 3 buses arrived with about 120 kindergarteners! A good time was had by all…a good finale to the spring field trips at Mt. Pleasant.

Frederick County MD Gardens Open Day – Part 3

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The last garden we visited on The Garden Conservancy’s Open Day last Saturday was the Rausche Woodland Gardens…and it was my favorite. It was a wooded, sloped lot with a house roughly in the center….understory plantings everywhere. The most formal part of the garden was a small grassy area that had been a badminton court when the family was younger….and now held benches and beds of plants that needed a bit more sun that the heavy shade in the rest of the yard. Under the trees is lush and green broken by bits of color of things in bloom.

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The Rausches propagate many of the plants themselves…including jack-in-the-pulpits. I saw the biggest jack-in-pulpit I’ve ever seen in this garden! I didn’t take many pictures in this garden because I was simply enjoying the ambiance of the place. If I ever own a property that has lots of woods like this…I might just become a woodland gardener too.

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Stone pathways wandered through the plantings of hellebore (deer don’t like) surrounding hostas and other plants that deer eat enthusiastically. The rhododendron and azaleas were past blooms. The recent floods had done some damage (there was a new path that water flowed….where it had never flowed in the nearly 4 decades of garden development) but the garden was recovering.

When two of the big trees died, they had them cut into 6-foot-tall stumps and the carved! The results frame their woodpile! I liked the squirrels spiraling the stump. On the opposite side of the stump is a hollowed place – a secret place for something to hide.

Frederick County MD Gardens Open Day – Part 2

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The next garden we visited on The Garden Conservancy’s Open Day last Saturday was Surreybrooke in Middletown, MD. Surreybrooke was a working nursery complete with hoop  houses…also the home of the owners for the past 4 decades. We walked through the succulent hoop house to get to the more private gardens around the house. I liked the lushness and color of the succulents they had.

Garden art was everywhere in the plantings – a swan gate, miniature houses surrounded by plants, birdhouses, and many kinds of plant containers.

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The owners have collected and moved old buildings such as the spring house – I love the ruggedness of the logs and the variety of chinking.

There were benches of a variety of materials, vintage, and design.

The grounds were soggy from the recent rain so stepping stones were much appreciated.

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The high point for me at this garden was the Children’s Garden. There was a tree house with stairs not quite wide enough for an adult…and garden art among lush plantings. The toad houses and child-sized benches were functional…

The rest were whimsical.

The hedgehog stepping stones led to an outhouse….that still looked functional!

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