Crane Fiesta

We thoroughly enjoyed the virtual Crane Fiesta run by the Friends of Bosque del Apache. Checkout their website (bottom of the home page for a collection of short videos). The Facebook page of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge has the morning fly out and even fly in recordings from during the festival.

I went back to look at my pictures from November 2016 and November 2018 when we enjoyed the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque. One of my favorite pictures is one I took the very first day in 2016; it shows that when the angle is just right – it is possible to see through the nares of the crane beak. It was a learning experience for me!

Here’s a slideshow with a few other 2016 pictures from around the refuge.

In 2018, I did some rapid bursts of pictures to capture sequences of crane take off. I picked individual pictures from several of those to include in the slideshow below. It was colder than in 2016 but we were better prepared – snow pants, hand and foot warmers, balaclavas…layers. On one of the mornings, we watched the cranes stepping very carefully on ice.

I already looking forward to the next time we can be at Bosque del Apache during the festival week…. maybe in 2021.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 21, 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.

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

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.)

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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.

Neighborhood Pond – November 2020 – part 2

The high point of my walk to and from the pond was a gingko tree. My husband and I had spotted it on the day we took his car to get a new battery – a flame of yellow leaves in a yard along the main street of our neighborhood. In the few intervening days, most of the leaves had fallen. I took pictures of them on the street – in the grass – drifts in the street gutter.

The graceful shapes are one of my favorites (I make the Zentangle pattern frequently and these pictures give me some ideas of variation of the pattern!). This time of year, the color is yet another reason to enjoy the gingko trees. They are not natives to our area but have been planted as ornamentals in yards and parks.

On the way back from the pond I photographed one branch of the tree that seemed to have held on to more of its leaves. Some of them still have smudges of green.

Neighborhood Pond – November 2020 – part 1

I walked down to the neighborhood stormwater pond recently. There were still a few leaves that had not been swept away by the wind (or mowing or raking). I walked through drifts of leaves in the street gutter and sidewalks…crunching.

I was early enough that the light was good for reflections on the pond. There was no breeze, so the water was a good mirror.

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There was a red-winged blackbird in the cattails. It moved around a bit….called to others that had moved to nearby trees as I had walked up to the pond. I sat on the bench for a few minutes, but the other birds stayed away from the immediate pond vegetation.

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The sun sometimes made a spotlight on the vegetation…bringing out the nuances of fading fall colors.

The meadow on the far side of the pond has not been mowed and looks like it is being taken over by invasive pear trees. They’ll probably mow it again in the spring.

All the flowers around the pond have gone to seed.

As I started back, I noticed a tree with 3 squirrels’ nests! There were other similarly sized trees near it…but somehow the squirrels found this one more attractive.

A dogwood still held its colorful leaves. The native dogwoods usually have leaves that turn early and drop; this one is probably a non-native and I didn’t notice any seeds.

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Most of the oaks in the neighborhood have lost their leaves completely. Maybe they have just reached the age that they don’t hold their leaves longer. Ours was one of the early droppers this year.

I checked the micro-clover that we planted in some bare spots a few months ago. It is still growing very well everywhere we planted it. Hopefully, it will help the soil improve so we won’t have any bare places next spring.

Tomorrow I will post about the high point of the walk to and from the pond.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Crane Fiesta 2020. The virtual version of Festival of the Cranes from Bosque del Apache is called Crane Fiesta and is happening November 19-21. It is being delivered as cost-free webinars….but registration is required. The link to register is https://friendsofbosquedelapache.org/festival-of-the-cranes/.  My husband and I are looking forward to the three days of virtual birding….the next best thing to being there (and looking forward to going back to New Mexico in November2021)!

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 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.

Mapping out rest stops for migrating birds: New metric can help determine when birds fly over a site or stop to refuel or rest -- ScienceDaily – Stopover-to-passage ratio during migration research involves analysis of weather radar data collected since the 1990s…teasing out bird movement from precipitation! Results so far have included some surprises (and there are probably more to come as more of the historical data is processed and the processing becomes more and more sophisticated).

This Crocodile Dad Gives Over 100 of His Kids a Lift – A large species (gharial) with a narrow snout…in India.

Top 25 birds of the week: November 2020 – Birds from around the world….so much beauty in the natural world to see…and try to protect.

Top Solar States Per Capita 2012 vs. 2020 — CleanTechnica Report and US Energy Dept. Aims For Affordable Solar Power – Two posts about solar power. The first article shows the growth since 2012. In states where there wasn’t much growth, I wondered if the utilities in the state or the state government posed barriers to solar power. It seems like the whole country  should be in the mode of getting out of the way or encouraging renewal energy. The second article was about community solar programs from DOE with a mission to ‘bring affordable solar power to every household in the US by 2025’ – a worthy goal but is there enough money in the pipe to do it? This is not a technical problem as much as ‘are we ready to just do it.’

Lullabies in any language relax babies -- ScienceDaily and Baby Bottles Can Shed Millions of Microplastic Particles: Study | The Scientist Magazine® - I’ve been thinking recently about how much things have changed since my daughter was a baby over 30 years ago. I had a lullaby tape (in English) that I played for her in the evenings (although when she got old enough to choose – she wanted soundtracks from Disney movies as often as the lullabies). Now – we’d have digital music playing (rathe than cassette tapes) and maybe there would be lullabies in different languages too. The second article is about some worrisome research and I hope that pediatricians are keeping up and advising parents on best approaches.

When Domestic Birds Go Wild – Chickens, turkeys, ducks, swans, guinea fowl, peacocks, ornamental pheasants, doves and pigeons, emus, and parrots.

Picturing Earth: Astronaut Photography In Focus – A video – just under 70 minutes….with good imagery and discussion.

The return of Europe’s largest beasts - BBC Future – Bison, wolves, and elk…will the agricultural sector of Europe learn to cope with the big herbivores…and a predator?

As Waters Warm, Ocean Heatwaves Are Growing More Severe - Yale E360 – It’s easier for us to notice the heatwaves on land…but the ocean is taking the bulk of the increased heat on the planet and research on marine heatwaves is just beginning. The precise definition of the phenomenon was only proposed in 2016.  

See the World in Detail Thanks to the Close Up Photographer of the Year – Ending the gleanings list this week with some eye candy….enjoy the visual treat.

9th Anniversary for my Blog

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.

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.

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)

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.

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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.

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)

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,

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

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).

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.

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

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,

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

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 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.

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.

Sunflowers

I needed cheering up….so I bought some sunflowers from the grocery shopping. The stems were very long so I cut them a bit when I got them home and put them with the last of the anise/fennel flowers from the CSA (all that is left of those cut flowers). And then they were ready for a photo shoot out on the deck in the sunshine. Hope the photos brighten your day as much as the flowers themselves (and the photography activity) did for me….and I still have the flowers on the island in my kitchen to enjoy for the next week or so.

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Patuxent Research Refuge – Part 2

Continuing on about our field trip to the Patuxent Research Refuge --

The colors of fall were muted on the trees and boardwalk in the bright sunlight

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But still vibrant in closer looks.

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It had rained a lot the days before our visit, so the low places had standing water and the trails were muddy.

The cattails looked fuzzy from far enough away but were soggy blobs when I zoomed in for closer look.

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It was mid-morning so past the time when there might have been more birds at the feeders (someone is keeping them filled). A lone red-winged blackbird was enjoying a feeder all to himself.

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There was a flash of yellow near the feeders…a fall flower.

And the redbud leaves on the ground were recent enough to still be mostly yellow. I looked up to see if there were seed ponds on the tree; it didn’t have any.

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The clouds were gathering, and we opted to not go onto muddy trails. The short time out and about was enough of a field trip.

I usually try to take a picture of the visitor center signage at the beginning…but it was the last picture for this field trip!

By the time we got home it was cloudy. Our timing for being at the refuge was near perfect.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Sunrise on election day 2020. Just as I was getting my 1st breakfast….noticed the good color in the sky…took the picture through a window because it was windy and in the 40s (didn’t want to go outside)…timing was critical too. It was a great start for the day.

My daughter texted a few hours later that she had gotten in the line to vote about 30 minutes after the polls opened…and there wasn’t much wait – all done in about 15 minutes. 66 people had voted before her at the polling place.

Patuxent Research Refuge – Part 1

Our second field trip during the pandemic was to Patuxent Research Refuge last weekend. It is about 30 minutes from where we live. The forecast had changed to mostly cloudy, but it seemed more like mostly sunny when we were making the decision to go or wait for another day. We headed out. The nav system in my husband’s car listed both parts of the refuge – we chose the South Tract…Scarlet Tanager Loop.

The loop is one way, one lane with the parking lot/visitor center at the point furthest into the refuge. There was one couple that has chosen to use the loop as a hiking trail and it is scenic enough for that (the non-paved trails were probably muddy because of the rains from Hurricane Zeta). I took pictures of the road as my husband drove into the refuge (slideshow below). The trees had dropped a lot of their leaves but there was still some color and there were leaves on the road in some places. There where ‘turtle crossing’ signs periodically. The turtles are active in the spring…we drove slowly…noticing squirrels periodically.

There were more people that we expected – but it wasn’t crowded. Everyone was wearing masks and groups were distancing from each other:

• A meditation group had walked around and was finding a dry place for their mats to begin their session

• A couple with their young daughter stomping around in her boots…accepting a warm cap for her head

• A man doing short drone flights

• A few couples with leashed dogs

• A family with older children crossing the pontoon bridge

More tomorrow about what we saw walking around Patuxent Research Refuge.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Moon in the morning. When I walked into my office just after 6, the moon was casting shadows. I photographed it through the window. Outside the temperature was in the 30s…our coldest day yet of the fall.

Zooming – October 2020

Another month…a selection of zoomed pictures. The only picture of the group taken a little further afield than we’ve been since the beginning of the pandemic is the rather stern looking Great Blue Heron which was from our field trip to Conowingo Dam. There will be a few more such field trips in November as we build up our confidence to make the treks safely. Enjoy the show!

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 31, 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.

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.

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.

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’!

Ten Little Celebrations – October 2020

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.

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.

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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.

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!

Our Neighborhood Pond – October 2020

It was cloudy and damp when I started out at midday for a walk to the neighborhood pond. I keep telling myself that I should make the trek more frequently because there is always something of interest along the route or at the pond itself. Maybe I will do it over the next few weeks…until the weather gets too cold.

The first surprise was a stalk of day lily buds. This is the second year that one plant has tried to bloom in the fall. If these buds get far enough along toward blooming – I’ll cut the stalk to bring them inside since otherwise the deer or a frost will get them. It would be wonderful to have the flowers indoors.

I also noticed that not only are the mock strawberries getting some reddish leaves…they are also producing new fruits!

The walk to the pond was full of walkways intermittently filled with leaves or pine needles. (There is a curb concealed under the pine needles!)

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I got to the pond and took pictures of plants gone to seed and reflections in the water. The largest tree at the pond’s edge is a willow. Part of the tree has a lot of shelf fungus and no branches with leaves…standing deadwood. The pond was very quiet…the raucous red-winged blackbirds are gone and the frogs too cool to be calling.

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The milkweed pods in the meadow next to the pond were disappointing. It has been so wet that the even the pods that have split open are not spilling their seeds. I did notice one plant with some early instar milkweed bugs. I’ll go again after we have some dry days --- and hopefully see lots of fluffy milkweed seeds swirling away in each little breeze.

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As I started back toward home, I noticed that the oak that had some dead lower branches has been trimmed. Maybe the trim will help the tree survive. Unfortunately, it’s not the only oak in the neighborhood that has had problems in the past few years.

Overall – a good walk on a damp fall day!

Savoring Strawflowers

With the CSA ending this past week, I won’t be getting any more cut-your-own flowers until next summer…but the strawflowers have dried thoroughly in their arrangements and I am cutting the stems away. They will keep their form and color in a dry arrangement bowl for in my office.

I photographed them when they were still in the window arrangements – zooming from across my office to get the flowers catching the sunlight.

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Now that I have cut them, I did another round of photography using a magnifying glass with a built-in LED light source and my cell phone. The magnifying glass housing is a little smaller than the phone which makes it easy to hold both together – focus – and take the picture. I’ve started using voice commands for this type of phone photography which makes it easier to keep my hold steady.

Flowers for my office and the kitchen island are always a mood brightener…a good mental health investment. So – next time I buy groceries, flowers will be on the list again just as they were in the early months of the pandemic.

Fall Foliage in our Yard

The fall is in full swing around our yard. The oak and sycamore and tulip poplars are more than halfway through their fall. The red maple is about halfway through. I’m sharing our yard’s fall foliage in photos today….before we do another round of leaf mowing. This is the view from my office window…a pine on the left then a tulip poplar and then the red maple.

At ground level in the back yard you can see the understory of spice bush (yellow) and the dark tree trunks (the red maple in the foreground); it’s been foggy on most recent mornings. The brush pile catches a few leaves.

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The maple does not seem to have as many pure red leaves this year. There is another maple behind the tulip polar that always turns yellow and I think one of the maple leaves below is from that tree.

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The tulip poplar leaves turn brown very quickly once they are on the ground so it is a challenge to get some with lots of yellow.

I have taken a lot more sycamore leaf pictures this year. I’m not sure it is it the size variety of the durability of the leaves once they are on the ground. The leaves are large and leathery which make them easier to rake…and really need mowing keep them from killing the grass and clover in our yard.

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The tree got a late start and didn’t manage to make very many seed balls because of the cold weather back in May…but there are certainly a lot of leaves to mow from that tree!

The Virginia creeper on some of our trees (oak and sycamore) and the exterior basement wall are changing color too.

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The oak leaves that are falling now are brown…with an occasional flash of yellow.

And then there are invasive ground plants that are changing from green to yellow and red. I would rather not have them….but they are hard to eliminate.

There are things other than falling leaves that I found when walked around the yard.

A harvestmen spider

Lady’s thumb (another non-native plant)

Deer trimmed day lily leaves at the base of the oak tree

The micro clover is doing very well…still very green and spreading

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A garden spider with 2 stink bugs in its web

Spider webs in the azalea bush…maybe funnel spiders?

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Overall – a lot of evidence of the season in our yard.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 23, 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.

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!