eBotanical Prints – December 2020

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20 new books for the botanical prints list in December….all from the Internet Archive. 12 of them are an annual publication from the Georgia Botanical Society published between 1986 and 2005; there are 7 more that I looked at in January and will include in next month’s eBotanical Prints post.

Just as in previous months, there is quite a range in the publication dates: 1687 to 2005. And different types of images: drawings, colored prints, and photographs. There is one image for each of the 20 new books; click an any sample image below to get an enlarged version. Enjoy the December eBotanical Prints! The whole list of 2,041 eBooks can be accessed here.

Opera omnia, seu, Thesaurus locupletissimus botanico-medico-anatomicus * Malpighii, Marcelli * sample image * 1687

Gramineae Chilenses * Desvaux, Emile * sample image * 1853

Flora Peruviana, et Chilensis plates I-CLII * Ruiz, Hippolyto; Pavon, Josepho * sample image * 1798

Flora Peruviana, et Chilensis plates CLIII-CCCXXV * Ruiz, Hippolyto; Pavon, Josepho * sample image * 1798

Plantes equinoxiales recueillies au Mexique vol 1 * Humboldt, Alexander von; Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1808

Plantes equinoxiales recueillies au Mexique vol 2 * Humboldt, Alexander von; Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1808

Stirpes novae * L'Heritier de Brutelle, Charles Louis * sample image * 1784

A description of the genus Cinchona * Lambert, Alymer Bourke * sample image * 1797

Tipularia - 2005 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 2005

Tipularia - 1986 - 1987 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1987

Tipularia - 2004 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 2004

Tipularia - 2003 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 2003

Tipularia - 2002 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 2002

Tipularia - 2001 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 2001

Tipularia - 2000 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 2000

Tipularia - 1999 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1999

Tipularia - 1998 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1998

Tipularia - 1997 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1997

Tipularia - 1995 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1995

Tipularia - 1994 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1994

Sunspot Photography

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My husband got a new lighter weight lens for his camera and has been experimenting with it handheld.  He has a solar filter for it so the sun has become one of the subjects that he can photograph from our backyard or driveway.

Sometimes the sun is not very interesting but toward the end of the year there were sunspots! Here is his selection of the best that he got on 12/29.

We’ve created projects for ourselves….things similar to what we normally do but usually don’t have enough time to enjoy in a methodical way. It’s one of the positive aspects of the precautions we are taking to avoid getting COVID-19. Over the past few months, he has sold some of his older and heavier lenses…replaced several with the new one that is lighter and thus easier on his back for when we are hiking/birding (mostly a future plan at this point). The reduced weight and the improved motion stabilization technology make it easier to use handheld. He may become more of a monopod (rather than tripod) user too.

I got a new camera for Christmas and will do some experimentation of my own in the next few weeks.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 2, 2021

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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.

2020 Year In Review: Top Stories From Around The National Park System – Issues discussed in the post: COVID-19, Great American Outdoors Act, border wall, invasive species, wildlife issues, climate change, crowding in the parks, wildfires.

New Discoveries in Human Anatomy | The Scientist Magazine® - So much study of human anatomy over the years….and there are still new discoveries.

50 Satellite Images from 50 Years of NOAA | NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) – Visuals from NOAA – beauty, science, education….so much has happened over the 50 years of NOAA’s existence.

2020 Year In Review: Parks, A Pandemic, And Photography – Lots to see in the National Parks…I hope to be able to get out and see some in-person before the end of 2021.

Top 25 birds of the week: Birding! – Wild Bird Revolution  - And I want to travel to some birding festivals too!

Recycled concrete could be a sustainable way to keep rubble out of landfill: Can even outperform traditional construction, says researcher – ScienceDaily – A Canadian study…seems like the results should be pertinent to the US too. The research indicates that “recycled concrete can be a 100% substitute for non-structural applications”….and might also be a substitute within more structural applications as well if innovations in the composition of recycled concrete continue.

Top 10 States For Renewable Energy, & Their Renewable Energy Splits  - Interesting mix of states on the list with quite a difference in the amount of hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass among the top 10. California is the only one with all 5. But there are 5 states that have 4 of the 5.

Scientists reverse age-related vision loss, eye damage from glaucoma in mice – ScienceDaily – Hopefully this research will translate into treatment for people.

Take a Virtual Tour of the World’s Largest Circular Tomb, Augustus’ Mausoleum | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – The virtual tour takes a little bit to load….but is worth it. Note that the ‘chapters’ are along the bottom of the screen.

Desalination breakthrough could lead to cheaper water filtration – ScienceDaily – Increasing efficiency of reverse osmosis filters by beginning to better understand how they work. This is something that will be more important as climate change and our own production of pollutants makes obtaining clean water more challenging.

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The sunrise on the 1st day of 2021 was blocked by clouds but the one on the 31st was good. I took a picture of it that included a large electrical transmission tower and some birds making some morning moves!

Most Memorable of 2020

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Looking back on 2020 – there is so much that was different than prior years. There has not been a year of my life with so many significant types of upheaval: COVID-19 pandemic, environmental disasters (fires, hurricanes), racial strife, and strident politics. Today I am writing about the way this year was different for me as an individual with those upheavals as the broader situation.

Early year travel…then no travel. In prior years, I enjoyed travel throughout the year – being away from home a week or less at a time and daytrips. My original plan for 2020 was to spend a week of each month in Texas with my family. The early part of the year started out on that plan – a visit with family and a birding festival in Laredo, TX in late January and early February. We talked with an HHS person in the San Antonio airport; she was headed to the base where some of the first cruise ship passengers were arriving for their quarantine period. Once we got home, we hoped the virus was going to be limited to the few groups from cruise ships that were talked about in the news….and we started paying more attention. It quickly became apparent that telephone calls and Zoom meetings would have to take the place of the trips to Texas. We did some 2-3 hour outings for some outdoor time in the fall; we wore masks even outdoors and distanced from others; now that the infection rate is higher in our area and it’s often too cold to be outdoors for very long, we are not attempting more than walks around our neighborhood.

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The Pandemic. By March, we had an inkling that COVID-19 was not going way and that there was more around in the community that anticipated. The grocery stories started having shortages of toilet paper and disinfecting products and hand sanitizer. Fortunately, we had an adequate supply of those to last until the stores had them again (although maybe not the brands we bought previously – what happened to Formula 409?). I went to an ‘over 65’ shopping hour at a local grocery in March and it was crowded enough that it scarred me into switching to grocery delivery for 2 months. I tried to keep 2-3 weeks of food in the house at all times. We bought over the counter medications that might help symptoms if we got sick. By the summer I was comfortable going to the grocery store again – masked and going at 6:30 AM every other week and, now, extending to every three weeks. We do curbside pickup at some local stores and restaurants. My husband has virtual and in-person appointments with his doctors, but we both delayed routine optometrist and dental checkups that started to be due; those appointments and my annual physical can wait until after we are vaccinated.

Cultural, environmental, and political drama. The pandemic would have made this a challenging year but with the cultural, environmental, and political drama happening as well – the news was overwhelmingly bad…traumatically bad. The trauma of seeing the murder of George Floyd by a policeman brought to the consciousness of the country that racial equality before the law is not something the US has achieved…and the varied response to the event showed us more about how deep the challenge runs in our culture…and highlighted other manifestations of inequality in our country. Because of our ‘stay at home’ strategy during the pandemic, we didn’t witness any unrest – but the news prompted some donations and solidified our votes in November. There were environmental disasters – fires in the west, hurricanes on the Gulf Coast; neither impacted us directly in Maryland, but it was very easy to be traumatized imaging how awful it must be for people trying to take precautions to not get COVID-19 but having to evacuate and then returning to find their home gone or damaged. The political drama – much of it seemingly intentionally done to sustain a level of chaos – continued through the end of the year; I became more angry as time went on that the leadership of the country – in a year of extreme national stress – seemed to be acting to increase the trauma.

Virtual birding festivals and conferences. I saved some positive things to write about for the last of this post….we all need something positive to sustain ourselves. My husband and I both enjoyed virtual birding festivals and conferences in 2020. They added variety to our weeks; we appreciated the work of the teams that made the transition to virtual because they took us away from our immediate environment (not quite as good as travel but the best we were going to do during the pandemic). We hope to be back to some in-person events in the second half of 2021. The ones we did virtually in 2020 were:

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  • May – Cape May Spring Festival (New Jersey)

  • June – Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference

  • July – Get into your sanctuary (NOAA)

  • July and August – Sara Via Climate and Sustainability Webinars

  • September – Yampa Valley Crane Festival (Colorado)

  • September – Puget Sound Bird Fest (Washington)

  • October – Cape May Fall Festival (New Jersey)

  • October – Hawaii Island Festival of Birds

  • November – Crane Fiesta (New Mexico)

  • November – Patuxent River Conference Reflections

  • December – Maryland Water Monitoring Conference

  • December - AGU

At home. I spent more time at home this year than every before in my life (that I can remember…maybe I spent more time at home from birth to 4 years old). It’s been different but not hard. The house is well situated with forest to the back and a 30-year-old neighborhood street to the front with lots of trees as old as the houses; the views from the windows are all good – and there is wild life (birds (including an occasional wild turkey!), squirrels, deer, chipmunks, and racoons (seen only on the bird feeder cam in the wee hours of the morning)). Individuals and couples take walks…the neighborhood does not feel vacant or isolated. Inside - my husband and I have plenty of room to enjoy our individual projects/activities then be together for meals and shared activities…settling into a comfortable way of living in the house together and probably becoming more synchronized emotionally than we have since early in our marriage – simply because we are around each other more.

Conscious efforts to sustain healthy mental and physical health. As we’ve gotten older, we have become more intentional about our lifestyle – making sure we get enough exercise…eat healthy…assess our feeling and act to keep them positive. During this year – we have increased our focus. I had time to process the bounty of the CSA season (June-October) and am just now beginning to see that we have space in the freezer again. We eat well but keep our portion sizes reasonable; we haven’t gained weight…maybe we’ve lost a few pounds. We both try to get some outdoor time as frequently as we can – walks, yard work, reading on the deck, photography (stars/planets, sun, plants, animals, and snowflakes) etc. It was easier before it got cold. More of our exercise has shifted indoors at this point. We do things to brighten our mood – flowers, purchases to use for projects (mounted insects, clickers and magnifiers for cell phone photography), special pens, special food – things to make each day a little different.

Overall – at the end of 2020, I am feeling optimistic about 2021 and pleased that my husband and I have responded with resilience to the changes in our lives during the past year. We had ups and downs but on the whole managed to sustain ourselves and to enjoy parts of every day (for me it was easier when the television was off, and I wasn’t reading my news feeds).

Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference

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The Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference went virtual this year. It was held on the mornings of December 3rd and 4th rather than all on one day as the in-person event. I appreciated that scheduling since webinars for a whole day can be overwhelmingly intense. And now – they’ve made the presentations and session videos available! I highly recommend the Dr. Rita Colwell plenary session: Oceans, Climate, and Human Health: Lessons from Cholera for COVID-19. The video is in the ‘Morning Plenary Session Day 1’ and the charts (which are visible in the video) are posted at the link for the 9:15 AM slot on day 1.

I bought the Kindle version of Dr. Colwell’s book A Lab of One’s Own: One Woman’s Personal Journey Through Sexism in Science. It’s a thought-provoking book for me as I think of my life and women I’ve known – my mother’s generation, my own, and my daughter’s. There is much in the book that even non-scientist women will recognize in their experiences of work. In my case – I didn’t know any scientists growing up, but I did observe women that ran a mill, was a traveling dietician for small town hospitals, and teaching math/science to high schoolers and at colleges. In my own generation, I had quite a few peers in the computer industry…and noticed the thinning of the ranks as my career moved forward. By the time I retired, there were 2 or 3 female CEOs in the industry…but there was not a robust pipeline of women behind them. In my daughter’s generation, it is still not unusual to find one or no female faculty members in physics departments. Improvements have come…but very slowly…and the pandemic has taken us back decades (in the accessibility of childcare, for example).

The sessions I watched at the conference were Clean Waters, Healthy Humans (VB Room 2) on Day 1 and PFAS: News on an Emerging Contamination (VB Room 3) on Day 2. The talks were very good and I appreciated the virtual format – much more comfortable that crowded rooms where the bottom of the charts were blocked by heads of people….trying to take a few notes (the old fashion way with paper and pen)…overeating with all the goodies provided between sessions. Now that the videos and presentations are out, I’m going back to look at some of the other presentations that I didn’t get to ‘live;’ I am looking forward to that in this lull week between Christmas and New Year’s.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

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Sunrise the day after Christmas. I noticed pink clouds to the west and then went to check the east from an upstairs window. Perfect timing. I took pictures through the window since the temperature outside was in the 20s.

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Japanese Art

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The 10 volumes of Japan: described and illustrated by the Japanese were published in 1897. The illustrations were colored by hand. They were published by J.B. Millet Company in Boston but advertised as “written by eminent Japanese authorities and scholars; edited by Captain F. Brinkley with an essay on Japanese art by Kakuzo Okakura.”

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I found them by following a comment about the evolution of nature photograph made in a Smithsonian blog post; the example they used for colorizing photographs of plants was made by Kazumasa Ogawa. The first photographs in each of the volumes are his.

Each volume also includes examples of silk fabrics.

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There are structures pictured too – a bridge, a gate, greenhouse.

I liked the display of shoes – for different types of people…and sometimes for specific work!

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Often the last illustrations in a volume are of historical art.

Browsing through…looking at the illustrations…a snapshot of Japan just before 1900…great activity for indoors on a cold winter day!

All 10 volumes are available from Internet Archive here. (Note: there might be 5 more volumes…but they are not available on Internet Archive.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 19, 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.

How Has Photography's Relationship With Nature Evolved Over the Past 200 Years? | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – A little history…that I used as a prompt to look for some of the works on Internet Archive. I’ll post about what I found for Kazumas Ogawa in a post next week.

Infographic: Deciphering Diet from Blood and Urine Samples | The Scientist Magazine® - Full article also available and more interesting that the infographic! The approach is still not perfected…but it may eventually help us get to personalized nutrition plans without as much trial and error that is required now.

Connection between gut bacteria and vitamin D levels -- ScienceDaily – Lots more needed to understand Vitamin D. This study indicated that blood tests for Vitamin D might not be useful at all since they don’t measure active Vitamin D….and active vitamin D is what correlates to gut bacteria…and potentially bone health. “Maybe it’s not how much vitamin D you supplement with, but how you encourage your body to use it.”

Get a Bird's-Eye View of UNESCO World Heritage Sites Across the Globe – Some beautiful places…from overhead.

How Non-Native Plants Are Contributing to a Global Insect Decline - Yale E360 – Insect declines….then birds. Lots of reasons to focus on planting natives a much as we can. I’m glad the forest behind my house is full of native trees and that I’ve replaced 2 bushs in the front of my house with natives. The challenge is to control the small but prolific invasive plants growing on the forest floor and into our yard enough for non-natives to survive. There used to be native jack-in-the-pulpits in our forest until several years ago.

How do we separate the factual from the possible? New research shows how our brain responds to both -- ScienceDaily – This article was frustrating. The study found that factual language is something our brains respond to. That’s not the issue at this moment in our nation’s history. The problem is the use of factual language about something not factual! Maybe this article is why we need to be more worried about public discourse/pronouncements.

It's One Hot Place Deep Down On The Floor Of Yellowstone Lake – About studies at Yellowstone Lake…the sensors and what they are revealing.

Shuttering fossil fuel power plants may cost less than expected -- ScienceDaily – Interesting…but I hope we’ll retire them all well before 2035 with the cost of renewals coming down so quickly. It will make economic sense to just do it!

Keeping Black Bears Wild And People Safe – This article is about black bears in Smokey Mountains National Park and the BearWise program more broadly. We do have Black Bears in Maryland and they occasionally show up in our area; there was one that showed up at our nearby elementary school a few years ago – caused a school lockdown until it wondered off.

Meet the Dipper, the Songbird That Swims – Evidently they are easier to spot in Colorado during the winter when they are concentrated long streams that remain unfrozen…but they are in the Rockies all year round…Dippers are elevation migrants (higher in the summer….lower in the winter). Maybe some post-pandemic trip we’ll look for them!

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 12, 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.

Massive Arecibo Telescope Collapses in Puerto Rico | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Very sad. It was already being decommissioned which was wrenching….but then the collapse meant that even the instruments that might have been usable elsewhere were destroyed. My husband spent some time at Arecibo during his graduate school studies in the 1970s.

What do slight arm movements reveal about our breathing and health? -- ScienceDaily – Evidently it works best during sleep when there is not a lot of other movement other than breathing!

Hegra, an Ancient City in Saudi Arabia Untouched for Millennia, Makes Its Public Debut | Travel | Smithsonian Magazine – Undisturbed for 2,000 years…once an international trade hub although most of the surviving structures are tombs…a few hundred miles to the south of Petra

Proterra Sells Its 1,000th Electric Bus and New Electric School Buses In Virginia & Massachusetts – Electric buses are very appealing…I’ve always hated the sooty exhaust from diesel buses. Buses operate in situations where many people (and children) are in close proximity, so removing buses as a source of city and school pollution would be a good step forward.

Glyphosate may affect human gut microbiota -- ScienceDaily – A bioinformatics tool to predict if a microbe is sensitive to glyphosate – in the soil…in the digestive system of animals. The compound, widely used as a herbicide, biochemically targets plants but the same pathway is also in bacteria.

Opinion: The Biological Function of Dreams | The Scientist Magazine® - Learning more about sleep…and REM sleep in particular.

The mystery of Siberia’s exploding craters - BBC Future – Gas emission craters. Studies have revealed a 3-5 year life cycle: a mound forms…rising several meters, the gas underneath explodes. They tend to form in areas where there is a thick layer of ice over permafrost…with some areas of unfrozen ground surrounded by permafrost…and very deep deposits of gas and oil. The big challenge has been to identify the source of the gas that builds up – because after the explosion it is already gone.

Forest fires, cars, power plants join list of risk factors for Alzheimer's disease: Airborne pollution implicated in amyloid plaques, UCSF-led study shows -- ScienceDaily and Air pollution spikes linked to lower test scores for Salt Lake County third graders -- ScienceDaily – Studies that show the impact of air pollution on humans….other reasons to step up the pace of the shift away from fossil fuels. Thinking positively – actions to address climate change tend to improve air quality.

Mistletoe: A Natural and Human History – A plant associated with the season! And there are other species of mistletoe from around the world.

Top 25 birds of the week: December 2020! - Wild Bird Revolution – Beautiful birds….at the end of the gleanings list for this week.

Books Illustrated by Joseph Pennell

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During November, I browsed through 24 books illustrated by Joseph Pennell published between 1889 and 1918. The project was initiated by his book on Modern Illustration published in 1894 that I found early in the month. As I browsed through it, it seemed like a good reference to use for searching Internet Archive to find books illustrated by artists he cited; it’s so easy to search for names of authors (even though sometimes the illustrators are not listed in the metadata which makes it harder…then it’s back to the reference or the Wikipedia entry for the illustrator and searching by title).  I opted to start my browsing with Joseph Pennell and collected some sample images from each book for this post. My main interest is the illustrations…the snapshots they provide of places as they were during Pennell’s time.

There are 4 more books  in the 24 where Pennell is the author and illustrator: Joseph Pennell's pictures of war work in England (1917), San Francisco, the city of the Golden Gate (1916), Lithography and lithographers (1916), and  Joseph Pennell's pictures of war work in America (1918). The books of World War I industrial scenes could easily be adjuncts to history classes about that time….most of them gritty…many awe inspiring.  

Then there are the Highways and Byways books by various authors but with Pennell as the illustrator (or one of the illustrators):

Highways and byways in Normandy - Dearmer, Percey; Pennell, Joseph (1910)

Highways and byways in East Anglia - Dutt, William Alfred; Pennell, Joseph (1901)

Highways and byways in Devon and Cornwall - Norway, Arthur Hamilton; Pennell, Joseph; Thomson, Hugh (1897)

Highways and byways in Yorkshire - Norway, Arthur Hamilton; Pennell, Joseph; Thomson, Hugh (1899)

This is another example of how to find books to browse on Internet Archive; a simple search for “highways and byways in” yielded other books in the series that I’ve put on my list to browse... another thread to those others illustrators of Pennell’s time.

3 books were authored by  Henry James with Pennell as the illustrator: English Hours (1905), and A Little Tour in France (1901), and Italian Hours (1909).

Pennell illustrated Maurice Henry Hewlett’s The Road to Tuscany (1904) published in 2 volumes (vol 1 and vol 2).

Pennell was an American but spent his career based in London…but he travelled widely. Aside from the San Francisco book which he authored himself, there are 2 books in the 24 about places in the US:  The Creoles of Louisiana - Cable, George Washington; Pennell, Joseph (1914) and The new New York : a commentary on the place and the people - Van Dyke, John Charles; Pennell, Joseph (1909).

3 books are about places in Italy:

Italian Journeys - Howell, William Dean; Pennell, Joseph (1907)

Gleanings from Venetian history - Crawford, Francis Marion; Pennell, Joseph (1905)

The makers of modern Rome - Oliphant, Margaret; Riviere, Henry Parsons; Pennell, Joseph (1895)

2 books about places in Spain:

The Alhambra - Irving, Washington; Pennell, Joseph; Pennell, Elizabeth Robins (1896)

Castilian Days - Hay, John; Pennell, Joseph (1903)

And then the last 3 that I didn’t group with anything else

Old Chelsea, a summer-day's stroll - Martin, Benjamin Ellis; Pennell, Joseph (1889)

On the Broads - Dodd, Anna Bowman; Pennell, Joseph (1896)

Raiderland; all about grey Galloway, its stories, traditions, characters, humours - Crockett, Samuel Rutherford; Pennell, Joseph (1904)

 

Overall – a lot to enjoy browsing through these 24 books on Internet Archive…great activity for a cold winter day.

Thanksgiving at the Birdfeeder

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It turns out the birdfeeder had some busy times on Thanksgiving — according to our birdfeeder cam. The day started about 1:30 AM when two racoons visited they feeder. They gave up very quickly. So far – none of the racoon visitors have gotten any seed.

There were the usual visitors off and on throughout the morning. Then there was a flurry of activity about 12 hours after the racoon visit…starting just after 1:30 PM. A White-breasted Nuthatch came to the feeder…was routed temporarily by a Tufted Titmouse…after the titmouse left, pair nuthatches returned….they came and went several times. Then a female Northern Cardinal was on the feeder with the male cardinal keeping watch below. The nuthatch and cardinal pairs are rarely on the feeder at the same time…the second bird waits on the deck railing or floor. The nuthatches take turns on the feeder; the male cardinal seems to be more in sentinel mode rather than waiting for a turn at the feeder. The nuthatches pick out the sunflower seeds. The female cardinal seems to like everything.

Toward the end of the day, the Red-bellied woodpecker was the last bird to get a snack at the feeder. The bird made a lot of noise….before it flew in and then when it was at the feeder. It does like to have the feeder to itself although sometimes it will share it with a small bird like a Carolina Wren.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 5, 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.

Climate change presents new challenges for the drinking water supply -- ScienceDaily – Studying the Rappbode Reservoir in Germany and applying models….helping to predict what happens with warmer temperatures and increased drought…and what tweaks in reservoir management can mitigate.

The Lanterna of Genoa, the oldest lighthouse in Europe – The current Lighthouse of Genoa was built in 1543. The article includes some pictures of the technology used in the lighthouse from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Pollution and pandemics: A dangerous mix: Research finds that as one goes, so goes the other -- to a point -- ScienceDaily – Studying the relationship between along term ambient particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less and the spread of COVID-19….using air quality data and COVID-19 case across the country. There is a correlation – more pollution….higher COVID-19 transmission. Also: "We found black carbon acts as a kind of catalyst. When there is soot present, PM2.5 has more of an acute effect on lung health, and therefore on R0." This is an example of how air quality degradation has adverse health consequences.

Leila Jeffreys' Elegant Bird Portraits Show Feathery "High Society" and Photographer Tim Flach Captures Emotive Portraits of Fascinating Birds – I prefer birds in the wild…but sometimes portraits show the bird with more detail…certainly with less distraction. These two series were quite different but full photogenic birds.

Two centuries of Monarch butterflies show evolution of wing length -- ScienceDaily – Looking through museum collections and island populations of Monarchs, the researchers discovered how migration selects for longer, larger forewings….non-migrants have smaller wings! And they have determined that the effect is due to genetics rather than the rearing environment.

Photography In The National Parks: Birdy, Birdy In The Sky – Almost half the gleanings this week are about birds. I think this is my favorite. National Parks…great places for photography and birds add some action in the scene!

Top 25 birds of the week: Coastal birds – Some I’ve seen (particularly the ones in this group that were photographed in New Jersey). Others are totally new – like the Great Stone-curlew found in coastal areas of southern Asia…striking head pattern…and eye.

Tens of thousands of 12,000-year-old rock paintings found in Columbia – Found in an area previously inaccessible to researchers due to Columbia’s 50-year civil war. Made with red ocher.

Vitamin D regulates calcium in intestine differently than previously thought – Still new discoveries to be made about how our bodies work…how complex and interconnected the chemistry is….a system of systems.

Newly Discovered Underground Rivers Could Be Potential Solution for Hawai’i’s Drought – The potential for water wells off the coast of islands…supplementing fresh water available on the land to support the population living there.

eBotanical Prints – November 2020

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20 new eBooks added to the botanical prints list in November. They are all available from Internet Archive. The oldest is from 1682 – The Anatomy of Plants by Nehemiah Grew – the ‘father of plant anatomy.’ 6 books were published in the 1700s and the rest in the 1800s. I enjoyed the variety of books I browsed since I had been making my way through Annals of Botany for 2 months (September and October)! When I selected the sample images – I thought about why I made the selections I did from all the wonderful images in these books. Sometimes I choose because I know and enjoy the plant…sometimes it’s the color…sometimes it is a plant totally new to me. Overall – I like the mosaic of images in the post (and that each image can be enlarged with a click). Enjoy the November eBotanical Prints! The whole list of 2021 eBooks can be accessed here.

Medical flora or, Manual of the medical botany of the United States of North America Vol 1 * Rafineque, Constantine Samuel * sample image * 1828

Medical flora or, Manual of the medical botany of the United States of North America Vol 2 * Rafineque, Constantine Samuel * sample image * 1828

Thirty-eight plates, with explanations : intended to illustrate Linnaeus's System of vegetables, and particularly adapted to the Letters on the elements of botany * Martyn, Thimas; Nodder, Frederick Polydore * sample image * 1817

Flora rustica: exhibiting ... figures of such plants as are either useful or injurious in husbandry V1 and V2 * Martyn, Thimas; Nodder, Frederick Polydore * sample image * 1791

Flora rustica: exhibiting ... figures of such plants as are either useful or injurious in husbandry V3 and V4 * Martyn, Thimas; Nodder, Frederick Polydore * sample image * 1791

Traité des arbres forestiers : ou histoire et description des arbre indigènes ou naturalisés… * Jaume Saint-Hilaire, Jean Henri * sample image * 1824

Botanique medicinal * Jaume Saint-Hilaire, Jean Henri * sample image * 1799

The anatomy of plants * Grew, Nehemiah * sample image * 1682

Recueil de plantes coloriees * Rousseau, Jean-Jacques * sample image * 1789

Plants of the coast of Coromandel Vol 1 * Roxburgh, William * sample image * 1795

Plants of the coast of Coromandel Vol 2 * Roxburgh, William * sample image * 1798

Plants of the coast of Coromandel Vol 3 * Roxburgh, William * sample image * 1819

Plantarum Brasiliae icones et descriptiones hactenus ineditae * Pohl, Johann Emnuel * sample image * 1827

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 1 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1815

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 2 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1817

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 3 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1818

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 4 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1818

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 5 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1821

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 6 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1823

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 7 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1825

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.

Crane Fiesta

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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!

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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

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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.

Neighborhood Pond – November 2020 – part 1

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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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.

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All the flowers around the pond have gone to seed.

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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.

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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

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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.

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

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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.

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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