Volunteering at Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens XV-XIX

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The 5 most recent shifts at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy have not been overly hot – unusual for August here in Maryland. Before the 15th shift, it was damp. I took some pictures under a bald cypress of a Cypress Gall (Midge) that had not matured enough to kill the small branch and some developing cones. When I walked over to the boardwalk toward the nature center I walked through a spider web that has been built overnight; not the best way to start the morning. I brushed myself off and headed into the conservatory. The shift was a special one for photographers – so not crowded at all and calmer than the public shifts.

It was raining for the entire 16th shift. I managed to find some dry spots under trees along the stream when I got there for my walk around the gardens prior to the shift. Some big rocks have been added to the stream bed to stabilize the banks. There is one area that eroded perilously close the fence and the road just beyond.

The slide show below is the rest of my walk. I moved fast when I was being rained on but took pictures when I found a sheltered place: 1) of a curve in the stream, 2) in the rose garden under the crepe myrtle trees, 3) a waterlily (note the ripples from the raindrops into the pool), and 4) under the cypress trees that kept the butterfly bench mostly dry. Wings of Fancy got off to a slow start that day because the ticket seller was late…and it was raining harder. The conservatory leaks! The tiny space between the ticket taker awning and the caterpillar house becomes a little waterfall when it is raining hard! But the exhibit was a good rainy day activity for people once they got into the conservatory.

The 17th shift was not rainy. It was an early shift for photographers again and I relaxed before hand with a good walk around the gardens noting blooms (sumac, joe pye weed, sunflowers) and then some oddities on the bald cypress (something that looks like tiny yellow ‘flowers’, and a fuzzy caterpillar with horns), jewelweed growing near the boardwalk on the way to Brookside Nature Center (the plant is supposed to be good for treating poison ivy…but it often grows in locations the poison ivy does), and a cocoa tree in the part of the conservancy not used for the butterfly exhibit.

The 18th shift was sunny – but not too hot. I’m paying more attention to the tiny yellow blobs on the bald cypress; one of them had red filaments. The rose garden is beginning to bloom more now that the high heat of summer is over.

The rest of the garden has benefited from the rain too and looks lush. I enjoyed trying to photograph the skipper butterflies on the Mexican sunflowers.

The 19th shift was sunny and cooler than I excepted; as I was walking around I was glad I was going to be in the conservatory once my shift started where it would be warmer. I talked to one of the Brookside staff about the tiny yellow blobs on the cypress; it’s not something they have seen before.

I headed up toward the scent garden and saw a dragonfly in the air. It landed on one of the maples…and sat while I managed to find him in the foliage for a zoomed image. The maple leaves are beginning to change color for fall.

Another sign of fall in the gardens – a cardinal molting and getting new feathers on its head. This is not bald…but all the new feather shave not come in so the crest looks scruffy and around the eye still needs additional feathers to look ‘normal.’

I walked over to the boardwalk to photograph the jewel weed again and got side tracked when I noticed a spider near one of the flowers. It took long enough to get the photograph I wanted that i hurried to the volunteer entrance to get into 'flight attendent' gear and ready for the shift. It was a busy morning in the exhibit.

The Wings of Fancy is over for 2017 on September 17….I’ll most about the last of my shifts just after ‘the end.’ It’s been a great volunteer experience!

Previous posts re Volunteering at Wings of Fancy: prep, I, II-IV, V-X, XI-XIV.

Gleanings of the Week Ending September 2, 2017

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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.

Yoga and meditation improve mind-body health and stress resilience – A study that went beyond anecdotal reports of positive effects. They looked at brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and activity in the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) and inflammation markers.

20+ Spectacular Photos From the…Solar Eclipse and NASA’s Best Photos of the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse – Photo series from the web of the 8/21/2017 solar eclipse.

Dancing can reverse the signs of aging in the brain – Dancing is more effective than endurance training! Both dancing and endurance training increase the area of the brain that declines with age but dancing improves balance too!

The big idea: 5 ways to be a more thoughtful traveler – The articles ‘5’ are: know some history, think about how you’ll document your trip, read a book set wherever you’re going, learn some of the language, and understand where you come from. Good ideas!

10 Really Weird Animals of the Anthropocene  and Tongue Orchids & Corpseflowers: 7 insanely weird plant species – There is so much to learn about plants and animals…sometimes because they are changing and sometimes because they are hard to find/rare.

Trying to Create Something Different in the Nebraska Sandhills – I couldn’t resist this one…since I just visit Nebraska for the first time recently.

Image of the Day: Flying Blood Bag – The entwined network of blood vessels in a pigeon’s CT scan.

Our brains to change from early to mid-adulthood – The changes observed were so highly correlated to age that the researchers could estimate the ages of an individual simply by looking at the brain scan. 111 scans were analyzed from volunteers 18-55 years old.

On Education in the 21st Century – A paper by Richard Watson (futurist) for the Australia’s Department of Education. It talks about Slow Education (people centric, reflective, and aim to ensure that individual appreciate where the things they consume come from…emphasizes the importance of local difference, craft and quality over standardized production and cheap ingredients).

Interactive Infographic: The Global Business of Dying – The laws governing how terminally ill patients can choose to die vary widely – around the world and in the US (link to the US map is at the bottom of the global post).

Zentangle® – August 2017

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It’s the first of the month – so time to showcase the Zentangle tiles from August: 31 days and 31 Zentangles. 9 of the tiles I chose to include in this post were the backs of old business cards and 22 were square tiles cut from Seltzer water boxes. I realized that I have some patterns that I am using again and again…it’s time to find some new favorites! One theme I used in August was to use some of the lighter – subtler – colors on the cardboard tiles. The color often seems to be embedded into the light brown of the tile: grays, light greens, melons, pinks. The last two are probably my favorites.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Owl Butterfly Eggs

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Last weekend, I took a few minutes to photograph the eggs of the owl butterfly in Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit. I got as close as I could to the canna leaf where they were located and then clipped out the part of the picture to see them even better. The eggs quite small – about the size of the head of a straight pin – and look smooth to the eye. With the magnification of the enlarged picture it is easy to see that they:

  • Are ribbed
  • That they change as they develop with the white one being one that is probably not going develop. The others probably have a tiny caterpillar developing. Do you see the light brown C shape in the third egg from the left? Looks like a developing caterpillar!

One of the joys of volunteering at the Wings of Fancy exhibit is being there frequently enough to see the progression of butterfly development…and occasionally capturing some of it with my camera.

Road Trip Home from Nebraska

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We retraced our road trip to get home from Nebraska – taking two days (again) to make the drive.

I took some last pictures around the hotel the afternoon before we left: the art in front of the gas station when we were filling the tank, the sunny parking lot, and the curtains in the room (they are a good prompt for a Zentangle!). This trip was the first time I had ever been in Nebraska and I was surprised that it was hilly; somehow, I expected it to be very flat like the panhandle of Texas. As we headed east the next morning we made one stop while still in Nebraska. There were a few people that were making an early start like we were – but not the crowd at the rest stop on eclipse day! The rest stop included some signage about the Native American use of the area.

We crossed the Missouri River, leaving Nebraska and entering Iowa. The rest stop at Council Bluffs has good signage about the history of the place and the fossil record; artistic ‘bluffs’ near the entrance, a floral mosaic inside, and low dividers around some of the picnicking areas; and a reddish colored walkway that might have been patterned after the river we’d just crossed.

We stopped at mid-morning to eat watermelon another Iowa rest stop. There were plenty of tables in the shade but it was cool enough that we picked one in the sunshine. There was a cicada that was very slow moving – too cold to make noise or fly away when I got close to take a picture! We stopped in Iowa City for lunch at a McDonalds and part of the decoration had physics and chemistry formulas! Right before we entered Illinois, we made one last stop and I took pictures of sun flowers. I like to see plants that are good for pollinators and birds in the rest stop gardens.

The Mississippi River is the boundary between Iowa and Illinois and I took a picture as we drove over the bridge. This is before the river joins with the Missouri…so it’s not as muddy looking. The only rest stop we used in Illinois had planted their formal beds with things good for last summer and fall insects and birds…good for them! It seems to be the trend in rest stop maintenance!

We hit a lot of traffic as we drove to the south of Chicago and into Indiana. I took a picture as we entered the state. We made a stop at a gas station before we got to the hotel in Elkhart, Indiana….tired after a long drive. There was a restaurant within walking distance from our hotel and it felt good to get the exercise after sitting for so much of the day.

The second day we had a shorter drive. The Ohio rest stops are more formal grass and trimmed bushes. There are some margins that might provide plants for insects. There are lots of travel brochures and I picked up several – thinking that north east Ohio could be a good destination for a fall or spring road trip. The rest stops have either barrel or dome sections over their food courts. I realized in the last one we stopped at that there was a Ohio map on the floor!

I took picture through the car window as we went into Pennsylvania. The Alleghenies make for a lot more elevation change and winding in the highway. The clouds were fluffy that day too. The skyline of Pittsburgh…the Heinz sign…the Squirrel Hill tunnel (my son-in-law’s apartment is on top of the tunnel!). After we left my daughter in Pittsburgh, we made a stop at one of the service plazas on the Pennsylvania Turnpike…and then it was through the Allegheny Mountain tunnel.

Our only stop in Maryland before we got home was at the South Mountain rest stop. By that time the fluffy clouds were mostly gone. The stop has mowed grass around the picnic tables…but the beds are planted with meadow type grasses and small flowers rather than exotic flowers. Those plants probably are easier to maintain and give the butterflies/bees a boost!

An hour later – it was good to get home.

Previous posts about our Solar Eclipse trek: Road Trip to Nebraska for the Eclipse, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Solar Eclipse – August 2017, Nebraska Sunrise.

Nebraska Sunrise

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We were in Nebraska for two mornings and I was up for the sunrise for both. The first morning was the day of the solar eclipse. We got an early start because we knew we had to drive west to get out of the clouds. Our hotel in York, Nebraska was full of people around for the eclipse but many were hoping to stay in York and hope for clearing.

The next morning, we were heading east toward home. I walked to the edge of the parking lot for this picture. A few people had left the day before but there were still quite a few people at the hotel breakfast getting an early start on their trek back to where they came from.

Once we were in the car – I noticed that the sunrise was very colorful. I wished the dew was cleared better from the windshield…but couldn’t resist the ‘on the road’ sunrise pictures!

As always – watching the sunrise is a wonderful start to the day.

Previous posts about our Solar Eclipse trek: Road Trip to Nebraska for the Eclipse, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Solar Eclipse – August 2017.

Solar Eclipse - August 2017

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The 2017 Eclipse occurred one week ago – and I’m posting about our experience today!

We were concerned that York, Nebraska – where we had originally planned to be to observe the eclipse - would be cloudy so we’d looked at maps and weather forecasts the evening before and decided to drive 1.5 hours west and north to Loup City, Nebraska. It was a short drive west along the Interstate and then through farms. We made a ‘rest’ stop in Cairo, Nebraska since there were several locations in Loup City and we weren’t sure how long it would take to find things/what facilities would be available.

The first location we found was perfect: Jenners Park in Loup Nebraska. There was a playground and bit trees. I walked around to look at the place before the eclipse started.

Then I came back and put my camera on a tripod with a solar filter ready for the eclipse to start.

My husband had a fancier set up with two cameras on a telescope mount (so it would track) and another tripod with a camera to take video during totality.

My daughter enjoyed the event without a camera….although she did give in a take some pictures during totality with her cell phone. Other families enjoyed Jenners Park as well and there were pleasant conversations as the eclipse progressed. There were several people with connections to University of Arizona where my daughter just finished graduate school!

One of the cottonwoods near the street had the effect of a pinhole projection system for the eclipse. The first time I noticed it was earlier in the eclipse…and the second was much closer to totality…just a sliver of the sun shining. I hurried back to my camera to observe totality.

The slide show below shows my pictures as the eclipse started and through totality.  Note the sunspots in the early pictures and the shadow blocking them as the moon moved between Earth and the sun.

Previous posts about our Solar Eclipse trek: Road Trip to Nebraska for the Eclipse, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

 

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

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As mentioned in last Friday’s post, we stopped at the Indian Dunes National Lakeshore on our way to see the solar eclipse in Nebraska. After stopping at the visitor center (bison sculpture in front) to get a map, we drove to the Dunes Succession Trail which is part of the West Beach Trail System.

The first part of the hike was along a pave path to the beach. We crossed the dune field.

The beach is relatively narrow but it was a sunny warm day and people were enjoying the water. We followed the signs to the trail. The beach got very narrow and the sand was difficult to walk through.

Finally, we got to the trail that headed back into the dunes. Low grass and trees stabilized the sand.

It was still difficult to walk in the sand and it was obvious that sometimes the trail caused erosion of the slopes to the side of it.

There were low areas that looked like meadows and sometimes had wet areas.

The areas of succession (grasses, pines and low shrubs, deciduous trees) would happen again and again on the walk – which got easier after we came to the boardwalk.

Going up stairs is easier than walking in loose sand!

We thought we were at the top of the stairs and turned to take a picture of the Chicago skyline. It was a hazy afternoon….would have been better on a clear morning, I’m sure.

Looking back from the way we came, the variety of vegetation is easily seen. Sometimes the vegetation does not hold the sand well enough and exposed/loose sand results.

The cotton woods seem to be a hardy deciduous species here.

Even in the areas of hardwoods, there are sand slides where the vegetation failed to hold the sand. Note that the trees are no very big around either – probably not very old…and stressed.

The hike was a good contrast from the long drive in the car. We stopped for the night after a short drive into Illinois, more than half way to our Nebraska destination.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 26, 2017

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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.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #101 and #102 – 50 bird pictures this week! My favorite in the first group is the barn owl (and the other owls in this group). My favorite in the second group are the two pictures of spotted owlets! --- I am drawn to owls this week for some reason.

Voyager: Inside the world’s greatest space mission – The two Voyager space craft were launched in 1977…and are both sending back messages to earth.

Trees with ‘crown shyness’ mysteriously avoid touching each other – I haven’t observed this phenomenon in our Maryland forests…but now when I am in a forest, I’ll always look for it!

Time Spent – Who Americans spend their time with (from Richard Watson’s blog). It changes with age. The last chart shows that as we get older we spend more and more time alone.

Air pollutions ranking in 32 cities –  LA ranks 24; Washington DC, San Francisco and New York are 26-28; Boston is 31. Delhi, Beijing, and Cairo are the top three.

Trees and shrubs offer new food crops to diversity the farm – Ongoing research from the University of Illinois trying to mimic the habitat features, carbon storage, and nutrient-holding capacities of a natural system with a farming method that incorporates berry and nut bearing shrubs/trees with alley cropping (hay or row crops)….to be economically and environmentally sound.

AWEA releases map of every wind farm and factory in America – There is a link to the interactive map. The red diamonds are manufactures and the blue dots are the wind farms themselves. It’s easy to see that manufactures happens a lot in areas other than where the wind farms are located….that the center of the country has a lot of installed wind turbines! We saw some of them in Iowa on our way to and from the solar eclipse last Monday.

Diversity Lacking in US Academia: Study – Under-representation of African Americans, Hispanics, and women in STEM faculties at public universities. There is a similar lack of diversity in PhD programs. On a positive note: the assistant professor is more diverse (more Asians, Hispanics and women) that the associate or full professor rank.  Unfortunately, this positive finding is not true for African Americans. Overall – still a challenge….and it impacts the broader labor market as well.

More than 300,000 Atlantic Salmon Spill into Pacific – Oh no! Hopefully this is not catastrophic in the long run. But – Why are they growing Atlantic salmon in pens in Puget Sound anyway?

Thanks to Co-op, Small Iowa Town Goes Big on Solar – Kalona, Iowa – not far from our route to the eclipse! It comes down to local self-reliance and economic development that made sense for this small town. Somehow a pointer to this article (from last February) was in a blog post I looked at when I returned home and I noticed where the town was…small world.

Road Trip to Nebraska for the Eclipse

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We were in Nebraska for the eclipse last Monday having driven from Maryland --> Pennsylvania --> Ohio --> Indiana --> Illinois --> Iowa --> Nebraska on the two days prior to the eclipse. I am writing about the road trip to Nebraska today and will be posting about the rest of our eclipse adventure over the next week.  We started out very early last Saturday. Our only stop in Maryland was the South Mountain rest area which is becoming a familiar stopping point for us on the way to Pittsburg or State College.

On Saturday, we were heading to Pittsburgh to pick up our daughter along way. We stopped at the rest stop/welcome center to Pennsylvania then two service areas along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It’s a scenic drive and I enjoyed a peanut butter cookie purchased at the North Midway stop. We arrived at the Pittsburgh (Squirrel Hill) apartment by mid-morning.

We were back on the road and into Ohio shortly. We stopped at rest areas along the toll road (fortunately our Maryland E-ZPass tags worked for the entire trip). The first two areas had a round area where there were several options for lunch; my daughter and I chose Panera Bread at the first stop and my husband got his McDonalds lunch at the second. The third stop had a barrel vault roof.

We continued into Indiana making a rest stop along the highway and then at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore for a hike (more on that in a subsequent post) and then to our hotel in Lansing, Illinois. The next morning, we were off again after a hearty breakfast at the hotel. There were two rest stops as we crossed the state. There was a Monarch not quite warm enough to be fluttering around. It seemed to have lost a lot of scales since it looked more brown than orange.

Iowa has some themed rest stops depicting the history and energy production of the state. The tall white obelisk in the second picture is a blade of a wind turbine! The art work inside (glass etching and floor tile) was appealing.

And then we were in Nebraska – making one rest stop before arriving at our hotel in York, Nebraska. The day we arrive was clear but the forecast for eclipse day was lots of clouds. We were looking at maps and the track of the eclipse….trying to figure out whether we should head west or east on eclipse day.

Zooming – August 2017

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It’s always fun to review the pictures I’ve taken during the month and select the ones where I used the zoom feature on my camera. I use it a lot so have most of my pictures ‘fit’ the criteria. Plants are the most frequent object…but there are butterflies and a bird this month as well. Enjoy the slide show!

Ten Little Celebrations – August 2017

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August has been a busy month – volunteering (primarily at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy) and the solar eclipse road trip. There has been plenty to celebrate.

Monarch Butterflies. The population of Monarchs in Maryland is so reduced from 15 years ago that I celebrate whenever I see them. Brookside Gardens has a few and they are strong enough flyers that I’ve seen them even on rainy days where most of the other butterflies are hiding under leaves.

Orange dead leaf butterfly resting on my hand. An orange dead leaf butterfly kept me company for the last 20 minutes of one of my Wings of Fancy shifts! It settled onto my hand and used its proboscis to get whatever was on my skin. Periodically it opened its wings – flashed their brilliance for a second or two before looking like a dead leaf again. (picture from back in July...not when it was on my hand)

Emerging Atala butterfly. I was at the discovery station talking with a group of children in front of the discovery station when an Atala butterfly emerged. Its wings were folded so tight that they were almost not visible! The was a great experience for the children…and for me too.

Emerging pipevine swallowtails. One day there were three swallowtails that emerged during the hour I was at the discovery station at Wings of Fancy. There was a different audience of families each time. Someone would comment that one of the chrysalises was moving and then – the butterfly would be pulling itself out. The wings would be very wet but noticeably start expanding almost immediately.

Cantaloupe. We’ve has some great watermelon and cantaloupes from our CSA this year. They are probably all worth a little celebration but there was one cantaloupe that was spectacularly sweet – and that’s the one I’m thinking about as I write this.

August sunrise. Somehow being up and observing the sunrise is my favorite way to start the day. It is something to celebrate even if it potentially happens every day!

Orange striped oakworm caterpillar. Yes – it eats oak leave…but they don’t kill the tree. They are beautiful caterpillars and I celebrated seeing one for the first time!

Spider web on the mailbox. I celebrated a spider web that was naturally misted (with fog) and being in out at the right time to photograph it. As a secondary little celebration – I was relieved that the ants that crawled up my legs, while I was concentrating on photography, did not bite me!

Glow. I celebrated thinking about the glow of light in flowers and glow of interactions with people…sometimes those two things bring out similar emotions.

A day at home. Sometimes with a lot going on, a day at home is just what I need…and worth celebrating.

3 Free eBooks – August 2017

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I’ve been enjoying colorful magazines on various topics that are from 2016 and available on Internet Archive. It’s like browsing through a stack of periodicals in the dentist’s office!

House Beautiful (from US and UK) from 2015 and 2016. Available from Internet Archive here. Lots of food for thought if you are redecorating, renovating, or moving to another house and wanting to add something to make it ‘home.’

World of Animals from 2014 and 2017 available from Internet Archive here. Great pictures of animals – many in action – from all over the world.

Canadian Architecture and Design 2009 available from Internet Archive here. Again – great photography…beautiful places. I hope pocket doors become popular again!

Spider Webs

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Last week on a foggy morning, my husband commented that there was a large spider web on our mailbox. I went out to investigate. Sure enough – it was easy to spot.

The fog had left water droplets on the strands of silk. Making it more visible.

As I zoomed in – they looked more and more like beads on a string.

I noticed another web over the mailbox. It was not as organized and the camera had a challenge to focus on anything as I zoomed in. I wonder if the organization of the web indicated it was a different kind of spider than the one that built the web below.

There were different webs in the azalea near our porch but they had caught the fog as well. The webs look like gauzy nets. These spiders had evidently had recent success and were working to wrap up their prey. As I was photographing these webs, I felt a tickly on my right leg – and discovered a small ant was crawling around. Then I looked at my left leg…and there were 12 or more ants! I cut the photography session short and brushed the ants off and put baking soda water on my legs even though – amazingly – I don’t think the ants stung me at all.

Hope everyone along the path of the solar eclipse in the US today takes the opportunity to see it! Be safe and enjoy the event.

Birding through a window – August 2017

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Last month, I posted about an America goldfinch that perched on the window frame outside my office. And it’s a goldfinch again for August’s ‘through a window’ post. This male is already in the process changing to winter plumage. He has patches of gray on his head and neck and there are tufts of feathers that the bird was moving around on both sides – like they itched. It was not exactly symmetrical but maybe molting never is.

As the leaf cover of the trees gets thinner, there is always less protection from predators so the drabber winter plumage helps the bird survive. No need for him to stand out when it’s not breeding season!

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 19, 2017

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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.

Three things to know about the Louvre’s history – A fort…royal residence…and then a museum!

Americans are using less electricity today than a decade ago – Annual residential electricity sales have declined by 3% and residential electricity sales per capita is down by 7% since 2010. Advances in efficiency and shifts to smaller devices are making a difference. Some argue that electric cars will cause an increase in demand for electricity….but the same people that drive electric cars are likely to have solar panels!

Aspirin’s Four-Thousand-Year History – Willow bark was used for 1000s of years for ‘curing’ fevers. In 1897, Felix Hoffman at Bayer created chemically pure salicylic acid and then created acetylsalicylic acid which did not irritate digestion the way salicylic acid does….and Aspirin came to the marketplace.

The Quest to Restore American Elms: Nearing the Finish Line – My grandparents had elm trees around their house in Oklahoma when I was growing up in the ‘60s. My grandfather built a picnic table around one of them and we had our evening meals there during our summer visits. In my late teens, the tree began to die and eventually had to be cut down. The place lost a key element when that happened. I’m sure that was true around many homes. I hope the elms can be restored….and maybe the chestnuts too.

Climate change is disrupting the birds and the bees and Europe to experience vast and rapid ‘invasion’ by infectious diseases as climate warming continues – The effects of climate change are not just rising temperatures or changing weather patterns. Everything on earth is interrelated. Sometimes that building in resiliency to change and sometimes it enables small changes to have a domino effect that is catastrophic.

In the Earth’s hottest place, life has been found in pure acid – Microbes that survive in extreme acid, hot temperatures, and high salinity. The pH in one pool was 0…and life was found there.

Here’s a crazy idea: let’s agree on the facts – Finding common ground through data? That is what Steve Ballmer is working on. The USAFacts site is the result and it is very easy to spend time looking at the summary reports….and the linkage to raw data sources.

It’s not your imagination. Summers are getting hotter. – A graphic of the changing bell curve of the temperatures with the base period being 1950-1980…crawling toward the hot and hotter direction for the time periods since them.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #100 – There is an indigo bunting in this set. I always celebrate when I see one in the field!

The greatest threats to humanity as we know it – Infographic from BBC Future.

Preparing for the Solar Eclipse

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Are you ready for the solar eclipse on Monday, 8/21? We’ve been planning where we will be and backup locations in case of clouds. My husband has solar filters for our cameras and glasses for our eyes. He also has an app to prompt us to look for certain features as the eclipse happens. He set up his two-camera rig on his telescope mount and I tried my camera on a regular tripod. The filter for my camera fits over the lens when the camera is turned on.

I was somewhat concerned that I might have to do some manual focusing but the camera autofocus algorithm seems to do well enough if the sun is in the center of the image. I took this picture earlier this week (with the filter). Do you see the sunspot (very faint…but there) in the right of the image?

More on the eclipse after it happens…

Celebrating Butterflies – Part 2

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Continuing my August post about butterflies in the Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit --- what a difference lighting makes. Both pictures below are the underside of the malachite butterfly week. The most colorful butterflies often have reflective/physical color rather than pigment…and so light makes a tremendous difference.

I looked more carefully at the color patterns on the butterfly wings and noticed that the ribs of the wing play a role in the pattern of some butterflies

And others where the ribs were not part of the pattern.

Another two butterflies were the ribs are part of the pattern – and even are boldly outlined on part of the wing – are the Queen

And the Monarch butterflies.

There is always something new to notice in the butterfly exhibit!

Celebrating Butterflies – Part 1

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Even though I have been volunteering at the Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit, I don’t take pictures of butterflies every time I am there (too busy when I am in my ‘Flight Attendant’ role). Most of the pictures of butterflies I’m taking these days are themed. For example – blue morphos are a challenge to photograph because they usually fold their wings when they sit. Last week – one of the expert volunteers tickled one with the brush…and it opened its wings for a few second…repeatedly… until everyone took a picture. Since the color is reflective/physical, the direction of the light is important. Looking at the butterfly vertically – the blue looks like a blue foil.

The easiest picture of the blue morpho is the underside of the wings…and there is something to note in a zoomed image: the ‘eyes’ have some salmon scales in them!

I took several images of one that happened to open its wings and stay still of a few minutes. This butterfly was horizontal and the blue color looks quite different with a deeper blue toward the top of the wing. Also notice the red marks in the black frame at the bottom of the wing. The blue scales powder into the black frame. The last picture of this series is the head of the butterfly. Note the labial palpi – the small projections that curve up and around the eyes. They are sensory structures but may also protect the proboscis and/or act to protect the surface of the eyes.

The slide show below shows a butterfly that was moving its labial palpi. It looked to me like the insect was rubbing them over part of the eye.

Here are few more images that show labial palpi. They are not all the same looking. Not the red proboscis that is tightly coiled (between the palpi) in the last image!

An August Sunrise

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With the days getting shorter, I’m downstairs before sunrise on some mornings. I looked out the narrow window beside my front door last weekend about 10 minutes before sunrise and decided to take a minute for some pictures…stepping out to the front porch. I experimented with composition and orientation. My favorite is the last one because it shows the top of our oak tree and there are faint pink streamer clouds up into sky. It was a very worthwhile minute on the front porch! The cat watched me from the narrow window; he might have been enjoying the morning scene as well. Noticing the sunrise is a great way to start the day.