Zooming - February 2015

It is often hard to find color in the middle of winter. The colors seem to be mostly white and brown…so the bits of color are appreciated more:

• The flower and fiddlehead in the green house
• The red of a pigeon’s eye
• The flash of blue when a jay pushes the leaves around in the forest
• The blue sky on a sunny day
• The blue powder design on a butterfly’s wing

It is very cold today and there is still snow on the ground from a few days ago. But I enjoy the scene of the forest in winter from my office window - staying warm indoors.

Enjoy the February zoomed images!

Tucson Sunset

Taking time to observe the sunset is something I do on vacation more than other times. I photographed three sunsets while we were in Tucson in January.

The first was when we were driving back into Tucson from our three day road trip that took us to Montezuma’s Castle, Sunset Crater, Wupatki, Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, Painted Desert, and Petrified Forest…taking the scenic route through Show Low and the White Mountains on the last leg when the sun we down as we got close to Tucson. I was in the passenger seat and took pictures of the sunset as it progressed. There appeared to be rain that was not reaching the ground at one point but then there was enough clearing for the color to develop and reflect.

The second sunset was a disappointment although we did confirm that the Gates Pass Overlook in Tucson Mountain Park (taking Speedway west to W Gates Pass Rd) was an excellent place for sunset viewing. There are lots of saguaro and teddy bear cactus to catch the evening light. At first we thought the break between two cloud layers would make a great sunset but the lower layer was too thick and there was only a little color.

The third sunset was our second attempt from the Gates Pass Overlook. There were some modern technology intrusions - helicopters and a drone - but all was quiet as the sun actually set. It was worth the effort….the best sunset while we were in Arizona!  I started out with a picture of the teddy bear cactus glowing in evening light…then concentrated on the sky.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 14, 2015

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.

Behind the Photo: Paul Nicklen’s Leaping Penguins - Video of leaping penguins….and how it came to be.

This Scientific Paper Proves That Nature Never Stops Weirding Us Out - Did you know that frogs retract their eyes into their heads to push crickets down their throat?

Older adults: Double your protein to build more muscle - Maybe the recommended daily allowance for older adults needs to change.

Your Two-Minute Break to Enjoy Wildlife Along The Moose-Wilson Road In Grand Teton National Park - A short video….I enjoyed the reminder of how much I enjoyed a vacation at Grand Teton National Park years ago.

Expert panel recommends new sleep durations - Is your sleep duration within the new recommended range? Mine is. I was intrigued that there were two new categories added for this study: Young adults (18-25) and older adults (65+).

A surprisingly accurate map of the U.S. made with 600,000 bridges — and nothing else - Map created from data in the National Bridge Inventory maintained by the Federal Highway Administration…includes bridges that are longer than 20 feet. That’s a lot of bridges!

6 Wildlife Facts for World Wetlands Day - World Wetlands Day was Feb. 2….enjoy the facts and photos.

Fake Meat Gets Real - There are lots of new ways to get protein…some better than others. I liked the last sentence “you’re better off getting most of your protein from whole foods, including legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains.”

Review of nonmedicinal interventions for delirium in older patients - Good! My observation has been that older people on multiple medications have side effects (like increased delirium) that are often worse than the symptom being treated….so it seems prudent to resist adding medications unless they are absolutely necessary.

An Inventory of Protected Bike Lanes - Bikes are becoming more popular for recreations and transportation in many places around the country. Bike lanes are one way cities are responding. By the end of 2014 there were 191 around the country. I hope the trend continues!

Wupatki National Monument

The first time I visited Wupatki it was a very hot June day and I can remember taking the short walk around the site vividly. I drank almost all the water I had with me and got very hot….and the walk to the ruins is short - within sight of the visitor’s center. In January - it was cold and breezy with snow still on the ground. We didn’t need to carry water although I did refill my water bottle and drank most of it as we drove away; high altitude and dry air is dehydrating even if it is cold.

It is easy to visualize how the ruins could have been homes. They are a neat cluster of walls even today. The stone walls often incorporate larger boulders of the site.

Sometimes the lintels above the windows and doors held….and sometimes they didn’t.

There is a community room in the center of the settlement in a natural depression that still held some snow. Further away there was a ball court.

The old wildlife I saw was a very cold rabbit sitting in the sun. Note the pock marks (like mini-potholes formed wind and sand) and striations on the rock above the rabbit.

Next time I go to Wupatiki I want to plan more time to see some of the other areas...but I enjoyed this area near the visitor center even more than I did the first time around.

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

We had Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument to ourselves when we were there a few weeks ago. It was cold and breezy with snow and ice still clinging to the cinders in all the places that did not get full sun. It was quite a contrast to previous visits to the monument that were extremely hot with the sun glaring off the rock.

I did notice a pine tree that had probably been struck by lightning at some point. Part of the tree managed to survive and is now almost as large as the original trunk! Surely it was there a few years ago - but I didn’t notice it then.

The trail was too covered with snow and ice to be passable without boot spikes and poles - so I contented myself with a few pictures from the trail over the cinders. Some of the lava is very black and some shows the colors that gave the crater its name.

I like the idea of visiting this monument during the cooler months. It would be the best time to the hike (as long as there is not ice and snow). I was glad I didn’t have any altitude problems since it is quite a bit higher than Tucson; I did focus on making sure I drank water even when I wasn’t thirsty.

Tucson Botanical Garden - January 2015

I’ve already posted about the butterflies and poison dart frogs at the Tucson Botanical Garden. Today the post is mostly about cactus! I am always fascinated by how alien cactus sometimes looks. Their flowers look like they don’t belong nestled in thorns or atop smooth surfaced succulents. And what about the ones that look hairy? Sometimes the thorns are unusual colors - or several different colors. Sometimes the ribs stand out - sometimes the plant looks like a cushion - or a long stem that flops over. One non-cactus in the slide show below is the very last image. Can your guess what it is?

A pomegranate! The tree had several dried fruits on it. Another non-cactus was a net-leaf hackberry. I know this one only because there was a sign. The leaves were gone but I was fascinated by the bark.

Airports and Airplanes in Winter

Our trip to Tucson a few weeks ago had all the pluses and minuses of flying in the winter. It was snowing when we drove the airport….and continued on as our flight time approached. Our plane arrived at the gate with snow patterning the airflow over the body of the plane. We were delayed by an hour boarding the plane and then had to be de-iced which added a little more time on the ground in Baltimore.

Fortunately we did not miss our connecting flight in Little Rock to continue on to Las Vegas and then Tucson so our trek to Tucson was just a little bit delayed. I was prepared for delays with plenty of reading material and healthy food (fruit, veggies, protein bar, nuts). If we’d been delayed much in Las Vegas, I would have taken the opportunity to charge my electronics in the airport. Comfortable clothes - with layers - is important too. I appreciated that I had been able to get my coat in my checked luggage so I was not lugging very much through the airport between planes. Is there anything unique about those things for winter? Maybe not. I supposed I’ve just had more lengthy delays in winter and so I think about them more when I fly during the winter months.

A joy of the flight back from Tucson to Baltimore was the view from the window between Tucson and San Diego in the early morning - a lovely sunrise! And in January it happens late enough that it is easy to be awake to see it.

Poison Dart Frogs at the Tucson Botanical Garden

The butterfly exhibit at the Tucson Botanical Garden (earlier post here) included more than butterflies and plants. There were poison dart frogs that were roaming about the greenhouse. The docent told us they had been imported a few years ago to help control ants and fruit flies; they seem to do a good job! When they first arrived they were about as big as a thumbnail. They are still small - about the size of a thumb.

For some reason - the blue ones (not sure how many of them there are) seemed to be the most active.  These frogs tend to climb around on plants and objects rather than jump. They are quite agile.

They seem to be constantly in motion and like to be under vegetation. One got close to the door and one of the volunteers moved the frog back to some plants. These are non-native to the US so are carefully contained in the moist greenhouse that is the butterfly exhibit in Tucson!

Which color is your favorite? I think the blue is mine but maybe it is because I managed to photograph them more easily.

Pinyon Pines and Birds in Arizona

Two topics today - both from Arizona: pinyon pines and birds.

Pinyon pines are part of the landscape of the Grand Canyon. I have always been fascinated by their cones. They are short and squat and often full of sap. I learned that the hard way on a trip across New Mexico in a new car 30+ years ago. I picked up some pinyon pine cones and put them on the dash of the car - enjoying their wonderful smell as we continued our road trip. The sap stayed on the dash for years! I am enjoying the pictures I captured this time. The first picture is of a cone that has already lost its seeds; the second and third are developing cones.

I accidently took some good bird pictures in Arizona. They were accidents in that I was not set up to photograph birds; I was just being opportunistic. The varied thrush was in the parking lot of the Petrified Forest Visitor Center! The bird is a little out of normal range according to allaboutbirds.com.

The next three birds were in the alleyway outside my son-in-laws research greenhouse in Tucson (I was waiting outside after getting too hot in the greenhouse). The mockingbird kept an eye on every move I made but rummaged in the pebbles for food. This bird lives year round all of the US but they are usually too nervous for me to photograph.

The curve-billed thrasher felt secure on the electrical line. The wind ruffled the feathers periodically making the bird look rather scruffy.

The white-wing dove was also overhead on the lines. The red eye outlined in blue and the white tips on the wings are distinctive….and the ruffling of the feathers by the wind is too.

I am learning to always be prepared for bird photography in unlikely places!

On the Road in Arizona

I enjoy being a front seat passenger on road trips and catching the landscape ahead of the car. Our road trip within our vacation to Tucson was a great opportunity. I’ve perfected my technique over the past few vacations: make sure the windshield is clean, zoom a little to get the car out of the picture, and try to keep the horizon level!

My daughter did all the driving:

• From Tucson to Flagstaff (via Phoenix and Sedona, images 1-8 in the slideshow below),
• From Williams to the Grand Canyon in the early morning (image 9), and
• From Petrified Forest National Park back to Tucson (via Show Low and the White Mountains).

We had plenty of variety in the sky: clear blues, sunrise colors, patches of clouds building and a golden sky near sunset with rain not quite reaching the ground from dark clouds. There were roads winding and straight…up hill and down. Mountains with snow and mesas and buttes. Lots of red rock. Grasses, pines, scrub, and saguaro.

Enjoy the Arizona scenery from the road!

Montezuma Castle National Monument

Montezuma Castle National Monument is a good stop on the way between Tucson and Flagstaff. The reconstructed ‘castle’ is in a large depression in the cliff face. But everywhere there are smaller spaces that were walled to make storage areas

And on flatter ledges near the base of the cliff there are walls were there were other dwellings.

Water is nearby. It is easy to imagine why this was a place people chose for building/farming.

In one of the rock niches on the cliff, there were combs of bees (I used my camera zoom to 30x)!

There is good signage for native plants like Desert Christmas Cactus

And Arizona Sycamore. The Arizona Sycamores look different than the ones we have on the east coast. There is green shading in the peeling bark and the lobes of the leaves are deeper.

Next time I am in the area, I want to plan enough time to check out Montezuma Well that is part of the same National Monument but not contiguous with the castle area.

Meteor Crater in Northern Arizona

The Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona is a stop we always make when we are in the area. The weather for our visit a few weeks ago was cool/cold and cloudy. The crater is too large to fit in one photo. There are handy line of sight pipes at one of the overlooks to help orient the view. I’ve included one of a house size rock on the rim of the crater.

And a bill board of a 6’ tall astronaut and flag on the fence around the very center of the crater where some drilling was done and some of the old equipment is still in place.

The snow on the side of the crater that gets the least amount of sun helps for orientation too. The differences in light as the sunlight came and went between clouds influences the colors you see in the rocks.

The walls of the rim still show the trauma of the impact. I liked that the snow provided additional contrast to make the striations more visible.

Much of the rock is fractured from the impact and then rounded by erosion.

In my previous visits I took binoculars but this time I relied on the zoom capability of my camera and probably saw more on than my previous visits. It also helped that it was not blazing hot!

Grand Canyon National Park

I’ve been to Grand Canyon National Park three times:

• When I was in high school - in early spring 1971 when I walked a little ways down Bright Angel Trail then turned back when it started snowing.
• In May 1983 when my husband and I walked down the Bright Angel Trail to the plateau level. I remember blisters from the too-new hiking books and my legs feeling like jelly for most of the walk back up.
• In January 2015 when it was cold and breezy. We drove to the park through early morning light and saw a bald eagle landing in the top of a pine tree beside the highway. I wasn’t fast enough to get a picture but it started out the day right. The pictures below are from the visit a few weeks ago.

It is hard to fathom the sheer size of the place. The rim trail on the South Rim - accessible from many points - is an easy walk to try to get perspective. We were early enough that the haze had not burned off completely and sometimes the vegetation seemed to glow from light within.

There has been a lot of building in the main park facilities since 1983. I liked the way the paving incorporated different colors of concrete to make designs - spirals and gentle curves. But we didn’t stay in the developed area long. We decided on our plan for the day - settled on where we would eat lunch (Maswik Lodge Food Court) and began working our way toward Hermits Rest stopping at just about every overlook. After lunch we headed in the opposite direction (toward Desert View) where we would leave the park and head to our hotel about sunset. Along the way we saw rapids and twists of the river below, a mini-snowman, beefy crows, and the zigzag of a trail into the canyon. Sometimes I took pictures of lichen and small plants just to not be overwhelmed by the Grand Canyon vista!

I am already thinking about when I can go again!

Petrified Forest National Park

I’d been to Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona several times over the last 40 years. This visit was different in at least two ways:

• It was colder. It does get chilly in January even in Arizona! The other visits were during the summer when it was blazing hot and I remember lizards being as fascinating as the petrified logs. This time it was too cold for lizards to be active.
• I was keen to take pictures. Until the past few years I’d left picture taking to others. Now it is one of my favorite activities when I travel.

The very large logs look like long toppled tree trunks. They are in sections - cleaved by the pressure of sediments over the many years they were buried rather than a chain saw. The one above looks like it carried part of its root ball into the water where it was ‘petrified’ along with the rest of the trunk. ‘Petrified’ means that minerals replaced the wood fibers of the trees to create colorful crystals we see today as agate.

On the outermost part of the logs - the rough texture looks like bark.

Sometimes the cross sections are a jumble of minerals. But there are still some remnants in places of the tree rings.

And sometimes a knot where a limb came out of the tree is obvious. I show a log section and then a close up of the knot below.

Some of the logs were rotting when they fell or were swept away. I hadn’t noticed before that there are some sections that have holes in the center which shows that they were already rotting before they fell.

Some of the crystals appear to have grown inside wood fibers - preserving some of that finer structure inside the trunk.

And - last but not least - I couldn’t resist some close ups of some big crystals.

All of these pictures were taken on a short hike from the Rainbow Forest Museum.  There is a lot to see in a small area.

Painted Desert (Petrified Forest National Park)

Painted Desert is part of Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. I’m writing about it before the namesake area of the park because we entered the park at the Painted Desert Visitor Center on our visit a few weeks ago.

Remnants of snow was still on the ground from a few days earlier. The white was a nice contrast with the reds of the terrain at the beginning of the drive.

Newspaper Rock was move visible with the zoom on my camera. I almost stopped using binoculars when I travel since I would rather get a photograph as the same time I am seeing something.

Further along the drive - the layers of color become more distinctive. With the moisture from the snow melt, the colors were deeper than they appeared the last time I was in the area (during a summer).  Some of the slopes were ragged…some looked like melted ice cream.

There is an area there the petrified logs become more numerous. Some of them are in the place they’ve been for a very long time and some of toppled into the ravines - or on the Petrified Forest tomorrow.

For more information about this national park - take a look that the park’s brochures web page. Just about all the maps and informational pages available in the park have been made available.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 24, 2015

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.

Is it possible to reset our biological clocks? - I have just started a Coursera course on circadian clocks so am paying more attention to articles on the topic. This one is from ScienceDaily.

Wild pollinators at risk from diseased commercial species of bee - Honeybees, bumblebees, and social wasps  are all colony living insects that makes the transmission of disease within the colony very rapid…and now there is evidence of transmission between colonies, even colonies of different species.

Google Talking To Automakers about Building Autonomous Cars - I would like to see autonomous cars…but is it just wishful thinking for the near term (say 2020)?

This Ancient Pigment Could Soon Be Used to See Through Your Skin - Egyptian blue (calcium copper silicate). And now it’s becoming a medical technology too. Other applications of Egyptian Blue in an article from Antiquity Now.

How to Uncover a Skeleton’s Secrets - From National Geographic. The examples in the article is from a project in northern Peru

One Scientist's Race to Help Microbes Help You - There has been a lot discovered about the human microbiome…but translating the new knowledge into treatments has been slower. This is a story about the American Gut Project - a massive citizen science experiment - which is focused on accumulating enough data to enable the move toward treatments sooner.

Humanity Is In the Existential Danger Zone, Study Confirms - Scary stuff. Are we engineering a wave of extinctions on our planet that will eventually include ourselves? We are pushing against and past several planetary boundaries.

A Smart Grid Infrastructure Demands Increased Engineering Smarts - One of the skillsets needed for the future. The article is about the program in Syracuse University’s College of Engineering.

Counties Lag Behind National Recovery, Report Finds - A breakdown of ‘recovery’ at the county level reveals key economic indicators on a more granular level that we usually hear about. The clickable version of the map is available here.  I found that the county where I live has recovered 2 of the 4 indicators (which is considered ‘recovered’) but where my daughter lives in Tucson has not recovered any of the 4; having visited Tucson for the past 3 years, I do notice that things have improved - but they are not back to the levels prior to 2008.

Breathtaking Frozen Bubbles Look like Elegant Glass Ornaments - I hope we have a cold day soon so I can try making frozen bubbles like this! I’m pretty sure it takes lots of practice to make them look as good as these!

Tucson Sunrise

January is a great time of year to observe the sunrise in the US since it does not require getting up inordinately early. The added advantage in Tucson is that is it not overwhelmingly cold. We wore hoodies and headed out one morning last week - driving to the parking area in the eastern district of Saguaro National Park at the end of Speedway.

It was not a great place for sunrise because the mountains made for a tall horizon. But I liked the soft light on the desert scenes.

Then I started taking closer views of the plants. There were two kinds of Cholla

A prickly pear with colorful thorns

A wounded saguaro

And young saguaros with their Palo Verde nurse plant.

And finally - just as we were leaving - the rocks of the mountains caught the morning color.

Tucson Butterflies

It was warm enough for butterflies to be active on the lantana on the University of Arizona campus week before the last but the bigger butterfly treat was at the Tucson Botanical Garden’s Butterfly and Orchid Pavilion.

The pavilion is a warm, misty place where the butterflies are numerous enough to get some good photographs - after the camera acclimates to the steamy environment. The exhibit gets new additions each day a pupae in the building next door hatch and are brought into the pavilion. We saw a glass wing being released and then a very large moth - a cecropia. I included two pictures of it in the slideshow below.

The butterflies only live about 2 weeks. Some of them don’t eat in their adult phase - others are active on nectar plants. Caterpillars and their food plants are not part of the exhibit (all the pupae come from the native countries for the butterflies).

What a delight of warmth and color in January!

Zooming - January 2015

The zoomed images this month are more varied than usual. There were some images from very cold days (mostly in Maryland) and some mild days in Arizona. I’ll be posting about our travel to Arizona in the weeks to come but I could not resist including a little prelude here! Can you find…. 

• Ice eddies
• A rabbit
• Elk eye
• Snowman
• Crow feet
• Star Trek Enterprise pictograph
• Petrified wood knots
• Red thorns
• Baby toe cactus

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 10, 2015

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.

Birding in the National Parks: Return of the Snowy Owls - It looks like this winter will be another one for seeing Snowy Owls in the northern states of the US! There were some sightings in Maryland last winter so I am hoping…

Did Venus Once Have Oceans of Liquid Carbon Dioxide? - Maybe the geological features on Venus (rift valleys, river-like beds, and plains) were may be liquid carbon dioxide rather than water like they are on Earth.

From the Feature Well - This is the summary of 2014 special issues from The Scientist. Looking back at them provides a good review of Biology issues and progress for the year.

The "Rule of 50" Helps You Know When to Give Up on a Book - How do you know when to quit reading a book? Usually I decide via scanning before I every start reading rather than determining ahead of time a number of pages I’ll read before deciding. I can’t remember the last time my scanning failed.

Monarch Butterflies May Soon Be an Endangered Species - The population has declined by 90% since the 1990s. It’s very sad. The agricultural changes in the mid-90s killed the milkweed (food plant for the caterpillars) at the edges of fields. Now there needs to be a concerted effort to increase the availability of milkweed.

The Most Amazing Meteorological and Space Observatories Ever Built - Beautiful and functional architecture from around the world.

Top Planning Trends – 2014 - A look at traffic data on Planetizen…popular tags overall and popular posts for each state. The most popular post for Maryland was about high-rise, mixed-use suburban developments.

Significant link between daily physical activity, vascular health - These type of studies come out frequently…with some nuance defined a little better than before. Hopefully no one is waiting for another study to transition some sedentary to active time every day. Now that I think about it - do these studies prompt people to become more active?

A Look Back at Our Most Popular Photos of 2014 - From the National Wildlife Federation. The very first one (a snowy owl) caught my attention.

National Park Service Launches Website Honoring 22 World Heritage Sites in the United States - Did you know that there are 22 World Heritage Sites (a UN designation) are in the US?  Most of them are National Parks…but now all. The list can be found here.