Birds Photographed Through a Window – December 2016

December has been a good month for bird observation through my office window. Our bird bath is particularly popular with blue jays. Note the change from the blue-green bowl early in the month to the heated bowl. I’m not sure whether the blue jays are the most frequent visitors, but they are certainly the noisiest.

Both the male and female cardinal stop by almost every day. They make small noises so I usually notice then too.

The mourning doves are quiet…but they are big enough to catch my eye as they swoop down to the deck railing.

All the other birds hide when the red-tailed hawk flies in to perch in the trees at the forest’s edge behind out house. I like to see raptors, but am glad they are not watching my deck all the time!

A white breasted nuthatch visited the bird feeder and did the usual upside down acrobatics to pick out individual seeds.

I saw the Northern Flicker (yellow shafted) – just as I did in November; the bird likes the maple. The yellow on the wing and underneath the tail was clearer in the photograph this month.

The juncos can be aggressive and chase off some of the other birds. The winter here…a long way from where they have their young in the arctic. I wonder what will happen to their numbers as the arctic warms. They are high energy birds all winter long in Maryland.

There are some birds that I see less often (because of the swarms of juncos). I saw a sleepy looking male goldfinch in winter plumage.

A titmouse got a quick sip at the bird bath before a junco flew in.

The Carolina wren is still around to but tends to stay clear when the juncos are around. The bird is not a noisy in the winter as when defending territory in the spring and summer.

I’m enjoying the birds of winter!

Lizard on the Front Porch

I see lizards more frequently when I travel (to Hawaii, to Texas, to Arizona) than I do at home. So I was pleasantly surprised to see one on my front porch a few days ago. It was in the later afternoon on a warm day – not overwhelming hot.

It appears to be an American five-lined skink, one of the most common lizards in Maryland – although its tail does not look particularly blue. It stuck around long enough for me to take a few pictures through the long narrow window beside the front door.

It another good indicator of the overall health of the habitat around the immediate vicinity of my house!

More Dragonflies (at Kenilworth Gardens)

I posted some dragonfly pictures from Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens earlier in the month but then we made more visits to the place and I got some even better pictures by zooming in even more (and using a monopod to stabilize the camera). It is easier to see wing damage (lower left wing) and how the wings attach to the insect.

Their heads and legs have more bristles than I expected…and there is a ‘face.’

The eyes bulge out – dominating the head. The wings have an intricate pattern of supports for the wing membrane and the wings are not exactly flat.

The different kinds of dragonflies have a different pattern of wing structures.

The opening in the mid-back where the wings are attached looks so alien - or not the smoothed structure of other things like fly (butterflies, birds, or airplanes).

Enjoy the slide show below of more dragonflies!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 18, 2016

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 dirty is your air? – Based on this article – I am trying to get in the habit of turning on the vent fan when I am cooking….and opening some windows when the outdoors temperature is pleasant.

Serious Putty – A clay with antimicrobial properties…even against resistant strains! More research is needed – but it is exciting that this could be a totally different mechanism for fighting infection that the current antibiotics on the market.

Snow in Vietnam and Other New Climate Patterns Threaten Farmers – This is from the Business Report section of the MIT Technology Review. The article focuses on farmers in Vietnam in an area that got snow for the first time in their life time (and historically) last winter and how weather patterns are impacting their finally honed rhythm for crops. It would be interesting to hear stories from farmers around the world. Climate is changing globally – but not always in the same way.

Sunflower Spirals: Complexity Beyond the Fibonacci Sequence – The results of a crowd sourced look at sunflower spirals: 1 in 5 did not conform to the Fibonacci Sequence. Some of those non-conformers approximated it and others approximated more complex mathematical patterns! Either way – I like the look of sunflower spirals.

Genome Digest – Recent findings of genomic research on giraffes – carrots – zebrafish and gar – herring – Atlantic salmon. A lot has changed since I got my biology degree in the 1980s.

Seeing the Inevitable, companies begin to adapt to climate change – Most companies are aware that climate change is likely to affect their future but are not planning for it with any consistency or depth. Those furthest along are those already dealing with climate change on a daily basis: agriculture and insurance. Ikea and Ford are two companies used as examples in the article.

Tranquil Impressionist-Style Paintings Showcase Beauty of Natural Parks Around America – Eye candy for the week!

Life in the Dark – Photographs of sea and cave creatures that live their whole lives in the dark.

C40’s Executive Director Mark Watts on how mayors are changing the way we think about food – Area of focus are food: procurement, production, distribution, and waste.

Frog, Turtle Species Being Reintroduced to Yosemite Valley – The California red-legged frog (the largest native frog in the western US) and the western pond turtle are being reintroduced to lake, river and meadow habitats.

Conowingo – June 2016

I stopped by Conowingo Dam on my way to Philadelphia. It was not a great day for birds. The water was low and the large number of birds we saw last time (probably many newly fledged Bald Eagles and Great Blue Herons) were foraging elsewhere. The picture of the point of rocks that always seems to attract at least one heron illustrates the low water (the white marks are how high the water is normally).

We saw a few eagles fishing. After I looked at one of my pictures on a larger screen, I realized there were more than I thought. Click on the image below to get a larger view of:

• 3 eagles on the abutments (a juvenile and adult on the closer one, an adult on the further one),
• 3 black vultures near the center of the picture, and
• 3 or 4 cormorants on the rocks in the lower right!

We took a few pictures and continued our road trip.

Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge

The third refuge on our trek was Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. It was a gray day --- but at least the rain happened while we were driving to the refuge than while we were there. One of our nav systems took us to a road through ponds but not to the visitor’s center. It was part of the refuge and we saw some Great Blue Herons

And Yellow Legs – very active in catching fish in the shallows.

Fortunately, we had another nav system that did chart a path to the visitor center and we did some hiking. Again – there was construction on one of the trails near the visitor and it was noisy enough that most of the wildlife has found someplace else to be for the day. On our hike I found a number of shelf-fungus. None of them were very large.

But one was a brilliant green color.

I tried to photograph them several from the top

And bottom.

The biggest one was growing on a stump near a boardwalk

And the gills underneath were more colorful than the top.

We headed out of the refuge and on toward Chincoteague….the topic of tomorrow’s post.

Zooming – February 2016

Birds dominate the zooming post for February. There are a lot of clips of the heads. If you want to see an enlarged version of a collage – click on it and a window with the enlarged version will appear.

In the first collage, there is a female cardinal, a male house finch, a pileated woodpecker (from the top of his head), a titmouse and a male cardinal.

Next up is a dove, a crow, velvety buds of a Princess Tree (one of the few botanical images), a robin’s foot – missing a toe, and a blue jay.

The swish of color at the top of the collage below is a blue jay flying away. The blur of color appealed to me. There is snow in a Crepe Myrtle seed pod, and a robin.

The last one is for fun – showing a dove showing off what is under its wing…and a dove blinking. In the lower right corner is the empty ‘nests’ of bird’s nest fungus.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 06, 2016

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.

Tranquil Oil Paintings Reflect Peacefully Ripping Water Scenes – Gives me an idea for a photo project. And this one does too: Seeing the Trees through the Forest: Vestiges of Ancient Woods

7 Easy and Delectable Vegan Quick Breads – Goodies in winter!

Joyful Portraits of Centenarians that are Happy at One Hundred – Hurray! To be happy and 100!

This Is What 17 Different Foods Look like Growing in Their Natural Habitats – All these images are ‘beautiful food’!  The majority of these do no grow in Maryland (except in conservatories)…and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cashew tree even in a conservatory.

America’s Broadband Improves, Cementing a “Persistent Digital Divide” – Rural areas are still problematic….maybe stratospheric drones and balloons will be deployed.

Why the calorie is broken – It turns out that the concept of ‘a calorie’ is not a clear cut as we expect….that there are lots of ways the amount of energy we get from food can be changed. In general – the processes or cooked a food is, the more energy we get from it!

The Scientific Outreach Gap – This was a study done in the UK but the same is true in the US and it isn’t that the public is not interested. My daughter has volunteers for outreach events for astronomy and astrophysics for the past few years and the events have been well attended – almost overwhelmingly so.

Beyond Half Dome: Five Yosemite Sites – Adding to the places I’d like to go (eventually)

The Mycobiome – There has been a lot of research on the human microbiome but most of it, so far, has been about surveys and studies of bacterial species. There are fungi that are there too…and research about them has just started to appear in papers in the past 5 years.

Evidence-based health care: The care you want, but might not be getting – Yes! This is what I want but it seems very hard to get. The study was specifically about hospital settings but it matches my experience everywhere in the US health system. The survey revealed that things like ‘quality’ and ‘safety’ was at the top of the priority list…but how is that achieved without being ‘evidence based.’  I think what is being measured is not skewed toward the patient but to what is easiest to measure (and that could actually be detrimental to the patient).

Mt. Pleasant in January

I took a walk with a ‘Winter Wellness’ group at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm early this month…on a very cold day. I didn’t take very many pictures because it was more important to walk quickly enough to keep warm. I liked the patterns the ice made along the edges of the Davis Branch – the contrasting colors of fallen leaves, the lighter rocks and pebbles…and a surprising amount of green.

The day warmed into the 30s and as I was leaving I saw a lone turkey vulture soring overhead. The bird circled over me several times and I finally managed a focused image.

As a walked back to my car I noticed how lonely the picnic area was without the large number of students that often picnic there after field trips in the spring and fall.

Belmont in January

I am working on a winter tree hike for Belmont and did a ‘walk around’ for the route to add to my collection of pictures for the brochure. There were three trees that I focused on:

The Eastern Red Cedar. I realized as I was taking the picture that my grandparents had a pair in the front of their house when I was growing up. Last time I saw the trees – after my grandparents had been gone many years – the trees were gone and I’ve always wondered what happened to them; supposedly Eastern Red Cedars can live for 900 years. My grandfather probably dug them up as saplings from a nearby forest to plan in that yard – or maybe it was the previous owner.

The Dawn Redwood is a tree that is similar to the Bald Cypress – it is in group that usually is evergreen but it is deciduous. The bark is reddish….and the small cones that stay on the tree during the winter are quite interesting looking although you need a zoom on a camera or binoculars to see them!

The Black Walnut had plenty of nuts around its base. They are the easiest way to identify the tree in the winter.

The day I was at Belmont was very cold and a little breezy. I’m always surprises that the species of grass most popular in this area stays green even when it is very cold….but it stops growing so we do get a break on lawn mowing.