Milkweed Flowers

I started out the season with a lot of milkweed plants. The went from sprouts to green globes of buds

To pink tinged buds, and

Opening flowers.

The bees love the flowers and often there are more than one bee on each globe in June.

There was one bee that seemed worn out from all the foraging.

The frustrating part of it all this year is that we don’t have any monarchs after those first few that were probably released by local schools. The leaves on the milkweed were pristine without any Monarch caterpillars to eat them. My husband did not like the plants in the front flowerbed to I cut them down over a few days and ate the flowers (they need to be rinsed twice in boiling water to remove the toxicity…and then I ate them in a salad rather than smothering them with butter and eating them hot).

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 8, 2017

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 #94 – There were several parent birds interacting with young in this set. My favorite was the American Oystercatchers!

Ancient concrete: Learning to do as the Romans did -  Looking more closely at 2,000-year-old harbor structures. The work could lead to concrete manufacturing techniques with less environmental impact than those in common use today.

Three Ways the Interstate System Changed America – It started in the 1930s…with Eisenhower leading the way in the 1950s. I remember the develops from the 1960s onward. The highways are convenient but they homogenize the way we travel too. The goal now seems to be to get to our destination as fast as possible rather than really seeing anything other than the highway along the way.

The detectives who investigate food poisoning mysteries – I was surprised that the culprit one of the cases was flour!

Padre Island National Seashore in Early Summer and Hatch and Release at Padre Island National Seashore – I’m reading up on this area of Texas and there seems that a lot is happening there this spring. My husband and I are planning a trip there in the late fall – for the arrival of wintering birds.

10+ Awe-Inspiring Impressionist Masterpieces Painted by Claude Monet – So beautiful.

To buzz or to scrabble? To foraging bees, that’s the question – The first author on this study is my son-in-law (Avery Russell)! Videos here.

‘One of a Kind’ Collection of Animal Eyeballs Aids Research on Vision Problems – The Comparative Ocular Pathology Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Oregon Wildlife Painter Captures the Beautiful Diversity of Local Birds – Includes an interview with the artist. I like the way he has a lot of detail in the environment around the bird in his paintings.

Sunscreen Myths vs Facts – Summer time…spending a lot of time outdoors…now’s the time to remember the sunscreen.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in June 2017 – Insects

We made our first visit of the year to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens yesterday. There are so many things I noticed in the gardens that I am doing multiple posts: insects, birds, waterlilies, magnolias, lotus, and turtles. There are three types of insects I’ll highlight: bees, butterflies, and dragonflies. The bumblebee I photographed was on a buttonbush. Most of the plants are not in bloom yet so the few lowers were very popular. I noticed that there was only one bee per flower! The pickerel weeds were in full bloom and they were attracting bees as well.

I photographed a tiger swallowtail on the pickerel weed. There were not very many butterflies around the garden yet. Perhaps there will be more as the summer progresses.

The main insect my husband and it try to photograph at the gardens is dragonflies. They seemed to be a lot of them flying around but not as many were sitting long enough to photography. I managed to get at 6 different kinds: greenish area around wing attachment with brownish ‘dash’ near tip of otherwise clear wings,

Could be a different perspective on the same kind…or not (the wing attachment area does not look green and the clear part of the wings has an amber tinge),

Brownish red coloring and smaller than the previous dragonflies,

Fuzzy at wing attachment and black markings across the wings (clear tips of wing) – maybe Common Whitetail male,

Brown body and black markings across the wings (dark tips of wings) – maybe a Common Whitetail female, and

Clear wings outlined in black around the tip.

I’m sure we’ll go to the gardens again this summer. I wonder if I’ll see the same or different dragonflies.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 25, 2017

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.

Busy Bees: Patterns of pollen and nectar foraging specialization by bumblebees over multiple timescales using RFID – At the top of my list this week…the paper (link is at the bottom of this post), is authored by my son-in-law and daughter!

Automatically darkening windows in a wide range of colors – Maybe insulating drapes will not be needed in the future…although I like the idea of windows that generate power rather than just changing color.

From Vector to Zoonotic: A Glossary for Infectious Diseases – Some of these words are used in news stories without definition….how strong is your knowledge of what they really mean?

How Blizzards and Extreme Cold Impact Birds – We haven’t had any extreme cold in our area this winter….but it may be happening somewhere. This article talks about the studies about how birds cope with the cold; some succumb to the cold itself and some starve because their food source becomes unavailable.

Why Killer Viruses are on the Rise – An outcome of our increasing impact on environments that previously were wildlife habitats.

Winning images of the Underwater Photography of the Year Contest – Eye candy…but educational too.

NASA’s Osiris REx takes its first image of Jupiter – We saw Osiris REx launched last September so I always take a look at any new news about it.

Torpid Turtles, Tortoises, and Terrapins – Examples from turtles in the US…several are common enough in Maryland that I’ve seen them.

The oldest grave of the Netherlands, “Trijntje” – A facial reconstruction of a woman buried 7500 years ago.

The Feather Atlas – A feather reference. I hope I remember this exists the next time I find an interesting feather!

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 28, 2017

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.

Danish Study Raises More Questions about Mammograms’ Message – Evidently doctors can’t yet tell which tumors really need to be treated and which might be able to just monitor. There is a tendency to think that breast cancer screen is better than actually is….and that leads to a lot of potential unneeded (and traumatic) treatment.

Watch Geologic Machinations in Motion at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park – About a year ago, I visited the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park so I am always looking at items with news from the place. I don’t know that I would be up for an 8-mile hike to see the new viewing area.

An Iceberg Larger than Rhode Island is Poised to Break from Antarctica – When it goes – the Larsen C Ice Shelf will lose more than 10% of its area….and the maps of Antarctica will need revision.

Stunning photos of trains roaring through picturesque landscapes – Eye candy for the week.

Recovery: Saving the Lake Erie Watersnake, a lesson in outreach – Not poisonous but ill-tempered and smelly. Only found in the lake’s western basin on islands…French explorers found them sunning themselves in heaps, knots and snarls. It turns out that people killing the snakes was a bigger factor the reduction of numbers than habitat loss….and thus an education campaign is helping increase their numbers!

The Chemistry of Popcorn -  Probably my favorite snack. We have a special bowl that allows us to pop it in the microwave (no weird chemicals like in the bags of microwave popcorn).

Why America is Growing the Most Sweet Potatoes since WWII – I’ve always liked sweet potatoes….and it seems that more people do these days since it has become a popular crop for former tobacco farmers and over 11% of the crop is exported!

Arctic melt ponds form when meltwater clogs ice pores – In the field (of ice) and an experiment to discover how melt ponds forms on porous ice.

Ten more field guides and references for the serious naturalist – I think I might buy the one about bees.

Obesity is barely covered in medical students’ licensing exam – Not good since nearly 40% of adults and 20% of children and adolescents are obese in the US.