Great Crested Flycatcher

There was a bird sitting on the support of the old weather instruments at my house a few days ago. It was something different than I had ever seen before. I took quite a few pictures through my office window hoping they would be good enough to identify it.

I used the Merlin app to help me identify it (size between a sparrow and a robin, colors yellow, brown and white, and on a fence or wire). And then browsed through the possibilities to figure out what it was. It was easy! Maybe next time I will try providing the picture to Merlin and letting it give me fewer possibilities.

I hope the Great Crested Flycatcher decides that the support is a good place to perch looking for insects. It seemed to spot something but then flew away at the same time some house finches few away from the bird bath that is located below. It would be an interesting bird to watch hunting insects all summer!

Monarch Caterpillars Saga I

Last weekend, my husband commented that we had milkweed coming up in our front flowerbed (milkweed plants circled in white in the picture below) and I needed to cut it down. Once milkweed is established it comes up year after year from the roots.

I decided to check for Monarch caterpillars on the plants first. Sure enough – I found caterpillars. The first one I found was tiny. I almost didn’t see it. It was less than a quarter of an inch long!

The other two were a little further along. The yellow, black and white stripes typical of Monarch caterpillars were more evident.

I decided I would try raising the caterpillars in an old fish tank that was previously gathering dust in our basement. I’ve cleaned it up and purchased the netting to cover the top. My next post will be about my adventure cutting the milkweed with the caterpillars on it and setting up my Monarch caterpillar nursery. I have plenty of milkweed to nourish the caterpillars until they make their chrysalis. When they hatch – I’ll release the butterflies near a good patch of milkweed so they can lay more eggs and continue their northward journey.

Our Neighborhood Water Retention Pond

The water retention pond that is supposed to slow down water run-off from our neighborhood was not working and there was flooding occurring with more frequency. Earth moving equipment was brought in by the country and turned a pond with lots of vegetation for wildlife around it (picture from last December)

Into a mud pit with very little vegetation around it. We had a day of heavy rain right after the vegetation was scraped away and the water than accumulated looks thick with silt and has already developed a green scum.

Here it is from a different angle. No one will be sitting on the bench enjoying the antics of red winged blackbirds in the cattails or frogs crocking in the pond anytime soon! One of the neighbors commented that she’d seen a large owl looking at the pond from one of the neighboring houses. It’s likely that it’s home was destroyed. Hopefully, the project will enable the pond to function as it should for water retention. The pond needs some grasses or other vegetation planted on the slopes or this clean out of the pond is going to be short lived.

The only positive thing I saw on my walk around the pond was a single solitary sandpiper. With the heavy vegetation that was around the pond previously, the bird would not have been visible even if it had visited.

On the back side of the pond there is milkweed coming up but the plants are on the edge of the area not previously mowed. Hopefully they will survive for the Monarch Butterflies this season.

Mayapples

The mayapples were blooming at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm last week. The stand I photographed is down near the beach area of the Davis Branch. It was one of those instances where it was good to have my cell phone along so that I could take pictures while I waited for the middle schoolers to show up for their stream assessment work. From above – the flowers are not visible at all. Walking down the slope and then looking back help make the flowers more visible. The leaves are an umbrella over the flowers!

I took some closeups of the flowers by walking back up the hill and bending over to get the camera under the leaves and close to the flowers.

They are one of the larger wildflowers but one must know to look under the leaves! They bloom in May and the ‘apple’ forms during the summer. They are not edible.

Glowing Tulip Poplar Flowers

The tulip poplars in the forest behind our house are blooming.

On a sunny day last week, I walk our closer to the trees at mid-day and took zoomed pictures looking up in the tree. Because the sun was almost directly overhead the flowers seemed to catch the light and glowed among the greenery of the tree’s leaves.

The shape of the flowers is very tulip-like but the coloring is quite different. The inside of the flower is different too.

I think these are my favorite pictures to date of this tree in the springtime.

Conowingo – May 2017

We had more success at Conowingo in May than we did back in April although we first got there – all I saw were cormorants in the water.

There were no vultures on the high reaches of the dam or birds sitting on the big towers.  It was very windy and I eventually started looking lower on the rocks across the river from our vantage point. It’s a little far away for pictures…but that’s where the birds were. The first group I saw included a Great Blue Heron and some pigeons (the pigeons are usually all over the dam but seemed to prefer the rocks on the windy day).

I started taking pictures of all the rocks. How many eagles do you see in this pictures (remember the immature eagles don’t have white heads and tail feather yet)?

I count 7 Bald Eagles…and a Great Blue Heron and a Cormorant.

Eventually I saw an eagle on one of the towers

And then thought to zoom in to the platform of the tower after remembering someone commenting last month that there was a nest on one of the towers. Sure enough – it looks like there is. Hopefully no one will have to go up there until the eagles are done with the nest for the season.

I took a few none bird pictures as well. This spider web was somewhat damaged by the wind but I was pleased my camera would focus on it. The spider jumped from the web to me while it got the picture! Fortunately, I noticed and managed to get the critter to the ground somewhat close to the web.

I photographed the flowers of the Princess Tree that is growing on the cliff that is across the parking lot from the bird viewing area. These invasive trees are easy to spot this time of year because of the color of the flowers. They grow very fast….and the seeds are dispersed so I seem to see more of them every year.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 6, 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.

Meditation: Which type is best for you? – So many choices…it doesn’t take long to choose and tailor one that fits your needs. I feel better when I have a meditation practice almost every day!

Sea-Level Rise Will Send Millions of Refugees to Inland Cities – A study authored by a demographer at University of Georgia about how the US will change as people move from areas that are increasingly flood prone over the next century. The state by state graphic shows Louisiana and Florida losing the most; Texas and Georgia gain the most. Maryland – where I live – gains a little.

Underdiagnoses of age-related macular degeneration, findings suggest – Evidently early stages of age-related macular degeneration is under diagnosed by both optometrists and ophthalmologists….something to talk to your provider at your next eye checkup if you are over 60.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #85 – Birds….always great eye candy. This set contains an American Oystercatcher near the bottom (a closer view than I captured near the Dupont Nature Center.

For Some, Pre-Hospice Care Can Be a Good Alternative to Hospitals – Palliative care at home…happier patients and saving money…win-win. Hope these types of programs become available nation wide.

The Essential I.M. Pei – The architect recently celebrated his 100^th birthday. This article from the Smithsonian includes pictures of his most iconic works.

Welcome to the Poison Garden: Medicine’s Medieval Roots – A description of the garden at Alnwick Castle that contains plants with poisonous properties.

Behold the James Webb Telescope in all its Unfurled Glory – It’s still under construction…but will succeed the Hubble Space Telescope (launch projected in 2018).

35 Years of American Death – An interactive US map with color coding to show mortality rates for different diseases from 1980 – 2014. The one for ‘mental and substance use disorders’ shows the impact of the opioid epidemic – more pronounced in some areas of the country than others.

3D printing of glass now possible – A new way to work with glass from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany).

Dupont Nature Center – Part 2

We stopped along the road that connects the Dupont Nature Center to the road on higher ground since it was a place that clapper rails are seen frequently. Our guide played the call of the bird…and we heard a response! We did see peeps on the mud flats that were studded with snails; I took a few pictures as we waited for the rail to show itself. But the bird did not make an appearance.

Our group caravanned to several beaches near the Dupont Nature Center. The red roof of the Nature Center was visible from the first one. 

The tide was going out…not many birds around since it was too early for the horseshoe crabs to have laid their eggs. I photographed the debris at the high tide make…welk egg cases, pieces of horseshoe crab shells and broken or conglomerate shells.

On another beach, there were gulls (probably juvenile ring-billed gulls) finding dinner! The clouds were thickening and the lightning was not very good for photography by this time. We called it a day and headed home.

Dupont Nature Center – Part 1

Last week, my husband and I attended a day of the Spring Delmarva Birding Weekend; I’ve posted (part 1, part 2) already about the birds I photographed at the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge near Smyrna DE. The second destination was The Dupont Nature Center at Mispillion Harbor Reserve. The Nature Center itself was closed while we were there but we used the outside deck for the first half of our bird watching. Double-crested Cormorants were on pilons just out in the water from the nature center and on a sandy spit.

Zooming in on the sand spit that would be under water at high tide – Horseshoe Crabs are visible. Soon they will be laying their eggs – a feast for migrating short birds that need the burst of high energy food to complete their trek to the far north.

Tree Swallows and Barn Swallows were both flitting around near the Nature Center too. The Tree Swallows have white breasts and the Barn Swallows are rust colored; the Barns Swallows seems to be preening their feathers every time they sat on the pilons – hence the almost comical poses in the photographs below.

There was a female Osprey on a nesting platform.

Two American Oyster Catchers flew in and landed on the jetty.

A Royal Tern watched from near the fishing boats. The black feathers always look like a bad toupee to me!

A Black Skimmer swooped down low on the water…I didn’t quite catch the bird skimming.

This European Starling looks a scruffy but the iridescence of the wing feathers shows up with the bright sun.

Tomorrow I’ll write about a beach we visited near the Dupont Nature Center.

Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge – Part 2

Continuing yesterday’s blog post about our visit to the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge near Smyrna DE….

There were quite a few Great Blue Herons – none were very close.

There were four way out in one of the ponds. When I zoomed in I discovered there were Northern Shovelers (ducks) and a Black-Necked Stilt.

Also further out – near the limit of my camera’s zoom – was a Great Egret and a lot of smaller birds. The ones with the black breast are Black-Bellied Plovers. In the second picture below there is one flying; the black belly with very white rump and black armpits are clearly visible.

Then something startled the birds and they flew up – curtaining the egrets behind them!

In another area, there were two mute swans. These are not natives. Many states try to control their numbers because they are aggressive and have such voracious appetites that they disrupt local ecosystems and displace native species.

I got several pictures of Yellowlegs. The ones with the longer bills are Greater Yellowlegs and the short bills are Lesser Yellowlegs.

Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge - Part 1

Last week, my husband and I attended a day of the Spring Delmarva Birding Weekend; our first destination was the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge near Smyrna DE. We learned so much from our time with our guide that we’ll plan another trip to the refuge soon so we can take it slow and do even more photography. I have so much to share from the 3 hours we were there this time, that I’ve divided it into 2 blog posts! At the visitor center, there were American Goldfinch enjoying thistle seeds,

Purple martins in and out of the ‘apartments’ and

A white throated sparrow that sat still long enough for me to photography. There were also robins and a brown thrasher which did not!

We did a short hike through some woods and heard/saw a lot of warblers but they move so fast I didn’t get any pictures. Even the cardinal moved to fast for me. We climbed an observation tower and there was an American Avocet visible through the foliage along with smaller birds beyond the distance my camera could capture well. At another location, there were many more Avocets.

There were also Black-Necked Stilt. I’m showing three pictures below of the same scene...zooming in. The black and white birds with the legs are the stilts.

More tomorrow….

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2017

It’s spring…and there is a lot to celebrate.

Second graders coming to Mt. Pleasant for the Science of Soil field trip. I’ve done two file trips for them so far and both have been a lot of fun – using the soil auger in several places while we hike, talking about rocks looking at the old rock wall dividing the fields, seeing how the stream restoration work done during the winter is greening up and full of puddles after a rain.

Azaleas. There are some in our neighborhood but making the trek to the Brighton Dam Azalea Garden is the day we celebrate the profusion of blooms and colors.

Pre-schoolers on a Nature Tales field trip. I’ve done three of the pre-school field trips at Belmont in April: two that were rainy days and one that we made it to the forest. I’m learning how to keep the younger children listening and participating for the whole 20-30 minutes I have them. There are so many little celebrations in every session because the children are so enthralled with the new things they are seeing and doing….I can’t help be celebrate with them.

Delmarva birding. My husband and I spend a day at the Delmarva Birding Weekend late last week. It was our first time to attend and we enjoyed it. I celebrated that there were so many birds to see (and photograph) not that far from where we live. I’ll be posting more about our experience in the coming days.

Faromir. One of our cats died in April. We celebrated his life…and that he was will us for 13.5 years. He was my husband’s little buddy.

Favorite lipstick available again. I’ve always liked Cover Girl Bronze Glow lipstick and was very disappointed when I couldn’t find it anywhere…but now it is back. I celebrated that Cover Girl has started making it again.

Fitting into smaller jeans. I discovered that I can fit into some jeans that I thought were too small. That’s always something I’ll celebrate. I also celebrated that I hadn’t put them in the giveaway pile last fall.

New blade for old paper cutter. I was thrilled to find a new blade for my 20-year-old rotary paper cutter. When I couldn’t find the replacements in a local store and the new cutters did not look at all like mine, I thought I was going to have to buy a new one….but Amazon had the size I needed.

Roman Art and Archaeology course from University of Arizona. I’m not taking as many course from Coursera as I’ve gotten busy with other things…the few I’ve taken recently have been fabulous. I celebrate the availability of the course as the perfect time (the lull before the ramp up of spring field trips) and the well done videos and other references.

Boxes of old documents shredded. We’ve cleaned out some old boxes full of paper (spring cleaning!) and took 2 to be shredded at a local shredding event. I celebrated getting all that old paper with account numbers and social security numbers securely recycled.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 29, 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.

The Creamy, Sculpted Dunes of White Sands National Monument – I’ve only been there once…but it was memorable. It was a hot day but the sand is so white that it reflects the sun and can be walked on barefoot! (See my post from back in June 2013 here)

Tracking down water pollution through DNA of algae – A new method for rapid and reliable bioassessment of aquatic environments which will allow for synchronous processing of many samples in record time and reduced cost….no more microscopic identification of organisms in samples!

Circadian Rhythms Influence Treatment Effects – There is a lot of evidence that timing of a medication may have a marked impact on effectiveness….yet drug trails did not track time of day information and thus not on drug labels. Simultaneously – understanding a patient’s circadian rhythm is an aspect of precision medicine - find the right drug for the patient at the right dose… administered at the right time. Also see the infographic: Circadian clock affects heart and disease

How Western Civilization could collapse – Doom and gloom scenarios. Do they seem more likely than they have in recent decades?

What’s chemistry ever done for us? – In infographic from Compound Interest that came out prior to the March for Science last weekend.

Incredible photos of Japan’s natural landscape that look like watercolors – Eye candy….and a little geography too.

4 great things the EPA had done for our health – A lot of progress has been made since 1970 when the EPA was created. No one should want to go back to air so filled with smog that your eyes watered when you went outside (like happened in LA) or lakes became sterile from changing pH or rivers caught on fire.

Foreignceuticals: our drugs go global – Scary. It’s often hard to tell where drugs and supplements come from….and there may be little or no quality control along the way.

Climate change is turning dehydration into a deadly epidemic – More very hot days….drinking soft drinks rather than contaminated water to rehydrate…maybe some other factors  - kidney disease rise dramatical in laborers in Latin America.

5 Ways to Prevent Food Waste in Your Kitchen – Probably nothing new here but always worth a quick check…ratcheting up what you do to avoid wasting food.

Photographs through my Office Window – April 2017

There has been a lot of activity through my office window this month. The squirrels are feasting on the tender samaras in the maple – early in the month

And then a couple of weeks later when the leaves are unfurling.

The squirrels have a pathway around our yard via trees and fence…rarely on the ground.

The robins are around but don’t seem as numerous as previous years.

We now have two kinds of sparrows: chipping sparrows and

White throated sparrows (with the dash of yellow above their eye).

The blue jays are still frequent visitors to the bird bath.

I haven’t seen a lot of grackles but there was one that visited our yard long enough for a picture.

We have a pair of cardinals again this year – probably nesting nearby.

Mourning doves like the birdbath and the roof line of our covered deck. This one seemed to want its picture taken!

Zooming – April 2017

What a difference between March and April! The collection of zoomed images this month is dominated by flowers: Tulips with sunshine through their petals and patterned centers,

Wild flowers on the forest floor,

And trees with flowers like Dogwoods,

Tulip poplars, and

Carnation tree (a type of cherry) petals carpeting the sidewalk after a rain (when it dried out, a little boy on a walk with his mom had great fun scooping up the petals and throwing them in the air like confetti!).

Of course, there were a few other scenes where the zoom on my camera was appreciated: Canadian geese on an island in Centennial Lake (Do you see the one asleep on the nest keeping the eggs warm?),

The occasional early insect,

And the quivering of the water in the overflowing bird bath during a light rain (taken from my open front door so that I wasn’t out in the rain).

Dogwoods and Jack-in-the-Pulpits at Brighton Dam Azalea Garden

Azaleas are not the only plants I look for at Brighton Dam Azalea Garden. The dogwoods and jack-in-the-pulpits are blooms at the same time. The dogwoods are understory trees. The older ones that are the understory to the big oaks and tulip poplars are native dogwoods – white with notches on the outer edged of the ‘petals’.

Newer hybrid dogwoods are planted in the same area as the new hybrid azaleas in an area to the left of the garden entrance. There are white ones – without a notch…and pink ones. They are easier to photograph because the trees are smaller and more flowers are at eye level.

Jack-in-the-Pulpits are harder to notice because the flowers are almost the same color as the leaves. See if you can see the flowers before scrolling down to see more enlarged views. One of the enlarged views has a lot of aphids (yellow).

Young Oaks at Brighton Dam Azalea Garden

There lots of big oak and tulip poplar trees at Brighton Dam Azalea Garden that provide the dappled environment that azaleas need. The surprise for me this time was the large number of smaller oak trees. There must have been a large crop of acorns in the past few years that the squirrels planted and forgot and the result were a group of foot high oaks with tehri leaves unfurling. The leaves of one were still wrinkled and red.

Another was a little further along and the leaves are looking more like oak leaves (red oak probably).

I wish there was a stand of young oaks like this to show the pre-schoolers when they come for a Nature Tales field trip and we talk about the life cycle trees.

The is such a great time of year to see how trees come bare from the bare branches of winter – and the small trees are much easier to observe than the giant trees with their branches so far above eye level.

There is an art like quality to the unfurling of leaves as well…I could resist these very young leaves emerging from the bud.

Azaleas!

We visited Brighton Dam Azalea Garden yesterday morning. it was the perfect day to go: cool (not cold) and dry (the day before was rainy and the forecast for the day following was for more rain). We were early enough that it was not crowded. The garden is near the dam that creates the Triadelphia Reservoir between Howard and Montgomery Counties in Maryland. I read an article from back in March that said the lake was at 49% of capacity because of a drought over the past 6 months for our part of Maryland.  Looking past this grouping of azaleas, it’s obvious that the lake is low.

The azaleas are underneath large trees – with a few understory dogwoods. I experimented with the ‘fisheye’ setting on my camera for this shot.

The most prevalent colors of azaleas are pink, white and red/magenta…with a few light purple mixed in.

The pink ones seemed to draw my attention the most. Many of them had water droplets on them.

The magenta color almost gets too intense!

There are some newer plantings that are recent hybrids that are orange-yellow. The flowers are clumped and even the buds are worth a closer look.

But my favorite picture of the azaleas was of white flowers. What’s not to like about white flowers with water droplets and a black background!

Tomorrow I’ll share some images of oak seedlings that were coming up in the garden.

Earth Day in Howard County, Maryland

We had a very cloudy and wet Earth Day yesterday. It was a little cool too. But the azaleas are beginning to bloom and

The day lily foliage is very green around the birdbath beside by front porch. We’re behind on rain this year so getting some is a good thing.

I headed out to the local GreenFest after lunch – noticing a dogwood in bloom on my walk to the building.

The part of the event to be held outside was impacted by the rain (for example, no solar telescopes) but there were plenty of vendors inside the Galleria building of the local community college and an orderly crown moving around the exhibits. I volunteered at the Howard Country Conservancy’s table for a couple of hours. I sauntered around the other exhibits before my ‘shift.’ One group was giving away burr oak saplings….but my yard is not big enough for that tree (with a red oak already holding a big part of the front yard and the back a forest with tulip poplars, red maple, and black walnut! I refrained from picking up any more reusable bags too since I already have more than I can use. I did pick up a sunflower seed in a tiny watering can. I’ll plant it in my front flower bed!

There were competing events for the day – tree planting and March for Science. 2017 was a crowded Earth Day (for a crowded planet).

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 22, 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.

Beautiful Easter Eggs Hand-painted with Colorful Folk Art Illustrations – Yes – it’s past Easter…but I was a little late seeing this post. Art on an egg shape!

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #83 and Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #84 – So many gorgeous bird pictures! My favorite in the first section is the male Ruddy Duck; the blue bill is always a surprise! My favorite in the second set is the female Great Horned Owl…sun through the wing and tail feathers.

Maps Show a Dramatic Rise in Health Insurance Coverage Under ACA – I was interested in seeing the trend…and wondered if the decline in uninsured people will correlate to better health outcomes.

Many US Freshwater Lakes could surpass ‘safe’ chloride levels within 50 years – Not good. Road salt is evidently a significant contributor.

Is the world running out of fresh water? – The world’s major aquifers are being drained. Mexico City – built on ancient lake beds, is now sinking in some areas at a rate of 9 inches per year! Global water demand is projected to increase by 55% between 2000 and 2050. So the answer to the question is ‘yes’ --- unless we change the way we currently use water.

Vitamin B diminishes effects of air pollution induced cardio-vascular disease – Interesting study…not actionable yet…but I hope they continue the research.

A Vegan Protein Sources Chart – A good comparison of different kinds of vegetable proteins.

Maryland Food System Map: Version 2.0 has arrived – Read about how the map has been improved…then take a look at the interactive map here. I wondered if other states were doing similar type maps.

Tunable electric eyeglasses bend to the will of the wearer – I hope this technology matures into something looks better. I would much prefer these to the types of static glasses available today.

7 cool facts about Water Striders – I frequently see water striders when I’m hiking with elementary students on field trips. This article has some great pictures…and more that I had known about them previously.