November 30, 2018

Zooming – November 2018

November 30, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

The last day of November. The month has been a busy one and I enjoyed selecting 13 images from when I enjoyed the zoom feature of my camera the most. The picks include fall leaves, a sunset, cranes grooming/snoozing/waking up, screwbean mesquite seeds, agave, a pruned prickly pear stem, barrel cactus thorns, cranes in the early morning, cranes in golden light with snow geese, northern mergansers in action, the moon, a snow goose feather, and some milkweed seeds.

And now we forge ahead into December and another month with a lot of the calendar.

November 29, 2018

Ten Little Celebrations – November 2018

November 29, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

2018 11 IMG_4717.jpg — At the beginning of November, we had a short burst of color before the leaves fell off the trees. I celebrated **a glorious fall day**…wishing the season had not been so short this year.

HoLLIE (Howard County Legacy Leadership Institute for the Environment) graduation was this month after accumulating enough volunteer hours since finishing the class last spring.

And then came the Festival of the Cranes with so many little celebrations:

2018 11 IMG_6733.jpg — **Seeing sandhill cranes in flight** – being close enough to their fly out to hear the first few high-power flaps of their wings.

Seeing two barn owls circle above the field where I was standing. It was a first for me….so beautiful and ghost-like.

2018 11 IMG_8364.jpg — **Hooded Mergansers.** It was not the first time I had seen the birds (there were some on a local (Maryland) pond we visited during our 5th HoLLIE class). But they were not displaying like the birds we saw during the Festival of the Cranes.

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. What an amazing place….and great hosts to the Festival of the Cranes. I am already planning to go again! There are so many sights and sounds to celebrate here.

Home again. I celebrate returning every time I am away for longer than a couple days.

Bald Eagle seen from my office window. The morning we left to drive to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, a bald eagle flew over the forest behind our house while I was shutting down my laptop for the road trip. It continued over our house. Since I saw a pair of eagles soaring a nearby shopping center recently, I think perhaps their nest is somewhere in the forest along the Middle Patuxent River near us. What a way to start the Thanksgiving holiday!

Thanksgiving….celebrating the day…realizing how much I am thankful for.

November 28, 2018

New Mexico Earrings

November 28, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

There are still more Festival of the Cranes posts to come, but I am taking a break for a few days to do post on other topics….and to do a little history of our travels to New Mexico via my earring collection.

I have some New Mexico earrings from as far back as the 1970s but I’m going to focus this post on the ones I’ve collected this century.

2018 11 1 IMG_0019.jpg — I bought the pair of black and silver M design (like a pottery shard) at Bandelier National Monument in 2005. My husband, daughter, and I had met my parents in Albuquerque and used that as a base to see north central New Mexico: Santa Fe, Bandelier, Petroglyphs, and Chaco Canyon.

2018 11 2 IMG_0016.jpg — On a road trip between Dallas and Tucson, we stopped at White Sands National Monument in 2013. I posted about the barn swallows and yuccas!

2018 11 3 IMG_0020.jpg — During our first experience with Festival of the Cranes back in 2016, I bought some radio telescope earrings at the Very Large Array Radio Telescope,

2018 11 4IMG_0026.jpg — Two pairs of earrings including some stylized cranes at Vertu, the local artist store in Socorro,

2018 11 5 IMG_0023.jpg — And three more pair in the Albuquerque airport.

2018 11 6 IMG_0017.jpg — I bought four pair of earrings this year during our second experience at Festival of the Cranes. Starting at 12 o’clock position: there are the polished stones purchased at Vertu (they are thin enough to not be heavy), the dragonfly in cattails at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge gift shop , the bird flying over water and mountains from a shop on Socorro’s square, and the mosaic type earrings at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge made by an artist from the Santo Domingo Pueblo.

Overall – I don’t remember the years all that well (I must look back at notes), but I easily remember where I bought them. Earrings are still the best keepsake for me to buy, pack, and enjoy – savoring the memory from the time I bought them every time I see them.

November 27, 2018

Festival of the Cranes – part 8

November 27, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

After the fly out, we headed to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge visitor center to meet the bus for a Raptor ID tour.

The refuge is home to many red-tailed hawks…several different morphs. The basic ‘football’ shape is what we were looking for in the trees.

The bald eagle was in the snag in the middle of the flight deck pond. Nothing happened when the eagle opened its wings and moved all little (just as I snapped a picture…good enough to identify it as a bald eagle but not much else).

Later the bird suddenly flew away….and caused a cloud of snow geese to rise all at one time from the water’s surface.

There are a lot of northern harriers this year too. Every time we drove the wildlife loop, we saw a few. They fly low over the fields looking for their prey.

There were other birds that were not raptors that we saw too. The ravens seemed to pose of us.

My favorite birds to watch were the hooded mergansers. At first there was just one pair interacting…then another male came along and then another female. They were almost beyond the range of my camera without the monopod. The first pair was acting a lot like is was time to breed but New Mexico is far from their breeding grounds.

The tour was an enjoyable 3 hours around the refuge wildlife loop.

November 26, 2018

Festival of the Cranes – part 7

November 26, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

The third fly out of our visit to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge was back at the ponds along the road rather than the flight deck. The thermometer said it was not as cold as our first morning…but it was still very cold. The pink morning light on the ponds gave the crane groups other world looks.

Ribbons of snow geese flew in.

A northern shoveller was feeding among the legs of the cranes. I managed to catch a picture when it swam into an open patch of water.

There was an intermingling of the snow geese and cranes. I noticed when I looked at this picture more closely that there are white snow geese and the darker morph of the snow geese (all with a dark grin patch – always reminds me of a streak of dark ‘lipstick’) plus some Ross’s geese that are smaller and without the dark grin patch.

But my photographic objective for the morning was to photograph cranes in flight. I picked two series for this blog post. I like to look at the wings….how the cranes change the configurations of their wings. It is obvious that is takes a lot more effort for them to land and take off (previous blog posts) than it does to stay aloft.

When it’s two or three birds, it’s likely to be a family group. The group of five could a family group too since the birds have clutch sizes of 1-3 eggs. This could be a very successful breeding pair!

November 25, 2018

Festival of the Cranes – part 6

November 25, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

After the Point and Shoot Photography field session, I headed to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge's Desert Arboretum. The entrance was hidden by the large tents put up for the festival expo and a classroom, but I managed to find it. There was already a larger group than I expected for the tour. The garden has been developed over many years by botanists and horticulturalists from seeds. I didn’t take many pictures during the tour since there were so many people --- waiting until the area was quiet again afterward. Most of the plants were cacti and agave; I took two pictures that were other types….the legume type plant for the color of the flowers and the other for the fibrous tendrils.

Now to the cactus. There were several kinds of prickly pear – many that still had fruits. The horticulturist talked about the various kinds of spines and that some were so fast growing that they had to be pruned. I noticed one that had been pruned and that spines had grown on the cut surface – probably to keep animals from borrowing into the soft flesh of the rest of the plant.

The barrel cacti are colorful – fruits and spines. One specimen had yellow spines and fruits. Barrel cactus have been collected by so many people as whole plants rather than just the seeds which has caused some to become almost extinct in the wild…but prevalent in gardens. They evidently grow easy enough from seeds…with patience.

There were several kinds of cholla. My favorite had red fruits.

The agaves have prickles on their edges and a sharp point on the end. There was a century plant that had bloomed two years ago but didn’t produce any seed since there was not another century plant nearby to cross pollinate it. The parent plant died after it bloomed but there is a ‘pup’ coming up under the dried parts of the parent plant…a little clone that will maybe grow up to bloom.

The garden also is popular with birds because of the feeders and the plants. There are white-crowned sparrows,

Finches,

And red-winged blackbirds.

The birds were not around during the tour….but came back as soon as the crowd of people were gone.

As I left the arboretum, I saw the sculpture of the crane nearby. Once the expo tent is gone – it will be easier to spot.

November 24, 2018

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 24, 2018

November 24, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

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.

Drug pollution concentrates in stream bugs, passes to predators in water and on land: Animals that eat insects in or near streams at risk of being dosed with pharmaceuticals -- ScienceDaily – Wow – the existence of macroinvertebrates in our local rivers is an indicator of water quality (the focus of the field trips with high schooler’s I’ve been doing in recent years) but those same macroinvertebrates are probably getting a healthy dose of pharmaceuticals from the water…the fish that eat them act as concentrators….and some of those fish are eaten by people. I hope reserarchers in the US are doing similar studies to the one described in this article. It would also be good if pharmaceutical companies would develop drugs that were not excreted in a still active form.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Flocks – National Geographic Blog and Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Seed Eating Birds – National Geographic Blog – Two bird photograph collections for this week’s gleanings. Enjoy!

RIP Kepler: NASA’s exoplanet-hunting space telescope is finally dead - MIT Technology Review – The Kepler mission that discovered 2,662 exoplanets in our galaxy finally ran out of fuel. There is already a new satellite picking up the mission and the James Webb Space Telescope will launch in 2021.

Premature Birth Report Cards | March of Dimes – Only one state gets an ‘A’ – and many areas of the country are getting worse when it comes to premature births.

High levels of previously unsuspected pollutant uncovered in homes, environment -- ScienceDaily – An organophosphate that is known to be toxic was a surprise find in household dust…more study needed on its impact on humans that live with it at that level. The chemical is used as a flame retardant or plasticizer in consumer products…and may also form as other chemicals degrade.

Wildlife Populations Have Shrunk by 60 Percent Since 1970 | The Scientist Magazine® - The impact of less and less space for habitat for any species other than those directly related to humans.

BBC - Future - Why the flu of 1918 was so deadly – There have been flu strains that have been just as contagious as the 1918 strain…but none as deadly.

Infographic: What Makes a Brain Smart? | The Scientist Magazine® - There are several models that are being studied.

11 Wildly Colored Moths to Brighten Your Day – Cool Green Science – Most of our moths are in cocoons for the winter. There are several of these that I’ve seen on Maryland…will be looking for them next spring.

Owls help scientists unlock secret of how the brain pays attention -- ScienceDaily – A study using barn owls to figure out how the brain chooses what most deserves attentions.

November 23, 2018

Festival of the Cranes – part 5

November 23, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

On the third day in New Mexico, I had signed up for a morning of Point and Shoot Photography at Bosque del Apache. It was a 6 AM start so the sun was just beginning to come up.

The snow geese were spooked before sunrise and took off. I took a video but otherwise just enjoyed the drama of a lot of birds taking flight at the same time.

It was a time of color and silhouettes.

The light got warmer as the sunrise progressed. There were cranes overhead and I like the silhouettes against the brightening sky. I was experimenting with the ‘sports’ setting on my camera – good for bodies in motion…including birds.

A little later but still early enough to have great morning light, we saw a small group of cranes and I took multiple series as parts of the group took flight. It’s interesting to see how they move their wings to life themselves from the water; the powerful first strokes are different than the way the wings move once they are aloft. I’ve included 5 sequences with this post. This experience was probably the highpoint of the morning for photography.

Continuing around the wild life loop we spotted a killdeer near the edge of a pond…enjoying a bath and the looking around the debris for breakfast.

The highpoint for birding was the snipe that I finally managed to see. They blend in with their surroundings!

November 22, 2018

Festival of the Cranes – part 4

November 22, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Our first day at the Festival ended with a program about owls and then going out into the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge to look for owls along the wildlife loop. Our guides managed to help us see three species: western screech owl, great horned owl, and barn owl. I didn’t take any pictures and am waiting on my husband to process his to (maybe) write a post about the experience. The barn owls in flight over the field (beside the road where we were standing) were the high point of the evening.

I was glad our field trip for the next day was not an early morning. We got to Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in plenty of time for our 8AM start. There were screwbean mesquites growing near the entrance of the visitor center. For some reason, I had not noticed this type of mesquite before; the seeds are quite different from the mesquites I grew up with in Texas!

The field trip was to a part of the refuge not open to the public. It turns out that the majority of Sevilleta is used for research. There is no wild life loop road and the part we would see during the field trip is not directly connected to the parcel that has the visitor center and refuge headquarters. The field trip group headed out in three refuge vehicles – down a highway and across some private land. As soon as we went through the gate to the refuge land the increase in vegetation was obvious. It’s still a dry place.

Horned larks flew up along the road as our vehicles proceeded down the road. There was a solanum species with their tiny fruits.

Someone with sharp eyes spotted oryx (gemsbok) in the distance. They were imported from Africa to White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico and their numbers have been growing in New Mexico (they escaped the missile range). Their numbers seem to be stable on the refuge.

2018 11 IMG_3231.jpg — We stopped to hike through a small canyon where sandstone that contains underground water abuts harder rock – forcing water to the surface – until the harder rock ends and the water goes underground again. I managed an identification-level picture of a Townsend’s Solitaire. There was a thin layer of ice on the water. The water was trickling through underneath.

Along the road, we stopped for birds. Most of the time I just got to see them through binoculars. I managed to get a picture of the Mountain Bluebirds

And several of a Loggerhead Shrike – one with prey. Later in the field trip as we drove along the barbed wire fence, we saw desiccated insects pinned to the barbs by shrikes.

A little further along there was a Canyon Towhee in the top of a cholla.

I couldn’t resist photographing the cholla!

A herd of pronghorn were just white rumps running away at first but then they turned and raced the vehicles. They would turn and cross the road in front of the caravan – forcing it to slow or stop until they crossed. Then they would run beside us on that side of the road before they crossed again. It seemed to be a game and only the pronghorn knew the rules. We all wondered whether it was the youngest in the group that decided to run…the dominant male was usually close to the back of the group!

We stopped at another canyon for another hike. It was drier although during the monsoons there would be water flowing.

The refuge staff has converted older style drinkers which worked for deer to shallow pools to work for other animals as well. The water pump is powered by a solar panel and there is a camera to document visitors.

We returned to the visitor center a little before 4. It was the only day of the festival that I got my 12,000 steps!

November 21, 2018

Festival of the Cranes – part 3

November 21, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

We made our way to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center after the fly out. It was still a very cold day. We looked around in the visitor center and bought sweatshirts – giving ourselves another layer for later in the week – and then watched the red wing blackbirds near the feeder in the Desert Arboretum nearby.

There were still a few cottonwood leaves that had not turned brown.

The saltbush was thick with seeds.

We decided to take a turn around the wildlife loop. We saw quite a few Northern Shovellers

And coots.

My favorite water birds of the day were the pintails.

There were crystals still prevalent on vegetation; it was colder than it looked.

The day was sunny – the sky clear blue – typical New Mexico in winter.

Startled snow geese filled the air periodically. I took some sequences later in the week…so more to come about them in subsequent posts.

November 20, 2018

Festival of the Cranes – part 2

November 20, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Our first morning at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge was before the festival officially started. We got up early to travel from our hotel to the ponds along the road just before the visitor center before dawn --- to see the fly out of sandhill cranes that roost there overnight. It was the coldest morning of the week! We bundled up with lots of layers (included snow pants), foot warmers in our boots, and handwarmers inside our gloves. I had a scarf with a hood and then the hood from my fleece too. We managed but I noticed frost forming on the head of my tripod where I breathed while I was taking pictures! I took pictures of a tree on one end of the pond that I remembered from 2016. The tree glowed with morning early light.

Some of the birds were standing on mud….others on ice. I noticed one juvenile (the bird does not have its red patch yet) on ice that quickly stood on one leg. I lost track of the bird in the moving mass of birds, but I wondered if it changed legs after a time…to let the other one get warm.

I took a series of pictures of birds landing and picked the two best sequences. It is interesting how they use their wings to soften their landing. The few birds that landed must have taken off a short time before from another roosting site. This is the first sequence.

And the second.

Some of them seem more alert than others. I like groupings where it is easy to see the iron dust they have on their feathers from their nest sites in the far north. In this picture there are the birds alert, sleeping, and preening….all close together.

The fly out is all about the cranes taking off. Again – I picked two sequences. They don’t go all at once…but in small groups. The power of the first few wing flaps – to get them off the ground – could be heard across the small distance through the cold air.

And then they are in sky heading to the fields where they feed during the day.

Cranes are paired for life, so it is not unusual to see pairs.

Once the sun was up it was easier to see that the shallow pond was more ice covered than water and how some of the cranes looked so much shorter…but with the large body of sandhill cranes. The morning color of the ice…not the golden from sunrise…is a metallic blue.

I started to look more closely at how the cranes were managing to walk on the ice. They did a little sliding but seemed to prefer taking off from the ice rather than the water.

Just before we left, I took some pictures of the frosted vegetation.

A cold morning…but a good start to our week in New Mexico.

November 19, 2018

Festival of the Cranes – part 1

November 19, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

We enjoyed our second Festival of the Cranes at Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near San Antonio NM last week. Registration opened in early September and we decided quickly on the sessions we wanted…were early enough to get into them all. My criteria for sessions was: 1) something that we couldn’t easily do on our own or 2) a topic new to us or 3) something we enjoyed so much last time that we wanted to do it again!

A few weeks before our departure, I started a packing list color coded by packing location and then marked off as it was packed.

We knew the early mornings to see the fly out of the snow geese and cranes would be very cold…so lots of layers and hand/foot warmers. There were several days that we needed to carry lunch so we took an insulated bag. There was camera gear too; the tripods were in the checked bags – cameras in the carry on. I took three pieces of luggage: a suitcase that would be checked, a rolling backpack, and a duffel. My husband took four (two that were checked).

We didn’t forget anything…still have some ideas to do better packing next time.

I’ll be posting about the festival over the next few weeks. I took over 5,000 pictures in all because I set my camera on continuous shooting to capture motion (and I took some video too).

Blog posts about our 2016 experience of Festival of the Cranes:

November 18, 2018

3 Free eBooks – November 2018

November 18, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

It is so easy to find books online these days. More institutions are scanning their older collections and Internet Archive is the access hub for accessing many of those scanned collections. Many books that would have been hard to find because they are out-of-print are now available in digital form.

Matz, Friedrich. Art of the World: Art of Crete and Early Greece, The prelude to Greek Art. New York: Crown Publishers. 1962. Available from Internet Archive here. A little dated (lots has been discovered and/or figured out since the 1960s), but the pictures are great. I loved the small stone jug. The text said it was probably stalactite. It was found in eastern Crete.

We are traveling back from New Mexico today…having enjoyed our second foray to the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Keeping with that theme – there are two books on my favorites list for this month that are related:

Johnsgard, Paul A. Sandhill and whooping cranes: ancient voices over America’s wetlands. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2011. Available for checkout from Internet Archive here.

2018 11 ebook3.jpg — ERIC. ***Wildlife of New Mexico: A Coloring Book***. 1986. Available from Internet Archive here. There are 31 animals pictured along with a map of their range when the book was published in the 1980s. The javelina must have expanded its range since it is now seen in the refuge which in south central New Mexico. But the highlight of the festival – always – is the sandhill cranes.

November 17, 2018

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 17, 2018

November 17, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

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.

1.8 Million Clean Energy Workers Employed in Top 50 American Metro Areas | CleanTechnica – Jobs that are future leaning rather than in anchor industries like fossil fuels.

USDA Approves Edible Cotton | The Scientist Magazine® - Edible? I wonder if many people will have digestive problems with the seeds even if they are approved for human consumption.

The rise of sponges in Anthropocene reef ecosystems – Coral is impacted by higher temperatures and acidification more than sponges and there are already some ‘reefs’ that are dominated by sponges rather than coral. These reefs function differently and are expected to become more prevalent.

Study explores infant body position and learning -- ScienceDaily – I am always fascinated about studies with babies…observational but trying to be objective.

$31 Billion Hurricane Protection Plan Proposed for Texas - News | Planetizen – A hefty price tag…and who will pay for it? Would it work for very much of the area if they had another Hurricane like Harvey?

A Day in The Park: Hot Springs National Park – I visited this park years ago…before many of the more recent renovations. Maybe it’s time to see visit again.

'Wildlife Photographer of the Year' awards: Here are the best animal photos of 2018 – Great photography…nature…art. My favorite was the last one – the treehopper guarding her family.

Passive Radiative Cooling Moves Out of The Lab & Into the Real World | CleanTechnica – Cooling without consuming massive amounts of electricity….but is it really ‘out of the lab’ yet.

The Armchair Photography Guide to Bryce Canyon National Park – Part 2, Inspiration Point to Rainbow Point – There seem to be several articles in my feeds that are prompting thought of future travel. This is another place I’d like to go. The last time I was in Utah, the Federal government was closed so the national parks were not open!

Infographic: Exercise’s Effects on the Brain – Understanding the molecular mechanisms that connect exercise to cognitive benefits.

November 16, 2018

Field Trips in the Rain

November 16, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Last week, I volunteered for two elementary school hiking field trips at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant Farm….and it rained both days! On Monday it was kindergarteners and the ‘hike’ was shorted from 40 minutes to 20 minutes and accomplished in mostly the nature center. We started out on the terrace above the nature center looking out over the Honor Garden…talking about trees with leaves (and looked at leaves on the ground). Then we walked quickly around the front of the building to get to the nature center…and were wet enough already. Inside the nature center there were animal skulls and pelts…seeds and leaves…preserved insects…

When I talk to kindergarteners about tree cookies, I take time to explain what they are…and that they are not to eat! We count the main rings on the Royal Paulownia and then note that the other trees grow more slowly. My favorite is the dogwood because the rings are not as regular the other samples. The children are always enjoy learning about sugar maples…and maple syrup.

The rest of the time that would have normally been hiking was spent observing and hearing about Ranger, the barred owl.

On Friday, it only sprinkled a little on the first hike with second graders while we were out and about in the meadow. It was a very cloudy day.

During the second hike, it started raining. The children were dressed for the weather and more than half of them had umbrellas. We were in the meadow collecting and analyzing soil samples when it started raining. We decided we’d done enough samples and went to learn about the rocks by looking at an old stone wall. We started making our way back to the nature center by way of the goat and chicken enclosures…noting what the animals were doing (both enclosures have shelters and that’s where the animals were…out of the rain). We stopped briefly at the old stump in front of the farm house and discovered a snake skin fragment. Then we headed in to the nature center to see the living black rat snake (Onyx), a snake we see frequently at Mt Pleasant. They were ready for lunch too!

These were my last elementary field trips for the fall season. Even with the challenge of rain, they were good experiences…for me and for the students.

November 15, 2018

Sunrise and Sunset

November 15, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

One day last week I had serendipity photo ops first thing in the morning and just as the day was ending. In the morning I looked out the front of the house and saw three deer munching on the day lily leaves around our oak. By the time I got my camera, there were only two left. I trimmed the leaves more than a month ago as they began to look ragged and was surprised that they grew back. They are probably some of the most tender green leaves around right now. The day was cloudy and wet so even though the sun had been ‘up’ for about an hour, it was still relatively dark.

2018 11 IMG_3115b.jpg — Near sunset I noticed the color reflected on the clouds. They were moving rapidly so the shapes were changing. Our sycamore was already in silhouette with the vibrant color in the background.

A few minutes later the clouds still looked very orange. I zoomed to some distant tulip poplars that still had a few leaves.

Back to our sycamore in silhouette – the cloud has the shape of some creature with two big eyes and a toothless mouth…maybe a little like Jabba the Hutt.

o 2018 11 IMG_3115f.jpg — Then the color was down in the trees. We don’t have a clear few of the sunset since there is a forest to our west. It was a nice end-view for the day.

November 10, 2018

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 10, 2018

November 10, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

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.

Uncapped Wells Have Been Leaking Oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 14 Years - Yale E360 – Why can’t the oil companies do a better job of preventing leaks…or, at least, stopping leaks if they occur? Don’t they have the technology to address this issue?

With Shorter Winters, Plants Bloom Early and Die Young – National Geographic – Green springs…but the plants don’t sustain the green through the drier summers. Not good for our yards and our farms…and us.

Photo of the Week – October 19, 2018 – The Prairie Ecologist – Fluffy seeds from the prairie…including common milkweed,

Image of the Day: Clubbing | The Scientist Magazine® - Peacock Mantis Shrimp have a spring-like structure that enables them to beat the life out of their prey.

Beautifully Painted Shrine Emerges from the Ashes of Pompeii | Smart News | Smithsonian – Much of Pompeii that we know from tourist books was excavated before modern methods…and sometimes ‘restored’ in a way that we don’t know exactly what it looked like when originally uncovered. New excavation can provide clues about older excavations as well as the particulars of the newly uncovered walls.

Substantial changes in air pollution across China during 2015 to 2017 -- ScienceDaily – Particulates are down but ozone is up….so good and bad trends.

BBC - Future - The flu that transformed the 20th Century – The 1918 flu epidemic…100 years ago this year. There is still research on the virus and what happened…some surprises in the findings.

This Humongous Fungus Is as Massive as Three Blue Whales | Smart News | Smithsonian – 91 acres, 110 tons, and about 1,500 years old. And this is not the biggest one discovered…it was the first that was well documented.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week: Black plumage – National Geographic – I always like to include birds in my gleanings. I was surprised that there were no crows or ravens or starlings in this collection of birds with black plumage.

The Winners of the 2018 Astronomy Photographer of the Year Contest Are Out of This World – Three are some pictures from the 2017 solar eclipse in this collection.

November 07, 2018

Through the window….a flicker

November 07, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

With the leaves falling off the trees, it’s easier to see and photograph birds. Last weekend a female Northern Flicker (yellow-shafted) flew into our maple and I managed to get my camera fast enough to take two pictures through my office window. My computer glasses do work so well through the camera viewfinder, so I relied on the camera to focus. The bird turned slightly to show off the red blaze on the back of the head.

I don’t see these birds as frequently as our resident cardinals although the flickers might be here all year. They are hard to spot in foliage and grasses. I’m always thrilled to see them around.

November 05, 2018

Hiking with 4th Graders at Belmont

November 05, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Last week I spent a morning hiking with 4th graders at Howard County Conservancy’s Belmont location. The theme for the hike was how the land has changed from it was all a forest 300+ years ago…to the way it is today with emphasis on the impact of our development of farms and factories…streets and homes.

I arrived early to help with set up. I carried a bag with materials for the terrain model to the table mid-way along the hike and then carried the other bag into the forest for the students to compare aerial photos of the Belmont area. I took some pictures since I knew once the students arrived I wouldn’t have time for more – I am totally focused on the students while we hike. Some areas in the forest have deep leaf litter and would soak up a lot of water before the water would run off…and right now there are some leaves that are still colorful too.

Coming out of the forest I took a picture of the Belmont cemetery and the row of white pines. I took my hiking groups to the side of the cemetery and talked about the ground penetrating radar that was used a few years ago finding graves under the ground within the cemetery even where there are no markers and also where we were standing outside the fence (lot’s of fun to point out on a Halloween hike) but the conversation also included the idea of shifting of sediment and deterioration of grave markers that might have been made of wood. The pine needles that have accumulated over the years under the pines make the ground feel spongy; that surprised some of the students….and that area would soak up a lot of water just as the leaf litter does – like a sponge.

There was a terrain model that we poured blue liquid over to represent the normal river level…then more blue liquid to be a minor flood (houses nearest the river wet)…up to the level representing the 1868 flood which washed away Elkridge Landing and parts of Ellicott City. The mills never recovered, and towns ceased to exist. The students were surprised to learn that the flood experienced by Ellicott City in 2018 was not that much below 1868 and it was higher than the flood caused by Hurricane Agnes (1972) in Ellicott City.

Overall – it was a great day for a fall hike with 4th graders!

November 04, 2018

BioBlitz with 7th Graders

November 04, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I spent two mornings at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant with 7th graders for a BioBlitz.

Both days were cool and a little breezy. I arrived early enough the first day to take a few pictures of the fall gardens (in the calm before almost chaos)

And to look at the Green Infrastructure Network map again….enough to locate the approximate location of their school and think through how to talk about hubs/corridors in the county.

2018 10 biobli2.jpg — I had 11 students and a chaperone for about 2 hours and we found quite a lot. The most exciting – for me and the students on the first day – was a spotted salamander when we rolled over a log.

The brightly colored shelf-fungus and a wolf spider were good finds too.

On both days – one of the students borrowed my macro lens and became a specialist at getting macro pictures. Overall – the students handled being a little cold very well and stayed focused the BioBlitz for most of the two hours.