Bluebirds Visit

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On the 26th – we had bluebirds at our birdfeeder! I heard a lot of chatter coming from the birdfeeder so got up to look. There was quite a crowd around the feeder with birds jostling for a perch. It was a cold icy day too. I took a few pictures from my office window then went downstairs where I took pictures through the panes of the French door in the breakfast area. The birds were moving so quickly I didn’t get a good count…but there were probably 6-8 birds…maybe only one male (he is the one that has the brighter blue feathers).

The birds that were not on the feeder were often directly below looking up!

I was using my new camera and took advantage of the zoom and vantage point of our first floor to capture some bluebird portraits…all females (not sure where the male went….the birds were very active).

I looked at the All About Birds entry for Eastern Bluebird – and found that the birds usually don’t come to feeders because they eat primarily insects and fruits. These birds must have been hungry! One of the foods they like is raisins so I’ve put some on my list for the next grocery pick-up!

Back in January 2016, I posted about bluebirds coming to our birdbath. It was a similar kind of day from a weather perspective. There were about the same number of birds in that group. There are many nesting boxes in our area which helps support the birds’ nesting. But we probably need to have more native bushes that have berries for our birds in winter; something to consider for an upcoming landscaping project.

Through my Office Window – January 2021

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I seemed to be busy with other things during January…so I was a little surprised that there were enough pictures to make a ‘through my office window’ post this month. This time of year, the heated bird bath is popular with many birds. I managed to get pictures of blue jays, Carolina chickadees, and a mourning dove there.

 Both the male and female northern cardinals are coming to the deck and feeder. The male prefers the seed under the feeder, but the female takes her time there…stays on the feeder perch of minutes rather than seconds.

The gold finches come to the feeder in small flocks. There are often 2 or 3 of them at a time.

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The white breasted nuthatch comes to the feeder but has started checking around the shingles of the covered part of the deck. I wonder if the bird stores seed there or there is something else the bird is looking for there.

I photographed the red-bellied woodpecker at the feeder but also in the maple tree. There is one in this series where the bird is getting ready to take off from the maple to make a run at the feeder. We only have a female around right now. I hope a male shows up by the spring.

Deer come through our yard frequently. Their route is always on the south side of our house – either heading to or coming from the forest. Sometimes they seem to be looking right at the camera. I saw two males butting heads at dusk, but the light was too poor to get a picture.

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There is a small flock of house finches in our area. They enjoyed nibbling the red maple buds on a warm afternoon, but they are often at the feeder this time of year as well.

My favorite pictures this month were of a group of crows finding tasty things in the back yard. They were digging down into the leaf mulch and grass; note that one of them has dirt on his beak! Also – one has white feather.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 23, 2021

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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.

Ice sheet uncertainties could mean sea level will rise more than predicted -- ScienceDaily – There are warning signs that the current models aren’t accurately predicting ice sheet dynamics.

How mail-order frogs could save Colombia's amphibians - BBC Future – Carefully breeding frogs to keep them from going extinct in the wild.

Meet Amanda Gorman, the U.S.' Youngest Inaugural Poet | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Leading with eloquence and hope for the future….pushing us to strive for a country that is a ‘more perfect union.’

House Agrees Saguaro National Park Should Grow By 1,200 Acres – Hope this happens…when my daughter was in Tucson we enjoyed this park many times.

Diet and lifestyle guidelines can greatly reduce gastroesophageal reflux disease symptoms -- ScienceDaily – Exercise seems to be important – perhaps because it helps clear stomach acid that causes heartburn symptoms.

Top 25 birds of the week: Wild birds Photos! - Wild Bird Revolution – Birds – always great to look at in the wild and in photos.

How Codebreaker Elizebeth Friedman Broke Up a Nazi Spy Ring | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Some history…about how a woman did work she wanted to do…made significant contributions…didn’t get credit or pay that she should have. It happens again and again. We can’t assume that it isn’t still happening just because we have some very visible examples of women with power, recognition, and pay.

Are sleep trackers accurate? Here's what researchers currently know – It’s not always good to track sleep….particularly if it causes anxiety. I am in the group that generally has good sleep, so the tracker data doesn’t cause me anxiety, but it probably doesn’t improve anything either!  I might get a much simpler tracker next time that doesn’t provide sleep metrics.

The Wintertime Wonder of Unusual Ice | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – The short video of hair ice forming is interesting.

How Africa's largest city is staying afloat - BBC Future – Lagos, Nigeria. Part of the city is known as the ‘Venice of Africa.’ And there is a ‘Great Wall of Lagos’ to reinforce the coast.  The claim is that Africa’s largest city is leveraging its ingenuity to stay afloat….but whether it succeeds in the coming decades will be the real test.

Tennessee Sandhill Cranes

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The Virtual Celebration of the Cranes hosted by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency is history…but there are videos available on their Facebook page. My favorite video is the hour-long Coffee with Cranes; it includes the morning activity of the cranes near the confluence of the Tennessee and Hiawassee Rivers and the intermittent commentary about cranes…a wonderful virtual field trip. I appreciated that I was warm inside while watching the birds in the light snow (with the bundled up commentators occasionally chiming in with sandhill crane info). The high point of the video is near the end – a large number of birds were startled from another field and flew into the mowed corn/millet field they were filming in the last 3-4 minutes of the hour!

I am full of plans for next January…attending this festival in-person and making a side trip down to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama (further down the Tennessee River and another location where there are lots of cranes in the winter).

If we wanted a road trip to see cranes earlier in the season – we might visit the Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area in Indiana. The peak number of birds at that location usually occurs in December and the birds migrate further south as it gets colder.  

We could do a themed birding travel year around sandhill cranes:

  • September for Yampa Valley Cranes (Colorado)

  • November for Bosque del Apache Festival of the Cranes (New Mexico)

  • December for Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area (Indiana)

  • January for Hiawassee/Tennessee River confluence and Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge (Tennessee and Alabama)

  • March for Platte River migrating cranes (Nebraska)

Of course – there are other birds (lots of waterfowl and some raptors) to see along with the cranes at the various locations…and we’d see both western and easter flocks…mostly greater sandhill cranes but some lesser sandhills in the west. There might be some whooping cranes with the sandhills in the east!

Maybe I’ll find other locations to add before we set out – or maybe this turns into a multi-year series of trips. It’s post-COVID travel to look forward to! We know a lot more after all the virtual festivals we’ve enjoyed during our ‘stay at home as much as possible’ time since last March.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 16, 2021

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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.

Wingspan and Other Tabletop Games for Naturalists – A new indoor activity for during the winter?

Square Structure Detected Under Monte Albán’s Main Plaza - Archaeology Magazine – The plaza was in use for 1,000 years….and evidently the structure detected with ground penetrating radar, electrical resistance and gradiometery is 60x60 feet…and about 3 feet thick. More study of the data might reveal if the building had stairs, tunnels, and columns.

Leaf microbiomes are a neighborhood affair in northern forests -- ScienceDaily – The microbes associated with trees have been an active research area in recent years. This study looked at Sugar Maples and discovered that their microbiome was similar to the trees around them…whether it was other sugar maples or conifers….other species entirely.

A warm pool in the Indo-Pacific Ocean has almost doubled in size, changing global rainfall patterns | NOAA Climate.gov – The impacts on large-scale atmospheric circulation and rainfall are expected to intensify in the future.

Top 25 birds of the week: January 2021 – This collection includes a photo of a red-breasted nuthatch…a bird we’ve seen at our feeder this year!

Photographer Nathan Myhrvold Captures Snowflakes in High Resolution – I enjoy trying to photograph snowflakes…but I do it close to home where the challenge is higher temperatures. That tends to cause them to clump rather than be easily separated into single flakes. It’s still a fun activity for snow days.

New mammogram measures of breast cancer risk could revolutionize screening -- ScienceDaily – Improving the way mammograms are analyzed…giving results at the time of screening instead of later then moving toward personalized screening thereafter rather than ‘one size fits all.’ I wonder how long it will take for this to trickle through the industry.

Flapper style | Europeana – Our family has a picture of one of my grandmothers in a flapper dress. She probably made it herself – as the article indicated…they were easy to make and patterns were available. The dresses have a timelessness to them even though they are associated with the 1920s. They look great as party dresses even 100 years later!

'Sparkling' clean water from nanodiamond-embedded membrane filters -- ScienceDaily – The problem the researchers are addressing is filtering of the hot water from oil recovery and other industrial processes. We’ll need more technologies like this to clean up water we can’t afford to leave polluted forever….but we should concurrently move toward technologies that don’t leave toxins in water. Technologies should be designed with the goal in mind of 0 waste.

Researchers Catch Oldest Tropical Reef Fish Known to Science | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – An 81-year-old midnight snapper! They also caught a 79-year-old red snapper in the same area. Climate change is already warmed the reef enough that the life-span of the fishes there is expected to be shorter in the future. The record for oldest known vertebrate in the world is also a sea creature – a 400 year old Greenland shark.

Anniversary Celebration

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My husband and I have been married for 48 years! We celebrated a day early with red velvet cake (for me) and carrot cake (for him) that we enjoyed a day early because that is when we did a pickup of other items from a store that included a bakery that makes good cakes.

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I’m thinking back to the decades of our marriage

We spent the 1st 10 years in Texas. We were both in college – he was full time and I was part time. My career in computer programing was becoming well established. At the end of the 10 years, he had a PhD in Physics and I had a Masters in Mathematics.

Early in the 2nd 10 years we moved to Virginia for his post doc and I went to work for IBM. During the decade we moved to Maryland (after his post doc ended) and had our daughter.

The 3rd decade saw us moving in Maryland to the house we are in now. Our lives were focused on our daughter and our careers…trying to blend everything together at every opportunity. For several years, my work required trips to Colorado once a month. My husband and daughter joined me for before or after the workdays so often that my daughter thought everyone got on an airplane for Colorado frequently – was surprised that she was the only one in her Montessori class with Colorado t-shirts and sweatshirts. Our daughter was old enough to consider putting her on a plane to see her grandparents in Texas by the time 9/11 happened; we delayed that milestone to well into the next decade.

Our careers were important during our 4th decade – but the milestones of our daughter took the fore in our family: driver’s license, high school graduation, Cornell for undergraduate degree, internship at Northern Arizona, beginning graduate school at University of Arizona, marriage. My husband began his glide path to post-career. My last grandparent died. We dealt with some health issues of our own that slowed us down temporarily. I retired in the last year of the decade.

In the past 8 years, I’ve settled into post-career activities including volunteer gigs. My husband continued to work part time for a few years and ramping up of post-career. We both enjoy traveling (birding festivals in particular) until the pandemic stopped that; we’ll pick it back up in a year. Our daughter’s milestones were ones we shared vicariously: PhD in Astrophysics/her husband’s PhD in Biology, post docs at Penn State/University of Pittsburg, tenure track faculty positions at Missouri State University. Our health has been stable, but my sisters and I are partnered to assist our aging parents as they face health-related challenges.

We’re enjoying the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency’s Online Celebration of Cranes right now and are tentatively planning to be at the in-person festival next year to celebrate our 49th anniversary!

Starling Shelter

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Our neighbor’s house is missing a triangular cover on part of their eaves…and it appeared that some starlings moved into the protected space on the last day of 2020.

Fortunately, the birds are almost to heavy to get seed from our feeder so I see them more on the gutter and roof of our covered deck.

I saw one that came to the top of the feeder while the female red-bellied woodpecker was there and the woodpecker became very territorial…moving toward the starling and making threatening sounds/moving its open beak like a pair of open scissors toward the starling. The starling made a hasty retreat!

There are times that I appreciate the look of the starlings. Their feathers do have a green or purple sheen ….and the black tipped beak is interesting too.

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10 months in COVID-19 Pandemic

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The vaccines began in the 10th month of the pandemic. It is a grand hope tempered by a sluggish rollout so far and a more contagious variant that is already problematic in the UK and being found in the US now. We have stopped most of our ideas of ‘getting out’ more…we are back to the strategy of ‘staying at home as much as possible.’

The 10th month included a crescendo of events other than the pandemic that ramped up stress levels higher than ever before. As I write this – the events of January 6th are at the top of the crescendo. I will always remember being at home trying to keep an eye on the news without being overwhelmed by it just before things broke apart. I was frustrated and a little angry that the Missouri and Texas Senator (and too many of their cohorts in the House and Senate) were using a usually mundane session of Congress as a political grand stand to perpetuate statements that had already been investigated and proven untrue – sometimes in a court…..and then it got worse very quickly with a mob storming the US Capitol – pushing past barricades, breaking windows, climbing walls, wearing costumes and seemingly treating the event as a party in the Capitol complete with damaging the building and the people trying to preserve it and the institution in houses, the House and Senate members evacuated from their chambers. It was horrifying. I didn’t stay up for the Congress to complete their work of the day…kudos to them for the long day to get it done. In the aftermath – the extent of the problem in our country became clearer…and the discomfort of knowing that the delusion of an election stolen from Trump is so deeply anchored in the belief of some people that it became an effort to overturn voters, the Electoral College and the rule of law. The country is more fragile than it has been during my lifetime…because of the failure of the Executive Branch of our government (through ineptitude and malfeasance) and the pandemic. We have so many concurrent crises (which could have been avoided or ameliorated with competent leadership); we are not as strong as we always thought we were.

In the best case…I hope the focus over the next month can shift away from worrying about the next surprise from the President to getting as many vaccines delivered and into people plus following advice to reduce risks (masks, washing hands, social distancing, avoiding being in indoor spaces with people outside our ‘bubble.’ My husband and I have bookmarked the vaccination site in our state to sign up for a vaccine as soon as our group is eligible.

The high points over the past month have been associated with family events – birthday, anniversary, holiday – celebrated virtually with Zoom calls and (in the case of the birthday) slices of red velvet cake enjoyed by several of us in different states on the day.  Special foods almost every day like pumpkin roll, hay stacks, and snow ice cream. There were events in nature to enjoy too: a pileated woodpecker in the forest, sunspots, and lady bugs occasionally on the walls of my office escaping the cold. I donated another porch sized pile of stuff – clearing out some household accumulation that we no longer need. There were good things that happened in pandemic month 10.

At the 10-month mark – there is a ‘light’ at the end of the tunnel - getting the two doses of the vaccine. I don’t think it will happen for us in the next 30 days but sometime after that…early spring if the projections hold. We have tightened our risk reduction strategies somewhat because of the more contagious variant and may do more in the 11th month of the pandemic. And I am hopeful that the trauma and drama from the top leadership of the US might be significantly reduced as President Biden takes office. We will all be healthier with less stress caused by the actions of our government day to day.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 9, 2021

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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.

Coronavirus FAQ: How Do I Protect Myself From The U.K. Variant? - I added this one at the last minute…it’s scary…a good prompt to evaluate the precautions you are taking to not get COVID-19 with this more contagious variant circulating in the US. We are so close to having vaccinations broadly available!

When Only a Hippopotamus Will Do – Learn a bit about hippos. Did you know that there is a ‘wild’ population of hippos in Columbia’s Magdalena River, escaped from Pablo Escobar’s menagerie after his death?

Plastics pose threat to human health, report shows -- ScienceDaily – Awful….and there is relatively little being done to control this source of toxins in our environment.

Top 25 birds of the week: Terrestrial Birds! - Wild Bird Revolution – Most of the birds are relatively drab – lots of browns and off-white feathers….but interesting patterns. - the better to blend in with their environment. But there are a few surprises that are quite different from the rest.

From Ancient Rome to Contemporary Singapore: The Evolution of Conservatories – THE DIRT – I like conservatories….this article includes some history that I hadn’t thought about before…a bit more from the perspective of how conservatories fit into the cultures that created them.

Operation Ponderosa: Saving a Forest, Pandemic Edition – Several reasons this article caught my attention: it’s about 1) the Davis Mountains in Texas…a location I’ve driven through on road trips between Dallas and Tucson, 2) fieldwork and also done by a woman during this pandemic year, 3) the Ponderosa pine’s importance as ‘sky islands’ in this arid part of the country, 4) the impact of fire, and 5) how genetic testing informs forest restoration efforts.

Trees are out of equilibrium with climate -- ScienceDaily – I might have gotten a bit stuck on trees for this gleanings collection. This study found that factors other than climate often limit where trees grow...that few trees grow everywhere the climate would appear to support their growth.

Ancestral Puebloans Survived Droughts by Collecting Water from Icy Lava Tubes | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – New Mexico’s El Malpais….a place I’ve visited several times.

Migration and disease in the Iron Age - Current Archaeology – A skeleton of a man with tuberculosis that died between 400 BC and 230 BC in Britain but was born elsewhere based on analysis of his molars that developed in early childhood. Did he contract the disease early in his life or after he arrived in Britain?

Canyon De Chelly, Walnut Canyon Park Pages Added to Traveler – I’ve been to both these places so was glad they were added list of Essential Park Guides on this site. The guides are collections of articles about each park…and good references when planning a visit or to see some pictures of the park!

Bowerbirds: Meet the bird world’s kleptomaniac love architects – Elaborate structures of sticks and often colorful found objects…to attract a mate.

Sunspot Photography

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My husband got a new lighter weight lens for his camera and has been experimenting with it handheld.  He has a solar filter for it so the sun has become one of the subjects that he can photograph from our backyard or driveway.

Sometimes the sun is not very interesting but toward the end of the year there were sunspots! Here is his selection of the best that he got on 12/29.

We’ve created projects for ourselves….things similar to what we normally do but usually don’t have enough time to enjoy in a methodical way. It’s one of the positive aspects of the precautions we are taking to avoid getting COVID-19. Over the past few months, he has sold some of his older and heavier lenses…replaced several with the new one that is lighter and thus easier on his back for when we are hiking/birding (mostly a future plan at this point). The reduced weight and the improved motion stabilization technology make it easier to use handheld. He may become more of a monopod (rather than tripod) user too.

I got a new camera for Christmas and will do some experimentation of my own in the next few weeks.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 2, 2021

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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.

2020 Year In Review: Top Stories From Around The National Park System – Issues discussed in the post: COVID-19, Great American Outdoors Act, border wall, invasive species, wildlife issues, climate change, crowding in the parks, wildfires.

New Discoveries in Human Anatomy | The Scientist Magazine® - So much study of human anatomy over the years….and there are still new discoveries.

50 Satellite Images from 50 Years of NOAA | NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) – Visuals from NOAA – beauty, science, education….so much has happened over the 50 years of NOAA’s existence.

2020 Year In Review: Parks, A Pandemic, And Photography – Lots to see in the National Parks…I hope to be able to get out and see some in-person before the end of 2021.

Top 25 birds of the week: Birding! – Wild Bird Revolution  - And I want to travel to some birding festivals too!

Recycled concrete could be a sustainable way to keep rubble out of landfill: Can even outperform traditional construction, says researcher – ScienceDaily – A Canadian study…seems like the results should be pertinent to the US too. The research indicates that “recycled concrete can be a 100% substitute for non-structural applications”….and might also be a substitute within more structural applications as well if innovations in the composition of recycled concrete continue.

Top 10 States For Renewable Energy, & Their Renewable Energy Splits  - Interesting mix of states on the list with quite a difference in the amount of hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass among the top 10. California is the only one with all 5. But there are 5 states that have 4 of the 5.

Scientists reverse age-related vision loss, eye damage from glaucoma in mice – ScienceDaily – Hopefully this research will translate into treatment for people.

Take a Virtual Tour of the World’s Largest Circular Tomb, Augustus’ Mausoleum | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – The virtual tour takes a little bit to load….but is worth it. Note that the ‘chapters’ are along the bottom of the screen.

Desalination breakthrough could lead to cheaper water filtration – ScienceDaily – Increasing efficiency of reverse osmosis filters by beginning to better understand how they work. This is something that will be more important as climate change and our own production of pollutants makes obtaining clean water more challenging.

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The sunrise on the 1st day of 2021 was blocked by clouds but the one on the 31st was good. I took a picture of it that included a large electrical transmission tower and some birds making some morning moves!

Zooming – December 2020

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I took fewer pictures in December…and shifted toward macro rather than zoomed. It was an indoor month because of the cold and the activities associated with holidays. Still – there were pictures of birds and snow – sunrise and sunset…the wintery scene. I’m going to bundle up to take more walks even in the January cold!

Through my Office Window – December 2020

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I am appreciating the view from my office window more this year than ever before…it is a great view of the natural world. We’ve seen wild turkeys twice (no pictures!) and one evening 9 deer came through (usually we see 2-4 at a time). There are the usual critters that I almost always manage to photograph: the finches, crows, white-breasted nuthatch, a pair of cardinals,

The squirrels,

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The mourning doves,

The red-bellied woodpecker, and

The Carolina wrens.

The birds that we only have around during the winter are the dark-eyed juncos,

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The red-bellied nuthatch,

The white-throated sparrow,

And the red-winged blackbirds. We have the red-winged blackbirds near the neighborhood pond in the other seasons, but they don’t venture to our forest and feeder except in the winter or during migration. They are almost too heavy for the feeder, so they don’t get enamored with what it provides.

The view from the window – the forest, the bird feeder and bath, the winter yard…the best in the house.

Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference

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The Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference went virtual this year. It was held on the mornings of December 3rd and 4th rather than all on one day as the in-person event. I appreciated that scheduling since webinars for a whole day can be overwhelmingly intense. And now – they’ve made the presentations and session videos available! I highly recommend the Dr. Rita Colwell plenary session: Oceans, Climate, and Human Health: Lessons from Cholera for COVID-19. The video is in the ‘Morning Plenary Session Day 1’ and the charts (which are visible in the video) are posted at the link for the 9:15 AM slot on day 1.

I bought the Kindle version of Dr. Colwell’s book A Lab of One’s Own: One Woman’s Personal Journey Through Sexism in Science. It’s a thought-provoking book for me as I think of my life and women I’ve known – my mother’s generation, my own, and my daughter’s. There is much in the book that even non-scientist women will recognize in their experiences of work. In my case – I didn’t know any scientists growing up, but I did observe women that ran a mill, was a traveling dietician for small town hospitals, and teaching math/science to high schoolers and at colleges. In my own generation, I had quite a few peers in the computer industry…and noticed the thinning of the ranks as my career moved forward. By the time I retired, there were 2 or 3 female CEOs in the industry…but there was not a robust pipeline of women behind them. In my daughter’s generation, it is still not unusual to find one or no female faculty members in physics departments. Improvements have come…but very slowly…and the pandemic has taken us back decades (in the accessibility of childcare, for example).

The sessions I watched at the conference were Clean Waters, Healthy Humans (VB Room 2) on Day 1 and PFAS: News on an Emerging Contamination (VB Room 3) on Day 2. The talks were very good and I appreciated the virtual format – much more comfortable that crowded rooms where the bottom of the charts were blocked by heads of people….trying to take a few notes (the old fashion way with paper and pen)…overeating with all the goodies provided between sessions. Now that the videos and presentations are out, I’m going back to look at some of the other presentations that I didn’t get to ‘live;’ I am looking forward to that in this lull week between Christmas and New Year’s.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

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Sunrise the day after Christmas. I noticed pink clouds to the west and then went to check the east from an upstairs window. Perfect timing. I took pictures through the window since the temperature outside was in the 20s.

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Gleanings of the Week Ending December 26, 2020

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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.

35 Beautiful Winter Scenes to Get You in the Holiday Spirit – We had our first snow a little over a week ago…our Christmas was windy and rainy….I enjoyed these snowy pictures from around the world to get me back into the ‘winter wonderland’ mood.

Time capsule for 2020: the 37 objects that defined the year – This prompted me to think about what objects represent the year for me…maybe just a top 10 though rather than 37!

Top 10 Discoveries of the decade – From Archeology magazine

NOAA Research’s top 5 stories from 2020 – NOAA models track smoke movement – and locust swarms; scientists explore the impact of the COVID-19 response on the environment; carbon dioxide continues to rise; Dungeness crab larvae are already showing effects of ocean acidification; and a new roadmap for tracking ocean and Great Lake acidification

Top 11 Clean Energy Developments in 2020 – Some good news….nice to find these in a year that was dominated by bad – sad – horrific news (pandemic, fires, hurricanes, cultural/political strife).

Glucosamine may reduce overall death rates as effectively as regular exercise, study suggests -- ScienceDaily – It’s a correlation finding…not cause/effect. But the correlation was found by assessing data from over 16 thousand people over 40 years of age.

In boost for renewables, grid-scale battery storage is on the rise – Another good news story.

Photography in the National Parks: Winter Wonderlands – More wintery pictures of beautiful places.

Stonehenge's Continental Cousin - Archaeology Magazine – Archaeology in a German potato field! Evidence of concentric rings of oak posts, graves, pits filled with sacrifices, a village of long houses near the circle, alignment with sunrise on days halfway the solstices and equinoxes….no fortification.

Top 25 birds of the week: Bird Camouflage – Ending this gleaning list with birds. There lots of birds that blend into their environment!

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2020

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A month with lots of celebrations…with some old and new ways of celebrating.

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Snow. My husband and I celebrated the first snow of the year by making snow ice cream, attempting snowflake photography, and having a fire in the fireplace. The way we celebrate snow is something that hasn’t been changed by the COVID-19 pandemic; maybe it was better because we didn’t bother to shovel the driveway since we knew we weren’t going to be going out!

Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference. I enjoyed two mornings of Zoom presentation that were this year’s version of the one-day conference held in December. This was another instance of something better in some respects than the pre-pandemic….no crowded conference rooms or not being able to see the bottom of the slides! I am still celebrating by reading Rita Colwell’s book (she was the plenary speaker) – one chapter per day!

CSA stevia. I thoroughly enjoyed putting a few stevia leaves dried from my collection of it at the CSA into pots of hot tea….a little sweetness to celebrate in something hot to drink on a winter’s day.

Getting stuff put away…given away. I am celebrating getting our basement a little cleaned out. There is still a lot of stuff we won’t ever use again (i.e. to give away…or somehow get it out of the house) or we won’t need in the next year or so and can be boxed up to better preserve it. Getting it sorted and organized feels good….like we are back in control rather than being overwhelmed by possessions!

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Making haystack cookies. This was a first for me. I had eaten them at holiday events previously and remembered how much I liked them. None of those events are happening this year so the only option was to make them myself. What a great treat! They will probably be something I make every year…a new tradition coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sunny afternoon. The weather has turned colder but there was one sunny afternoon that was warm enough to open the windows a little and get some air exchange with the outdoors. I celebrated the day…so different from the others of the month.

Chipotle take out. I enjoy my own cooking…but also a change of pace. And my husband has something he likes from Chipotle too. We order ahead and he picks it up.

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Sunrise moment. The color of sunrise light on our forest….always a few moments to celebrate when it happens at the beginning of the day.

Finale of Mandalorian season. We watched every new episode as it came out then celebrated the finale and the prospect of more Star Wars spin offs…nothing too serious but fun to watch.

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Last big leaf falling from the sycamore. That last leaf signaled the end of fall…the beginning of winter. I celebrated the passing of the old season…and the new one too.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 19, 2020

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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 Has Photography's Relationship With Nature Evolved Over the Past 200 Years? | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – A little history…that I used as a prompt to look for some of the works on Internet Archive. I’ll post about what I found for Kazumas Ogawa in a post next week.

Infographic: Deciphering Diet from Blood and Urine Samples | The Scientist Magazine® - Full article also available and more interesting that the infographic! The approach is still not perfected…but it may eventually help us get to personalized nutrition plans without as much trial and error that is required now.

Connection between gut bacteria and vitamin D levels -- ScienceDaily – Lots more needed to understand Vitamin D. This study indicated that blood tests for Vitamin D might not be useful at all since they don’t measure active Vitamin D….and active vitamin D is what correlates to gut bacteria…and potentially bone health. “Maybe it’s not how much vitamin D you supplement with, but how you encourage your body to use it.”

Get a Bird's-Eye View of UNESCO World Heritage Sites Across the Globe – Some beautiful places…from overhead.

How Non-Native Plants Are Contributing to a Global Insect Decline - Yale E360 – Insect declines….then birds. Lots of reasons to focus on planting natives a much as we can. I’m glad the forest behind my house is full of native trees and that I’ve replaced 2 bushs in the front of my house with natives. The challenge is to control the small but prolific invasive plants growing on the forest floor and into our yard enough for non-natives to survive. There used to be native jack-in-the-pulpits in our forest until several years ago.

How do we separate the factual from the possible? New research shows how our brain responds to both -- ScienceDaily – This article was frustrating. The study found that factual language is something our brains respond to. That’s not the issue at this moment in our nation’s history. The problem is the use of factual language about something not factual! Maybe this article is why we need to be more worried about public discourse/pronouncements.

It's One Hot Place Deep Down On The Floor Of Yellowstone Lake – About studies at Yellowstone Lake…the sensors and what they are revealing.

Shuttering fossil fuel power plants may cost less than expected -- ScienceDaily – Interesting…but I hope we’ll retire them all well before 2035 with the cost of renewals coming down so quickly. It will make economic sense to just do it!

Keeping Black Bears Wild And People Safe – This article is about black bears in Smokey Mountains National Park and the BearWise program more broadly. We do have Black Bears in Maryland and they occasionally show up in our area; there was one that showed up at our nearby elementary school a few years ago – caused a school lockdown until it wondered off.

Meet the Dipper, the Songbird That Swims – Evidently they are easier to spot in Colorado during the winter when they are concentrated long streams that remain unfrozen…but they are in the Rockies all year round…Dippers are elevation migrants (higher in the summer….lower in the winter). Maybe some post-pandemic trip we’ll look for them!

Ice Day

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The snow changed to sleet then rain around 3 PM and then the temperature dipped below freezing again overnight leaving it looking like snow on the ground but there was an icy crust on top of the snow and the streets were rutted ice. The gutters of the house were clogged with snow that had become icy. So – we had an Ice Day after a Snow Day.

I took some pictures in the early morning darkness. The temperature was about 25…and it looked like there was still white everywhere…the street looking white too. I’d heard a vehicle go by and there were enough cracking sounds to indicate that the street was not clear…was not turned to slush by an application of salt.

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As the sun came up, the street looked treacherous and our driveway looked snow packed. I took some zoomed pictures of the azalea outside our front door with ice nodules held by its leaves.

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I had scheduled a donation pickup from our front porch which I changed to leave in the garage – although I’m not sure they will come…maybe the street will be better by this afternoon.

The best picture of the morning was of our backyard. I didn’t realize until I was reviewing the pictures that I’d gotten the shadow of a dove in flight! My intent was to document the low place in our backyard making a little stream of melt water….but sometimes the unexpected happens and makes for more than a documentary picture.

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9 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

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The first vaccine for COVID-19 was approved in the US by the FDA on the 9-month anniversary of the WHO declaring the world wide pandemic. The rollout will take months but there is more hope now….if we can just get through the months until enough people get vaccinated to provide herd immunity. The US is not in a good situation right now with hospitals filling up, larger than ever numbers of people testing positive, and deaths per day about the same as 9/11/2001 – the trauma of that death rate repeated again and again instead of one day. Even a month ago, I thought there were more effective treatments that had been developed since last spring, but it now seems that either they don’t exist or they are in such short supply that they don’t make a difference. Even worse – the best treatments only seem to be available to favorites of the President…implying (or confirming) the corruption of at least part of the medical system in the US.

The psyche of everyone in the country is impacted by the pandemic – made worse by the leadership of the country, particularly at the Federal level and trickling down to some states. There is a lack of caring in American society that still surprises me. I limit the time I spend watching/reading news…stay more with stats and public health recommendations to guide the actions I take relative to the pandemic.

  • I have elongated my time between trips to the grocery store to every 3 weeks (rather than every 2 weeks like I did over the summer and fall or every week I did pre-pandemic). It takes more planning but is preferrable than going back to grocery delivery. I like to choose my purchases directly!

  • My husband and I celebrated Thanksgiving on our own at home and are planning to do the same for all the upcoming holidays. Special foods are still part of the celebration but we cook for 2 (or enjoy a lot of leftovers). I am intentionally trying some new recipes for desserts. We also do telephone calls/Zoom sessions with family on the special days.

  • We are getting take out every week or so. We haven’t eaten in a restaurant since back in February. It’s impossible to know how good the air circulation/filtration is in an enclosed area where 6 feet distance may not be adequate….and one cannot wear a mask while eating. Many municipalities/counties in Maryland are going back to take-out only because of the dramatic rise in cases over the past few weeks (although the rise might be more because of behavior around the Thanksgiving holiday than restaurants); whatever the cause - the likelihood of asymptomatic people in our community has increased and there is a need to respond to that to help avoid hospitals overflowing/starting to ration care.

  • My husband is still planning to do some amateur astronomy sessions with the local club…outdoors and masked and telescopes set up at least 6 feet apart….if the weather cooperates. He did some solar astronomy on his own from our driveway and backyard in November. The club meetings have been via zoom for months.

Over the past month, we enjoyed

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I am looking forward to cooking holiday desserts, watching a virtual Holiday House Tour being produced by my county and a session on Wild Birds in Winter from our state Department of Natural Resources, and filling up the porch with items for a charity to pick up…and continuing day to day activities that give me joy like Zentangle tile creation, photographing birds and wildlife from my office window, finding good books to browse, and writing a blog post….taking a walk in the neighborhood or watching the trees gently moving in the winter wind from my office window.

I am looking forward to cooking holiday desserts, watching a virtual Holiday House Tour being produced by my county and a session on Wild Birds in Winter from our state Department of Natural Resources, and filling up the porch with items for a charity to pick up…and continuing day to day activities that give me joy like Zentangle tile creation, photographing birds and wildlife from my office window, finding good books to browse, and writing a blog post….taking a walk in the neighborhood or watching the trees gently moving in the winter wind from my office window.

Over the next month, we might get a better sense of when we will be able to get the vaccine. My plan is to get it as soon as I am eligible. Once I’m protected by it and my parents are in the same state…a road trip to Texas will be my first post-pandemic travel.

At the 9 month mark – I am more hopeful for 2021….but very focused on staying hyper vigilant – doing everything we know to do to avoid getting COVID-19 until we are protected by the vaccine.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 12, 2020

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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.

Massive Arecibo Telescope Collapses in Puerto Rico | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Very sad. It was already being decommissioned which was wrenching….but then the collapse meant that even the instruments that might have been usable elsewhere were destroyed. My husband spent some time at Arecibo during his graduate school studies in the 1970s.

What do slight arm movements reveal about our breathing and health? -- ScienceDaily – Evidently it works best during sleep when there is not a lot of other movement other than breathing!

Hegra, an Ancient City in Saudi Arabia Untouched for Millennia, Makes Its Public Debut | Travel | Smithsonian Magazine – Undisturbed for 2,000 years…once an international trade hub although most of the surviving structures are tombs…a few hundred miles to the south of Petra

Proterra Sells Its 1,000th Electric Bus and New Electric School Buses In Virginia & Massachusetts – Electric buses are very appealing…I’ve always hated the sooty exhaust from diesel buses. Buses operate in situations where many people (and children) are in close proximity, so removing buses as a source of city and school pollution would be a good step forward.

Glyphosate may affect human gut microbiota -- ScienceDaily – A bioinformatics tool to predict if a microbe is sensitive to glyphosate – in the soil…in the digestive system of animals. The compound, widely used as a herbicide, biochemically targets plants but the same pathway is also in bacteria.

Opinion: The Biological Function of Dreams | The Scientist Magazine® - Learning more about sleep…and REM sleep in particular.

The mystery of Siberia’s exploding craters - BBC Future – Gas emission craters. Studies have revealed a 3-5 year life cycle: a mound forms…rising several meters, the gas underneath explodes. They tend to form in areas where there is a thick layer of ice over permafrost…with some areas of unfrozen ground surrounded by permafrost…and very deep deposits of gas and oil. The big challenge has been to identify the source of the gas that builds up – because after the explosion it is already gone.

Forest fires, cars, power plants join list of risk factors for Alzheimer's disease: Airborne pollution implicated in amyloid plaques, UCSF-led study shows -- ScienceDaily and Air pollution spikes linked to lower test scores for Salt Lake County third graders -- ScienceDaily – Studies that show the impact of air pollution on humans….other reasons to step up the pace of the shift away from fossil fuels. Thinking positively – actions to address climate change tend to improve air quality.

Mistletoe: A Natural and Human History – A plant associated with the season! And there are other species of mistletoe from around the world.

Top 25 birds of the week: December 2020! - Wild Bird Revolution – Beautiful birds….at the end of the gleanings list for this week.