Volume 6 included two birds seen frequently in North America: the coot and the Canada goose.
Morris was an Irish clergyman – a ‘parson-naturalist’ of the 1800s; his professional role accommodated his natural history interests. According to the Wikipedia entry about him, he was a pioneer of the movement to protect birds from the plume trade…refused to accept the theory of evolution.
There are two ponds with a ~0.5 trail around them in our Missouri neighborhood…three bridges (one at both ends and between them). One of the tangential paths from the loop passes by our back gate. I took an early morning walk – taking photos in the great morning light. A squirrel posed for me on one of the bridges.
I was glad the mowed areas are not ‘golf course’ like…lots of clover mixed in with the grasses.
There is a mallard with a broken wing that I’ve seen several times. The first time was the day the movers arrived. It was wondering around our backyard and my husband opened the gate so that it could return to the ponds. It was swimming in the water or on a muddy island in one of ponds the other times I’ve seen it. It probably cannot fly well enough to move to another location.
The edges of the ponds are not mowed….so there are plenty of taller grasses, seedlings, wild onions and other plants that make it interesting.
I stopped just before I made the last turn to my house to photograph one of the larger trees….and its reflection.
We are experiencing lots of high temperatures this week so all my walks will be on mornings when the temperature is still pleasant. I am anticipating that the short walks are going to be ‘favorites’ for my post-move life.
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.
Archaeologists Uncover Hundreds of Colorful Sarcophagi at Saqqara—and They’re Not Done Yet – The seeming endless interest in Egypt…sustained by continuing new finds.
8 cool wild cats you probably don’t know – So many wild cat variations!
Fjords emit as much methane as all the deep oceans globally – When storms churn up water in fjords….oxygenating the fjord floor…methane emissions spike. If the water mixed more frequently the methane emissions would drop because anoxic environments at the bottom of fjords would disappear.
Tree rings are evidence of megadrought – and our doom – Tree ring data indicates that the 22-year period from 2000 through 2021 was the driest and hottest in the last 1,2000 years for the North American Southwest. There was another 22-year drought from 1571-1592 that was nearly as dry but not as hot as the current drought. And the water distribution allocations were made based on a 22-year period between 1900 and 1921 that we now know was an anomalously wet period for area! Not good signs for the future.
A 3400-year-old city emerges from the Tigris River – Drought lowered the Mosul reservoir. There was a quick survey…discovery ceramic vessels with 100 cuneiform tablets…and the conservation measures to project the site as the water rose again. The site is now completely submerged.
Fifty years later, Kim Phuc Phan Thi is more than ‘Napalm Girl’ – One of the most iconic photos of the Vietnam war…still makes be as emotional now as the first time I saw it. She says – To confront violence head-on…’the first step is to look at it.’
Two articles about the flooding in Yellowstone: Repairing and reopening Yellowstone National Park won’t be easy and Extreme flooding devastates Yellowstone, forcing the closure of all park entrances – Very sad….also scary.
Wildlife bedtime: weird nesting habits of North American wildlife – Black bears, black-footed ferrets, jumping spiders, bald-faced hornets, and red-sided garter snakes.
How Vivian Maier, the Enigmatic Nanny Who Took 150,000 Photographs, Found Her Place in History – Street photographer…that only became known after a storage locker of her photographs/negatives was auctioned off when she couldn’t make the payments on it.
Zapping orange peel oil into new, pleasant aroma compounds – I’ve always liked the smell and taste of orange peel (I buy organic oranges and use the whole orange!) but evidently the compound that is in orange peel, limonene, can be the starting platform for other scents as well.
I stayed overnight with my daughter the night before we closed on our new home. It was calming to be in a familiar place, enjoy her yard between rain showers (roses, decorative water faucet, and magnolia with early blooms) and then have her drive me (rather than taking my very full car) to the walk-through of the house prior to closing.
The form with space for notes about each room that I used when we had first looked at the house back in April worked well for this walkthrough. I wrote down anything I noticed: a ding in a wall that the movers probably made when they moved the previous owner (fortunately the paint was left in the basement so won’t be a hard repair), the blooms that I had just missed (a Japanese dogwood and a rhododendron), the two bathrooms that needed shower rods (the master has a glass enclosed shower), and loose weather stripping on the door to the garage. I also noticed that what I thought was just a microwave was a convection oven as well! Everything important about the house was as I expected.
I had purchased some furniture from the previous owner, and it was all in the house…plus a chimenea (a pleasant surprise sitting to one side of the patio.
It was too wet from the morning rains to walk around the yard, but I did go out on the patio. There were swallows nesting in the eves…with hungry young. Another pleasant surprise.
Overall – I felt good about the house…ready to go for quick lunch…and then close.
My car was loaded to the ceiling behind the driver’s seat after the movers left; I was relying on side mirrors and backup camera for the drive between Maryland and Missouri. The next morning, I loaded the passenger seat and floorboard (not to the ceiling), took a few pictures of the front of our Maryland house, and was away before 6:30 AM for the 1st day drive…projected to be 10 hours.
I made the usual rest stops in Maryland. The weather was excellent for driving…a comfortable temperature and dry. Once again – I appreciated adaptive cruise control…after I got acclimated driving at highway speeds again; it took me about an hour to feel comfortable going 70+ mph.
The highway through West Virginia is a pleasure – lots of great scenery and curves to make it interesting. I discovered that the extra weight of the car (fully loaded) made it more stable on the curves! On a sad note – along with deer roadkill, there seemed to be quite a few foxes; saddest of all…there were two very small fox carcasses not far apart. I noticed catalpas blooming along the highway…remembered the trees from my childhood; considered planting one in my new yard.
Kentucky is also scenic – and this time there was no traffic problems getting through Louisville into Indiana (bridge renovation closes a lane…but the traffic was light enough that everything flowed smoothly).
The hotel for the first night was in Indiana and I took a picture of at sunset from my hotel window. I parked my car where I could see it and kept checking to make sure it was OK; other people parked around me --- made the obviously stuffed car less obvious. The area is still in the eastern time (very close to the western edge of the zone) so it didn’t get dark until after 9; I closed the blackout curtains and went to bed early after the long drive.
I bought the most expensive gas of the trip in Illinois. I’ll remember when I make the next trip to fill the tank in Missouri or Indiana!
And then I was in Missouri – making very good time even though the traffic was heavier on I-44 than anywhere else along the route. The first rest stop is due to close for renovation soon so it will be a long stretch without a rest stop….we’ll have to make a stop at a fast food place instead. There was a marked difference in the type of roadkill once I got into Missouri – no deer or fox…there were a few racoons and (surprise) lots of armadillos! Evidently the animals were first seen in the state about 40 years ago and their numbers have been increasing in the southern part of the Missouri ever since; they are not seen in the northern part of the state (yet)! I learned that they often destroy yards very quickly (they root around searching for invertebrates in the soil) and are very active in the Springfield area!
On both days, I made such good time that I made up for the rest stops…arrived within minutes of what my car’s navigation system calculated first thing in the morning as I was starting the drive!
I stayed with my daughter overnight. Stay tuned for a post about the next day: walk through…closing…unloading the very full car…a first night in a new home.
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.
Dramatic Short Film Explores the Secret World of Microscopic Plankton – Video and photographs…the beauty of the very small.
“Legacy Pollution” to be cleaned up in seven national parks – I am pleased that it is being cleaned up…chagrined that taxpayers are paying for it rather than the oil companies.
Dandelion chemistry: diuretics and the tires of the future – Redeeming qualities of what we normally consider weeds that are menace! I’ve come to appreciate them more over the years because they are edible (my grocery story has the leaves in their organic section occasionally) and their roots are deep enough to hold soil better than turf on a slope.
Infant formula: the superfood you never think about – One of my grandmothers discovered she was unable to breastfeed her babies….and that was well before commercial formula was available. Whatever recipe she used to create ‘formula’ worked. I suspect that one of the ingredients was evaporated milk. Her 9 children thrived…some into their 90s. What happened in the US recently with infant formula reminds us how dependent we are on modern technology that has become increasingly complex…and sometimes without enough redundancy/alternatives when failures occur.
Ancient tree in Chile could be the world’s oldest – A cypress that could be more than 5,000 years old.
Hot-blooded T. rex and cold-blooded Stegosaurus: Chemical clues reveal dinosaur metabolisms – Honing the analysis of how quickly they could turn oxygen to energy.
Ancient ochre mine uncovered in Wyoming – Around 13,000 years ago, Paleoindians mined hematite at the site…and used it to produce red ochre.
Photos of the week – May 27, 2002 – Spring prairie flowers/seeds from the Prairie Ecologist.
What can and can’t be recycled – Thinking about recycling….now that I am moving to Missouri, I need to figure out the rules for curbside recycling. I already know there are some differences from Maryland.
Type 2 diabetes accelerates brain aging and cognitive decline – A scary result since there are so many people with type 2 diabetes….and currently doctors don’t have brain based biomarkers for type 2 diabetes or treatment strategies that target neurocognitive declines.
A quick celebration of nature – a crane fly was resting on the garage door frame as I came back from an early morning trip to Home Depot for the last boxes I need. I took some quick pictures with my phone…pleased with the quality of the 8x magnification.
Another intrusion of nature into my laser focus on getting ready to move - the birdsong in the morning is at its peak this time of year and happens just as I am ready to get up. There is a phoebe that is almost always contributing to the symphony and sometimes I hear it in the evening as well.
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.
Under Water and Under Pressure – 100 national parks are coastal…and are already taking action to mitigate sea level rise.
Where do ‘Hawaiian box jellies’ come from? – Evidently the box jellies appear close to shore like clockwork 8-10 days after full moon. This research reveal that the jellies are spawning during that time…and where they are when they not close to shore. This is important for providing better information to ocean swimmers and beach goers…trying to avoid stings. Another benefit…learning to keep the food web balanced to control box jelly numbers in Hawaii and other tropical localities.
Stirring up a mid-Atlantic bloom – Lots of nutrients flowing into the water from the coastal watersheds during spring rainstorms.
Vancouver requires gas stations & parking lots without EV chargers to pay $10,000 per year – Interesting idea…hope it increases the number of chargers and the trend to EVs!
Photography In The National Parks: More Favorite Places For Photography - We’re not going to be traveling to any of the western parks near term….so I enjoyed them through these photographs: Crater Lake, Redwood, Yosemite, Great Basin, and Lewis and Clark (Washington state portion).
Maya tooth treatments may have prevented infection – In the Mayan world - holes were drilled to attach stones to teeth; an analysis of the sealant used for 8 teeth from across the Maya empire (AD 200-900) revealed that most sealants included ingredients from pine trees that have been shown to fight the bacteria that cause tooth decay.
Top 25 birds of the week: Forest Birds – I always like bird pictures….
Scientists recreate Cleopatra’s favorite perfume – Recreating Mendesian perfume…the result so far has been a strong, spicy, faintly musty scent that tended to linger longer than modern fragrances…with ingredients like desert date oil, myrrh, cinnamon, and pine resin.
Grand Canyon of Texas – I remember (tent) camping in Palo Duro Canyon in the 1970s on the way to Colorado…being very hot and worried that our tent was too close to a red ant bed! At the time, I didn’t realize that it is the second largest canyon in the US (behind Arizona’s Grand Canyon).
Why humans get less sleep than other primates – A different type of sleep research…teasing out the differences in sleep of humans and other primates….and between non-industrial human populations and industrial human populations. It turns out that in the human populations…the hours of sleep are about the same but the perception of getting enough sleep is higher in the non-industrial populations than the industrial ones!
I took an early morning walk in our neighborhood – down to the water retention pond…savoring the familiar sights and sounds. The first was our oak near our mailbox. It was a much smaller tree when we moved to the house over 25 years ago. I planted day lilies around its base about 10 years ago; they never get a chance to bloom because the deer eat the buds like candy but the leaves make a lush collar for the tree that keeps the mowers from damaging the trunk.
I took pictures of some of my favorite trees against the morning sky/shadow – maple, ginkgo and oak. The maples are thriving while the oaks are declining. The builder planted one of each near the street originally.
The ginkgo is near the street in one of the yards along the way to the pond. It leans a little toward the street.
At the pond, cattails were thick with old and new growth, the red winged blackbirds and green frogs (rubber band sound) were noisy, and I appreciated once again that the slopes are no longer mowed.
I managed to photograph a female red winged blackbird and a rather scruffy looking fledgling that she was feeding. The fledgling stayed down in the cattails more than the adult.
I took a picture of the oak overhead as I sat on the bench near the pond. It is a lot like ours…more dead branches than it should have.
The arborist that worked on our sycamore and plum talked about the oaks dying…that making sure they are watered is about all you can do to help prolong their life; it looks like all the oaks in our neighborhood are experienced a slow death. The Virginia Creeper that is growing on our tree makes it looks greener than it would be on its own!
May was a month of preparation to move…but there were plenty of little celebrations along the way.
12 boxes packed in one day. In April I had a few days that I got to 20 boxes…but that included some that all I had to do was tape (i.e. they were already packed). Doing a good job packing a box takes some thought…and gets harder after there are fewer items left to go in boxes. I celebrated that I managed a 12-box day!
Another load to the landfill/recycle center. Every time we take a load, I celebrate that we have a little less to move!
Getting the pile out for curbside pickup. It was a significant effort – requiring the wheelbarrow to get the heavier items up the hill. But we did it – more easily than I anticipated!
Getting the pile out for curbside pickup. It was a significant effort – requiring the wheelbarrow to get the heavier items up the hill. But we did it – more easily than I anticipated!
Finding boxes to pack larger items. I am packing larger items now…that are generally light weight too. I like the Home Depot’s ‘large’ boxes and celebrate how many odd items they hold gracefully.
Drawing down refrigerator items. I’ve been trying to eat things from the freezer/refrig so that I don’t have to move them. So far so good. The refrigerator is not entirely empty, but we’ll have less to move in an ice chest when we move. Celebrating that my strategy is working!
Reservations made for the trip to close on the house in Missouri. I’m celebrating that the further along we get…the more we do toward moving…the more ‘real’ it becomes. There will be a big celebration once we close but the steps leading to that milestone are worth celebrating too!
Birth of my niece’s child…the first of the next generation of our family. Celebrating the birth of child…mixed with relief that all is well with the mother and child.
A phoebe in the backyard in the morning (on almost every morning). The bird has become a normal early morning sound for me…not loud enough to be an alarm clock…but reminds me to celebrate the new day.
A timely appointment to get a crown on a broken molar. I was worried that my mouth would become painful before I could get an appointment with my dentist…but it happened quickly…and 2 hours later I went home with a temporary crown! I’m also celebrating that it is (so far) my best experience ever getting a crown.
A fox in the backyard…passing through. I happened to look out my office window to see a fox stop by the base of our feeder in the back yard….and then continue its way into the forest. It was transitioning from winter to summer coat. Celebrating that there is wildlife in our forest…and sometimes we get to see it in our backyard.
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.
Major infrared breakthrough could lead to solar power at night – A very small amount of energy was produced in the test…more research required for practical application.
Restoration Reveals Engravings in Egypt’s Temple of Esna – Follow the link at the top of the post to see a few more pictures of the restored engravings.
What we are still learning about how trees grow – A new study finds that tree growth is limited by cell growth rather than photosynthesis which has been assumed to be the limiting factor previously. The models that predict how much carbon forests can absorb need to be updated.
Spring Flowers are Blooming Earlier in Greater Yellowstone – The recovery of detailed records made in the 1970s by Frank Craighead of when flowers bloomed is helping document changes…help restoration planners determine the best seed mixes for native plants…try to mitigate the impact of climate change.
Cutting air pollution emissions would save 50,000 US lives, $600 billion each year – Yet another reason to take actions to dramatically reduce air pollution.
Traces of an ancient watery world in Capital Reef – Satellite views of Capitol Reef National Park…and the story in the rocks.
Prehistoric feces reveal parasites from feasting at Stonehenge – A piece of trivia: beef and pork were spit-roasted or boiled in clay pots but the evidence of particular parasites in coprolites reveals that liver and lungs from an infected animal were consumed raw or undercooked.
Vangelis, famed film composer and synth pioneer, dead at 79 – I remember going to see Chariots of Fire when it first came out in the early ‘80s….and the unforgettable music. This obituary post includes a link to a YouTube video with the music.
How cranberries could improve memory and ward off dementia – I like cranberries…but eating a cup (equivalent) per day is a lot. In the study they used cranberry powder.
More heat, more drought: New analyses offer grim outlook for the US west – The latest seasonal outlook projects the drought to continue across virtually the entire American west through the summer. New research suggests that Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming will increasingly look like the Southwest as temperatures continue to rise.
The majority of unique aspects of May involved our move….but I also treasured the ones that could have happened independently.
Paper or bubble wrap. After a few days of packing, I discovered I like paper better than bubble wrap most of the time. I thought when I starting packing that I would use both --- whatever I had --- and was surprised that the paper ‘won.’ As an added bonus – I bought paper made from recycled materials and it can also be recycled after our move!
Finding the top to my cake container. I had lost it several years ago and thought maybe it had somehow been discarded….but I found it again as I unloaded the old China cabinet. I’d already packed the other part so I’ll endeavor to get then back together in my new kitchen.
Last macro series of the Maryland yard. As I walked around with my macro lens…I realized that next month I’ll be doing it in a whole new place!
Selecting a real estate agent/starting the process to sell our house. While not totally unique since we have sold 3 houses previous…it was the first time in almost 28 years!
Arranging for our house to be re-carpeted. It is the first time we’ve ever replaced all the carpeting in a house.
1st box packed from the garage. I was surprised at how much of the garage fit into just a few boxes.
Getting the karate kick bag out of the basement. It was quite an effort with sand in the base…much easier to move once the sand was out.
Finding an iris that was getting ready to bloom in the chaos garden. Usually I forget they are there and the garden is not in my normal line of sight.
Male goldfinch at the feeder. I haven’t been watching the feeder as closely since we started preparing to move…so I was thrilled to glance out at the perfect time to see the bright yellow bird. I’ve seen them occasionally in previous years but this is probably my only sighting for this year.
Broken molar. It was my first broken tooth since my dentist has generally anticipated problems. I discovered when I went to the dentist that it was actually a large filling that had cracked. The solution was the same….the molar got a crown!
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.
Amazing Photo of Wisteria Trees Looks Like a Fireworks Display – Pictures from Japan’s Ashikaga Flower Park.
New Mexico Wildfire Spawns Fire Cloud – A pyrocumulonimbus cloud formed; the vertical plume reached the tropopause….an altitude of about 12 kilometers.
Heatwaves are altering our everyday lives – The new normal but we aren’t very well prepared for it; there are some obvious adaptations that are needed – particularly to electrical networks. No one wants infrastructure to fail at a critical time.
Well-preserved iron age arrow discovered in Norway – The arrow was recovered from a glacier…iron arrowhead, sinew, tar, thread, shaft, and feather fletching was preserved. It is about 30 inches long.
Rigid waterproof coating for paper aims to reduce our dependence on plastic – Interesting…would be great if it could speed the transition away from plastic for food packaging particularly. The article said the chemicals break down over time into harmless components…but didn’t say how long that took.
Chemicals that linger for decades in your blood – So many chemicals introduced in my lifetime are probably still in my blood. I can remember the spraying of DDT for mosquitoes in the ‘60s….one instance particularly of the straying truck going down the farm road near my grandparents house as we played in the back yard. How much of my exposure do I still have…did I pass along to my daughter?
Ultraviolet light reveals radiant hidden beauty of flowers – A project during the COVID-19 pandemic…beautiful results.
Archaeologists Unearth 3,000-Year-Old Giant Statues in Sardinian Necropolis – Over 7 foot tall…with almost emotionless expression, blocky nose and deep-set eyes. The two found most recently were boxers but about two dozen others have been found since the mid-1970s: 16 boxers, 4 archers, and 5 warriors.
Top 25 birds of the week: May 2022! – Bird appreciation….a source of beauty in the world.
Disparities in natural gas leak prevalence in US urban areas – Why can’t pipeline companies do better…not wait around until regulation requires them to do it? We should be more critical of the companies that they are not actively reducing leaks in their pipelines.
Adding to the overall drama of the month….
My niece had her baby! It was a milestone in our family – the first great-grandchild for my parents. One of my sisters became a grandmother. I became a great aunt as did my two other sisters. There has been a flurry in recent weeks to get pertussis vaccinations to safely visit the newborn. I was far from the event – in Maryland rather than Texas – but my sister provided enough texts for me to feel included. And I’ll get a pertussis shot in preparation for seeing the baby sometime in June.
The event was a good prompt to think about motherhood…how it has changed since my sister and I had children….how it has stayed the same. The basics are the same. Now there is more concern for the impacts of pollutants from the environment and potential COVID-19 infection on the developing fetus and newborn. The political climate that could impact care during pregnancy and delivery has degraded overtime and got much worse very recently. Still – the birth of a healthy baby is a time of hope for the future…a motivation for the adults of the family to lean into the actions necessary to enable this new family member opportunities on par with those we had…or better.
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.
Why human brains were bigger 3,000 years ago – Some possible explanation: human populations reached a large enough size to share/divide labor and knowledge with others, writing….however, brain size/IQ relationship is not deterministic.
Operating rooms are the climate change contributor no one’s talking about – The health care industry accounts for 8.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the US. Operating rooms represent 70% of waste in hospitals and 3 to 6 times as much carbon as the rest of health systems.
Where tornadoes strike most frequently is changing – More erratic tornado activity and the broad impacts of climate change.
Do you have a lost twin? - The rate of twins among live births is only about 1.3%. But as many as 12% of all naturally conceived pregnancies may begin as twin pregnancies.
Wild fox kills 25 flamingos and a duck at National Zoo – We see foxes in our neighborhood. They seem to have adapted to the suburban environment. This one was very efficient to kill 25 birds, though.
A 10,000-year history of geo-ecological change in Yellowstone’s lower geyser basin – A study using a 26.5-foot core from Goose Lake.
US could cut transport emissions by 34% b 2030 – The current trend will reduce emissions by 19% but a bit more focus would provide a bigger reduction.
Garbology: How to spot patterns in people's waste – We’ve been getting rid of a lot as we prepare to move. I try to do as much as possible via donations and recycling…but there is still a lot going in the trash. Some of it came from Texas with us back in 1983…and was still in the same box!
6,000-Year-Old Slate Rings May Have Symbolized Relationships – Friendship rings? Careful analysis revealed the rings had been intentionally broken…and shared (i.e. pieces of a ring were found in two separate burial sites).
How Taipei discovered an active volcano on its doorstep – Disconcerting. Even of there is some ability to provide early warning of an eruption…could the city be abandoned quickly enough?
I enjoyed Henry Christopher McCook’s books available on Internet Archive this past winter. My favorite is Tenants of an Old Farm first published in 1884 (the version in Internet Archive was a revised version published in 1902 so it must have been a relatively popular book during his lifetime). I’ve selected three illustrations from the book – there are more in the book…worth browsing.
McCook was a Presbyterian clergyman that ‘spent his summers studying ants and spiders’ according to his Wikipedia entry. Evidently many of McCook’s nature books were illustrated but Daniel Carter Beard (founder of the Boy Scouts of America); he is mentioned in the author’s preface as providing the ‘comical adaptations’ for the book but the illustrators were Edward Shepard and Frank Stout.
COVID-19 cases in Maryland are increasing but all the counties in the state are still green in the CDC’s COVID-19 Community Level map. Most of Missouri is too. Still - the positivity is 5-8% in Maryland and 8-10% in Missouri…not low enough for me to be comfortable in crowds or in indoor spaces without a mask. How does that translate into our increased level of activity?
Buying a house. Both my husband and I wore masks when we walked through the house we had bid on and then the next day when we talked to the inspector. There was a meeting in the realtor’s office where we wore a mask as well. During our travel, we masked at rest stops and in registration/hallways of our hotel. We brought an air purifier into our hotel room and got takeout for meals.
Birding. We masked at the Harriet Tubman Byway visitor center and the registration/hallways of our hotel. Otherwise - the activity was outdoors, and we didn’t mask. All our meals were picked up from drive through windows.
House maintenance. We’ve had more people in our house for maintenance purposes in Maryland…preparing the house to be sold. We mask while they are here, and they do too.
Broken tooth. I have an appointment with the dentist because a molar cracked…needs repair. Hopefully the precautions the dental office has in place are effective. This seems like the highest risk situation of all the things I’ve done recently.
And we are moving over the next month! I am realizing that the precautions I have in place (following guidance re boosters, masking when I am indoors other than at home, avoiding crowds, keeping hand sanitizer in the car, taking an air purifier with me on road trips) are probably going to be my strategy for the foreseeable future unless the infection rate drops dramatically. So – this is the last of the monthly posts even though the pandemic is continuing. I’m not getting complacent…I’ve simply accepted that this is the prudent way to be…nothing new to post about every month.
The highlight of May 1992 was the birth of my second niece. My daughter and I were in Dallas within a few weeks of her birth. It was a learning experience for my daughter who was very interested in babies at her daycare but had never seen one as young as her cousin. We all noticed the baby’s REM sleep when she was positioned in her carrier in the middle of the large dining table while my sister’s daycare swirled around the kitchen and den.
There were more mundane events too: doing the family grocery shopping every week together, my husband traveling for work using a back brace to make the longer plane trips tolerable, me with an ear infection after catching my daughter’s cold (she was outgrowing her tendency to get ear infections), my daughter trying to figure out the difference between ‘an accident’ and ‘on purpose,’ and a sister discovering that her new house had bearded iris in one of the flower beds.
As I read back through my notes of the time, I realized that it’s easy to remember the high points of out lives without them but not the details of how much energy keeping up with a 2.5-year-old took. Just reading a list I made of what we did on one Saturday was a potent reminder of how exhausting it was.
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.
A Watershed Moment: Key Findings About Potential Drinking Water Contamination – The sources of contamination are varied….but the list of primary sources is relatively short.
Better residents’ health after switch to electric buses – A study from Sweden. Improved health is a benefit of electrification of transportation!
Should people get rid of their yards? – Somewhat depressing conclusion: “Most people would rather make an aesthetic choice with their lawns than an environmental one.” My plan is not to eliminate the yard in my new house but to minimize it over time with the addition of bushes along the fence and extending beds around trees and around the house.
We talk the fastest growing green jobs with LinkedIn Sr. Editor – The “job vs the environment” is changing. The “green economy’s ability to expand job opportunities is too significant to ignore.” This growth in green jobs is like the 1970s for computer related jobs – a lot of new types of jobs and many of them will extend for the duration of a career starting now.
Discover the Microscopic Wonders of Olympus’ 2021 Image of the Year Awards – Taken with light microscopes…lots of finesse preparing the specimens.
Known to be toxic for a century, lead still poisons thousands of Midwestern kids – Two things I learned from this article about the state I am moving to: Missouri is one of the four states in the Midwest that is struggling to alleviate lead poisoning in children…and it is the number one producer of lead in the US. Hope they are making progress.
Top 25 birds of the week: terrestrial birds – Always enjoy the bird photographs! This group includes a roadrunner….a bird I always associate with Texas but the photograph was taken in California!
Tests indicate bronze age daggers had a practical purpose – Evidently the daggers were thought to be ceremonial objects prior to this analysis.
Should we be eating three meals a day? – The number of meals may not be as important as consistency….and giving the body a long enough ‘fast’ time to rest.
The Great Barrier Reef through Time – Landsat Images used to illustrate recent research on the growth of the reefs as the ocean changes. Evidently the reef has been more resilient to past sea-level and temperature fluctuations than previously thought….but increased sediment input has been a bigger problem.
The Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge field trip was our second April visit to the place (I posted about our visit back in 2017: part 1, part 2). A new visitor center was under construction and the old one no longer had feeders (where we saw goldfinches last time) and the purple martin houses had been moved to another area, so we didn’t see them either. The field trip still started with a look around the visitor center grounds. It was a cool morning. There were several spring flowering trees (dogwood and redbud)…and birds flitting from the trees to the grass to the man-made structures.
We started around the auto tour route. There had been a lot of rain in the days before our field trip and the water level in the ponds was higher that I remembered. We also learned that because the area is tidal salt marsh, the water levels are not as easy to control as in some other refuges; the refuge management is challenged to maintain the marsh as sea-level is rising.
There were plenty of birds around: northern shovelers, red-winged black birds, green-winged teal, and mallards were a few I photographed.
There were relatively large numbers of great blue herons. They don’t nest at the refuge but come here for food.
There were also great and snowy egrets in mixed groups.
I took a sequence of a great egret landing.
There were bald eagles too. I photographed a scruffy looking juvenile settling on an almost submerged log.
The big surprise of the morning was a roost of black-crowned night herons. From the place we were standing…they were on the other side of large pond; they looked like fuzzy places in the trees…
I thought tent caterpillars at first! With binoculars and big camera lens, the birds were easy to identify. My husband provided a magnified/cropped image of one of the birds. There were over 70 birds roosting!
What a thrilling finale for a Bombay Hook field trip!
Copyright © 2024, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
Celebrating the whole of life....
Thanks for visiting my blog! Enjoy the photo picks from 2023:
Copyright © 2024, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
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