Ten Little Celebrations – February 2021

/

The biggest celebrations of February 2021 were about my family surviving very cold weather in Missouri and Texas relatively unscathed…..and everyone staying well for another month. Of course – there were a myriad of little celebrations. I easily list one every day – and sometimes choosing what to record is a challenge!

There were more notations than usual about food in February. Some were experiments that were yummy…others were opportunistic:

20210131_160036.jpg

Snow ice cream. We had enough snow this month to make snow ice cream. I always wait for the snow to get at least 3-4 inches deep…then collect the top inch for the snow ice cream. I collect a bowl full then add half and half, chipped peppermint candy/sugar, and vanilla. It’s one of the few times I use my old electric mixer! The challenge is to make only as much as my husband and I can consume right away…we usually each manage a large bowl full. …celebrating a snow day favorite

Broccoli  with orange marmalade glaze. When it’s cold outside, I rarely want salad….this experiment was an easy way to have a ‘hot’ equivalent. I cut up broccoli just as I would for salad, tossed it over a spoonful of orange marmalade in a bowl and microwaved it for a minute or so. A quick stir to coat the broccoli with the melted marmalade, and it was ready to eat! …celebrating ‘hot’ versions of salads

Microwave apple with oatmeal and pecans. I bought a large bag of apples that my husband did not like as well as I thought he would, so I was looking for ways to use them. Breakfast in a bowl seemed to be a good option. I put about ½ cup almond milk in a microwavable bowl then 1/3 cup oatmeal, some brown sugar and cinnamon, a cut up apple, some chopped pecans. Microwave for a minute….stir…microwave for another 30 seconds to a minute…and enjoy. I’ve had it for breakfast several times but realize it would taste good to me any time of day! ….celebrating a new ‘comfort food’

Hot chocolate smoothie. I like smoothies and started experimenting with heating them up. My favorite is made with almond milk, chocolate protein powder, cocoa, banana, and kale. I make it the usual way in the Ninja then put it in a Pyrex measuring cup to heat in the microwave. I stir is several times while I heat…it thickens a bit. ….celebrating a decadent (healthy) treat

There were photography entries on my list too….some attempts that produced images to celebrate.

Snowflakes. There were several snow day during the month so I got several opportunities. I learned to pay attention to the temperature; in general – lower is better! …celebrating the challenge of macro photography outdoors in the snow

High key. This is an example of learning something new….being inspired…and lucky enough to create some interesting images almost immediately! …celebrating learning something new – well enough to be ‘dangerous’

And then there was the variety in the rest of the list:

Multiple virtual birding festivals in one day: Niagara, Laredo, and Bosque del Apache. It was almost overwhelming. We ended up saving some of the webinars until the next day. I was not ‘in the field’ but something that would have been physically impossible: New York/Canada – Texas – New Mexico all in one day! …celebrating the wonders of virtual travel

2021 02 01 IMG_3560 (3).jpg

Quiet snowy Sunday. Sometimes it’s good to have a day to just enjoy the scenery from our windows! …celebrating home

A warmer day in Maryland that Texas or Missouri. Texts were flying across states…the family checking in…worried about water pipes breaking or loosing electricity. My family was lucky enough to come through with relatively few problems! …celebrating family sharing during times of near/potential crisis.

Curbside groceries. I have noticed how different it is from last spring. The shoppers are faster (probably more experienced) and the supply in the store is better. It will be wonderful to shop for my own groceries again but for now I am….celebrating the curbside pickup grocery service.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 20, 2021

/

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Top 10 things we learned about climate change in 2020 – I’m thinking about this more this week with the extreme cold in Texas…and lack of preparedness of utility companies and state governments. It drives home the overarching message now: doing nothing will cost more than doing something.

Top 25 birds of the week: Seabids! – Birds and water…from around the world.

Size, Shape, and diversity in phytoplankton – The tiny organisms that could be changing in warming, more acidic oceans….do we have enough of a baseline to know if these communities are changing in ways that will impact the food networks of our oceans?

Fairy Shrimp – A video from a vernal pool in Pony Pasture Rapids Park in Richmond, Virginia.

Wintering bird communities track climate change faster than breeding communities in Europe and North America – Weather impacts birds in the short term (my family has commented that they have seen flocks of robins in their neighborhood recently….having not seen them in the past 30 years they’ve lived in the area) but the longer term impacts of climate changes are only observable with large data bases built since the 1980s. This study looked at over 1,200 species of birds!

How to see the red fox in winter – We occasional see red fox in our neighborhood but I haven’t seen any (so far) this winter. Maybe after the snow/sleet is over I’ll take a walk and look for tracks.

Age provides a buffer to pandemic's mental health impact, researchers say -- ScienceDaily – It may not be ‘age’ as much as older people being more able to stay at home and avoid other people (stress reduction through conscientious steps to avoid COVID-19 exposure)….whereas young people are more likely to have to get out and about for work or other obligations. It could be difficult for older people living along…but maybe we have quite a few older people that are not alone in their ‘bubble.’

Sunset Crater's Explosive Past – The youngest of the volcanoes in the 1,800 square mile San Francisco Volcanic Field near Flagstaff, AZ. It’s a place I visited (and posted about) back in February 2015.

Immune driver of brain aging identified -- ScienceDaily – It seems to be a change in how myeloid cells handle glucose….tending to hoard it rather than using it for energy. I wondered if that is why people with diabetes are at increased risk for cognitive decline.

Magnetic fields detected in Venus Flytraps – A small magnetic field is produced when the trap closes!

Stephen Lucius Gwynn Books about Ireland

/

I’ve enjoyed 5 books with pictures of Ireland published in the same decade as World War I. The author – Stephen Lucius Gwynn – was an Irish MP and writer with close links to the Iris literary revival; he had a long and varied career (I always browse the Wikipedia entry for the authors/illustrators of books I enjoy).  These books were illustrated by Irish illustrators of the time; many are in color; I selected one or two for each book. I find the illustrations of this period – just before color photography took over for books like this – very appealing. They capture the places as they were…also representing the history of book illustration.  

The Famous Cities of Ireland (1915) with illustrations by Hugh Thomson

Leinster (1911) with illustrations by Alexander Williams

48l 21 02.jpg

The Fair Hills of Ireland (1914) with illustrations by Hugh Thomson

Munster (1912) with illustrations by Alexander Williams

Ulster (1911) with illustrations by Alexander Williams

It is interesting to think about the time it took to produce these illustrations compared to photography. Do as many people make their living as artists today?

Technology has changed our work and the way we live in so many ways. I’ve changed almost entirely from physical to digital books over the past decade! I don’t need to go anywhere to obtain my books these days and there is always a huge number of books readily available to me. I find myself savoring the illustrations – painting and photographs - in books/website more than ever. What a boon during this pandemic year!

Through my Office Window – February 2021 (and Niagara Birding)

/

We’ve had a snowy/icy February so far. There are pines and cedars at the edges of our yard that catch the snow. They are easy to photograph from the warmth of my office. Sometimes I intentionally overexpose the pictures to blur the background further…make the most of the dim light.

Our feeder is popular and often has multiple birds visiting. The pictures below show a Junco - Carolina Wren – female Northern Cardinal and Junco – female Northern Cardinal (tail only) and male House Finch.

The female Red-bellied Woodpecker still comes as well – choosing the peanuts from the mix of seeds.

2021 02 IMG_6738 (10).jpg

I also managed some pictures of birds in trees – a Titmouse in the cedar

2021 02 IMG_6738 (2).jpg

And the male Northern Cardinal in the red maple.

We’ve also noticed deer coming through our yard. There are seven in the picture below….two groups coming together.

2021 02 IMG_6738 (13).jpg

I took several more pictures of the same group at various zoom settings. The portrait with just the head and shoulders shows how thick the winter coat is on the animals.

Over the past weekend, we watched the virtual Birds on the Niagara. All the videos are freely available online now: Feb. 12-13 videos and Feb. 14 videos.

I enjoyed all of them but by favorites were:

J. Drew Lanham (keynote)

Timothe Beatley on Biophilic Cities

Paloma Plant on preventing bird collisions with buildings

Anne McCooey on project to certify the City of Buffalo as NWF Habitat Communities

My husband and I talked about whether we would make the trek to the area in winter sometime post-pandemic….decided we’d go in spring or fall instead – try to see it during migration. Seeing it virtually in winter was good enough for us!

American Museum of Natural History in 1953

/

The 1953 volume of the Magazine of the American Museum of Natural History is available from Internet Archive (here is the link for whole collection list). I am featuring the volume of magazines published the year I was born this week. There were two items that resonated…that reminded me of other years in my life.

The first was an article about Bandelier National Monument.

I’ve been to the place at least 4 times: Spring 1971, August 1980, September 1981, and March 2005. The first time was for a picnic during a high school trip. In 1980 and 1981 my husband and I camped there. We hiked to the lower falls in 1981….and took our best pictures of the place.

The sideshow below is a mix of pictures from the 1980 and 1981 trips. Based on the pictures, we took longer hikes in 1981. My husband did all the photography. I scanned the slides years later.

In 2005, it was a wet day. It was a bit larger group with my parents, husband and daughter. We only walked around near the visitor center. It is a place to visualize how people lived long ago….and the juxtaposition of more modern history of the world in nearby Los Alamos, the lab at the forefront of creating the first atomic bombs.

88 21 01 (24).jpg

The second item was a picture of horsetails.

I remember reading about the plant in a textbook when I was in college in the mid70s…and then being thrilled to see and recognize a stand growing in Platt National Park when we visited a few months later. I had probably seen them before but overlooked them…didn’t realize that these are remnants of primitive plants that used to be the understory of the giant forests that eventually formed coal deposits. The genus (Equisetaceae) was eaten by dinosaurs!

I like finding publications from meaningful times in my life ….it’s a tangible connection to history. It’s also fun to see places I have seen more recently and to think about how they’ve changed … how they’ve remained the same.

11 months in COVID-19 pandemic

/

It’s been 11 months since the WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic. The US appears to be through the peak of cases and deaths that resulted from the late 2020 holiday celebrations but there is a lot of concern about more contagious variants of the virus that have been detected in the country. We could be nearing a low and then see another peak before enough people are vaccinated to bring it down again (assuming the vaccine still is effective with the variant). Vaccinations offer tremendous hope, but they are still in relatively short supply with only around 10% of people vaccinated. The administration of vaccines is still confusing – with a maze of sign-up processes and locations to navigate. There are times I think that the vaccine is going to people that are gaming the system rather than the intended groups.

The news stories about the COVID-19 variants have prompted several actions in our household:

  • Curbside grocery pickup. I decided to switch from early morning grocery shopping in the store to curbside pickup. We’ve done it twice now and I like it better than delivery to the house. There do not appear to be shortages like there were last spring and I include a bouquet of cut flowers on my list. I submit the order so that it is one of the first orders of the day for the shopper and have gotten an experienced shopper both times (judging from how fast they pull the order together). They also package the order in paper bags which I like much better than the plastic.

  • New masks. I ordered some new masks that had wires to help them fit better over the nose…thinking I would double mask from now on. Then we decided that we needed some better masks for the inner layer and my husband ordered some KN95 and the KF94. The KF94s are what my daughter and son-in-law are wearing when they teach…the university is still trying to continue in-person classes. The key is to have a mask that fits snuggly but does not muffle speech. My daughter said that the KF94s fit her the best – and her glasses did not fog at all!

  • My sisters and I have started a sisters zoom session every other week. I’m not sure why we didn’t do it before. I guess we thought the sisters text messages were enough. The zoom meeting is a positive addition to our routine.

My plan was to restart some mini-road trips, but I only managed one to Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant to photograph skunk cabbage. It worked out well since there were few enough people around that it was a solitary hike. I wore 2 masks….appreciating their warmth! It’s good to drive my car again and I’ll plan so more as the weather improves – either purely a driving activity or to a place I expect there to be very few other people.

2021 01 IMG_3494 (7).jpg

There were lots of webinars over the month. The birding festivals are a lot of webinars over a short time…the others an hour or less at a time. I like the variety of topics and places. They are my best substitute for travel right now.

  • Finishing up the Virtual Celebration of Cranes from Tennessee

  • Natural History Society of Maryland hosted a Snow Crystal Photomicrography session which reminded me to keep my gear ready for every snowfall…with limited success so far. We have some colder temperatures this week that might make for excellent snowflake photography.

  • Capital Nature hosted The Secret Life and Folklore of Winter Trees

  • Missouri State University Foundation hosted 2 sessions about the Jordan Valley Innovation Center

  • Brookside Gardens is hosting Friday lunch and learns. The first one was a video tour of the conservatories that are closed because of COVID-19. It was good to see the staff faces again. I miss seeing them and the ramp up for the butterfly exhibit that usually starts in April.

My big purchase of the month was a new Swopper chair. My previous one was 10+ years old and when it broke, it was an internal part….couldn’t get to it positioned again to reattach it to the base to it is currently acting as a stool rather than a bouncy chairs. The new one is at my desk…by back feels great again! I am so glad we can get items like this delivered to our front porch.

Of course – I still spend considerable time on various photography and Zentangle projects…browsing books…enjoying meal prep as much as eating.

2021-01-28-remote shooting-111.jpg

My husband has started a project to photograph birds every day using his camera on a tripod on our deck and his phone to control the shutter from inside where it is warm!

There is quite a lot that could happen over the next month:

  • I am full of anticipation about getting a vaccination, but our county hasn’t started my group yet (maybe in a few weeks).

  • There is a glut of birding festival webinars on the Valentine’s weekend from 3 places: Niagara Falls (New York and Ontario), Laredo (Texas), and Bosque del Apache (New Mexico). The forecast is for very cold weather here in Maryland so we’re planning a fire in the fireplace and hot foods (except for snow ice cream if the snow is deep enough and the right consistency).

We are staying at home except for curbside pickups at this point….but continuing to add projects to our routine. It’s not a boring time at all. Our outlook is more positive than it has been since last year this time….because of the vaccine and the transition of power away from a stress inducing national leader. I’m hoping to be able to see my family in Texas sometime in 2021!

Red-Shouldered Hawk

/

Sometimes the more frequent handwashing results in a surprise observation through the window above my kitchen sink. After putting away some groceries last week…just as I was finishing up the soap and water routine, I glanced at the sycamore tree and saw a larger bird that I expected there. It was a red-shouldered hawk! I alerted my husband and he grabbed his camera to try to get a picture. I went upstairs to my office because all my cameras were there. I got three pictures from my office window before it flew down into the chaos garden at the base of the sycamore…not visible from my vantage point upstairs.

My husband got a picture too, but he groused that the window had too much glare.

2021-02-05-hawk-001.jpg

It was the most exciting minute of our day!

--

There are two virtual birding festivals coming up this weekend…visual treats for the Valentines weekend:

The Niagara birding festival is free – Feb 12-14 - http://www.birdsontheniagara.org/ - 19 species of gulls….sometimes arctic species like snowy owls.

The Laredo birding festival is $25 – Feb 13 – this is the one we went to last year just as the pandemic was beginning – not sure how much will be virtual local field trips but that area is very unique with lots of tropical and subtropical birds…I got the best look ever of a great horned owl there….and road runners…and an Audubon’s oriole and white pelicans feeding together (like a ballet, all dipping their heads to feed in unison) https://riograndeinternationalstudycenter.formstack.com/forms/9th_virtual_laredo_birding_festival

I like the little surprise of seeing a bird I don’t expect to see in our backyard…gives a little serendipity to the day. It’s also a good feeling to realize that I am learning to recognize birds that I didn’t a few years ago. The pandemic has given us all a time out….and an extreme ‘learning experience.’ I am choosing to focus on the positive lessons.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 6, 2021

/

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.

Human egg cells are imperfect surprisingly often -- ScienceDaily – More than 7% of human oocytes contain at least one exchangeless chromosome pair…and the frequency is not affected by maternal age. Our species is hardwired to have significant numbers of miscarriages and babies with extra or missing chromosomes. The finding is interesting, but I immediately thought of some questions…has this changed over the past 100 years (i.e. have we changed our environment enough that we are impacting our reproductive success) and how does this frequency compare to other mammals?

Why our pursuit of happiness may be flawed - BBC Future – A thought provoking piece about how seeking ‘happiness’ often sets the stage for disappointment…rather than contentment.

Pollution from cooking remains in atmosphere for longer -- ScienceDaily – Eating deep-fat fried foods is not just unhealthy…the cooking of foods that way contributes to air pollution. In London, 10% of the PM2.5 particles are from deep fat frying….in Hong Kong 39%!

2nd Annual Threatened And Endangered Parks: Natural Darkness And Sounds – My husband and I are looking forward to more dark sky opportunities in national parks. So far – the ‘star parties’ we’ve been to have been at state parks and hosted by amateur astronomy clubs in the area. The dark sky venue requires a bit of infrastructure to support a field full of camping amateur astronomers with their telescopes (electricity for telescopes/computers and bath rooms with red tented windows).

Top 25 birds of the week: Colouration! - Wild Bird Revolution – Lots of color in this post to break up mostly brown and white winter color outside my window! 

U.S. Breaks Record for Billion-Dollar Climate Disasters in 2020 | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – Not a good record to be breaking…and they happened during a pandemic year too. There were 22 disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damages across America in 2020.

Q&A: Global Insect Declines Due to "Death by a Thousand Cuts" | The Scientist Magazine® - In every case researched….it’s not just one thing that caused the decline…it a cluster of primary factors (6 or more) and then other factors that are difficult to quantify.

Texas Wind Power Dominates Coal In Crossover Year – Hurray! Hopefully, the coal plants will begin to phase out in Texas and across the country as they become less and less competitive with renewable sources of power.

On the road to invisible solar panels: How tomorrow's windows will generate electricity -- ScienceDaily – I am always reluctant to consider replacement windows….but if they were cost effective solar panels…that would tip the decision toward ‘buy’!

Caligula's Gardens, Long Hidden Beneath Italian Apartment Building, to Go on View | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – A subterranean museum beneath the streets of Rome to open this spring.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 30, 2021

/

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.

I am featuring videos this week….including the newest baby panda in the US and historic houses. I discovered that a lot of house-type museums have increased their virtual content during the pandemic. The historic houses I picked for this post are ones I have visited in the past. Some I have visited more than once (Mount Vernon and Monticello, for example). It’s fun to savor them virtually!

Panda Cub’s virtual debut – From the National Zoo…video is just over 2 minutes

Virtual visits to the Newport Mansions -  3D tours From the Preservation Society of Newport County. Includes The Elms, Marble House, Hunter House, Isaac Bell House, Chateau-ser-Mer, Chepstow, and Kingscote.

The Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT – 3D tour

Mount Vernon – George Washington’s house. 3D of the gardens and mansion

Lyndhurst – Several 3D views….including at Christmas and Halloween

Vizcaya Museum and Gardens – Florida. 3D with links to historic photos of the same area

Monticello – Thomas Jefferson’s house. 3D tour. There is also a Google Arts and Culture tour with video/photos.

Olana’s Historic Landscape Video Tour – Frederic  and Isabel Church home.

Val-Kill tour – Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site from Google Arts and Culture

Wilderstein – Online exhibit, aerial tour, and landscape tour. The house was the Suckley residence for 3 generations from 1852 to 1991.

Through my Office Window – January 2021

/

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.

2021 01 g finch IMG_3461.jpg

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.

2021 01 deer IMG_3403.jpg

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.

Mini Road Trip: Mt Pleasant for Skunk Cabbage

/

I am realizing that I haven’t driven very much in the last 6 months. There are at least 2 problems with that: the almost full tank of gas is about 6 months old and I’m getting out of practice when it comes to driving. If my plan is to make some road trips after I get vaccinated and the pandemic begins to fade, I need to keep my car operationally sound and my skills honed. My solution for now is to start making some mini road trips. The first was to Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant to see if the skunk cabbage was blooming yet.

2021 01 IMG_3479 (1).jpg

There were cars in the parking area when I got there…but no people around. I put on my masks and gloves and set out toward the Community Garden…turning into the path through the forest

Toward Hodge Podge Lodge. It’s gotten some fresh paint on the trim and curtains on the inside.

2021 01 IMG_3479 (2).jpg
2021 01 IMG_3479 (3).jpg

I crossed the bridge to continue toward the largest stand of skunk cabbage in previous years – taking a picture of the small stream below with some ferns on the banks. The water made pleasant trickling sounds. I noticed some areas of lighter sediment through the water– cleared of the darker colored debris.

I always look for shelf fungus. The two prettiest I found had green markings. Is that the fungus or a partner organism?

As I walked along the path, I checked the stream periodically and soon found some cones of sprouting skunk cabbage.

Once I got closer to the marshy area, there were a lot more plants. The reddish cones will eventually have the flowers inside them (they look like golf balls). I didn’t see any that were that far along. Right now, the plants are growing slowly – speeding up with it is warmer, slowing down and sometimes pulling themselves down into the muck when its cold.

I’ll make another mini road trip to see them again next month.

I hiked back toward the parking lot and made a stop at the witch hazel near the drive to the farmhouse. The flowers haven’t opened yet, but the buds are large. I’ll check them again too since the tree typically blooms in late winter…or very early spring.

2021 01 IMG_3479 (6).jpg

30 years ago – January 1991

/

In January 1991 – we went down to the Smithsonian on the 1st. I didn’t note which museums we saw…just that our 16-month-old daughter walked across the mall on her own – stopping to exam interesting pebbles and clumps of grass, etc.

We had more snow that January than we have this year. There are pictures of our daughter sledding down the driveway in a plastic tub; her snowsuit is a little tight and she does not look happy at all…maybe because I forgot to put on her mittens! She was much happier indoors eating spaghetti.

1991 01 img721 (1).jpg

Her new skill was taking off her shoes and socks. Her father called me one morning after I’d gotten to work with the news that I was going to have to do something about her…he had gotten her ready to go to day care and was putting on his coat…turned around to discover that her shoes and socks were not on her feet anymore! Her day care provider said the same thing happened all day long. Once she discovered she could do it – we all had to be patient until the novelty wore off…or her feet grew a little and the shoes were not as easy to pull off. I also started putting her in tights, so she had at least one layer on her feet.

1991 01 img721 (2).jpg

We all enjoyed the Cats musical that we taped from PBS. Our daughter made the connection between the characters of the show and our cat. The cat slept through most of the video viewings.

1991 01 img721 (11).jpg

My husband and it were worried about events in the Middle East (Desert Storm); after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, there had been such hope that the world was heading toward a better time, but the optimism did not last. I was feeling the physical distance between where I lived in Maryland with the rest of my family in the Dallas just as I am now. Maybe it was a little better in 1991 because I could travel – not something that can happen in January 2021.

Tree Trunk Macros – Part 1

/

A sunny day in the thirties…I decided to take a quick walk around the yard with my new camera for some landscape pictures and my phone with a 2x magnifying lens with a built in LED light (and clicker) for macro shots. The best images of the morning (before I got too cold) were the macro shots of tree trunks. My gear is simple. I wear both the clicker and the phone with the magnifier around my neck. I can easily hold the phone close to the tree trunk with one hand (often bracing my hand on the tree) and use the clicker to take pictures with the other.

2021 01 IMG_6603 annotated.jpg

The sycamore bark is full of texture…fissures old and new. Some parts of the trunk are very smooth, but I am more interested in the cracks and crevices.

I noticed some Virginia Creeper stems on the painted surface of the exterior wall of our basement. They retain some reddish color even in winter. The way they attach to the brick looks like a suction cup!

The cherry tree has lichen and moss growing on it…and a different texture than the sycamore even though there are some occasional curls of bark.

20210121_105512.jpg

A larger branch had fallen from the tree and I took a picture of the end of the branch.

I’ll post the macro images of other tree trunks in our yard next week. I’ve also added ‘pick up sticks/branches’ to my list of chores!

The White House in 1940

/
14 21 01 (7).jpg

As I watched the Inauguration, I remembered an old magazine I’d browsed through recently on Internet Archive – the July 1940 edition of House & Garden that included an article about the White House as it was in 1940…and some history of the White House up to that point. I clipped some of my favorite images (click to get an enlarged version of the image).

Much has happened to the building in the intervening 80 years. The White House is still the architectural symbol of the Executive Branch and home of the President for his term. I hope that President and Dr. Biden quickly acclimate to the place…make it into their home…and forge ahead in their roles for the country from its rooms.

The article also included images of some of the other building of Washington DC. Some things have changed since 1940…some not.

I am relieved that the we have a new President as I write this….that we have survived the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th and anticipating a positive path forward. Amanda Gorman, the youth poet laureate, was the highlight of the event with her “The Hill We Climb” at the Biden inauguration! And now the work begins for the new administration….

Tennessee Sandhill Cranes

/

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 9, 2021

/

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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 2, 2021

/

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.

--

IMG_3315.jpg

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!

Hopes for 2021

/

I followed my tradition of putting away holiday decorations on New Year’s Eve…taking a few pictures as I made my way around the house taking things apart…gathering it all to take downstairs to the storage bins and boxes…packing is all away. I put the maple seedling and dried sunflowers I’d kept in my office window out in the front flower bed….a cleaning out to begin the new year.

I started thinking about what I hope will happen for us in 2021. Here’s my wish list for the country –

  • A transition of national leadership….and immediate focus of that new team on the response to the pandemic and initiation of actions based on data and wisdom rather than political whim…thus calming the mental stress that was increased by the leadership-created-chaos of 2020.

  • Organized rollout of vaccines across the country – setting reasonable expectations of the process and the results of the program.

  • Pace of economic recovery increasing as the pandemic subsides.

  • Approaching pre-pandemic types of activities by fall 2021.

For myself and my family – I hope that

  • We all stay vigilant protecting ourselves for getting COVID-19…and we get the vaccine before mid-year.

  • We can visit in-person (also by mid-year).

  • I get to return to my volunteer gigs!

  • By the fall, there will be in-person birding festivals to enjoy

It could be better….the vaccination rollout happens faster than it appears to be at this point!

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year 2021!

Most Memorable of 2020

/

Looking back on 2020 – there is so much that was different than prior years. There has not been a year of my life with so many significant types of upheaval: COVID-19 pandemic, environmental disasters (fires, hurricanes), racial strife, and strident politics. Today I am writing about the way this year was different for me as an individual with those upheavals as the broader situation.

Early year travel…then no travel. In prior years, I enjoyed travel throughout the year – being away from home a week or less at a time and daytrips. My original plan for 2020 was to spend a week of each month in Texas with my family. The early part of the year started out on that plan – a visit with family and a birding festival in Laredo, TX in late January and early February. We talked with an HHS person in the San Antonio airport; she was headed to the base where some of the first cruise ship passengers were arriving for their quarantine period. Once we got home, we hoped the virus was going to be limited to the few groups from cruise ships that were talked about in the news….and we started paying more attention. It quickly became apparent that telephone calls and Zoom meetings would have to take the place of the trips to Texas. We did some 2-3 hour outings for some outdoor time in the fall; we wore masks even outdoors and distanced from others; now that the infection rate is higher in our area and it’s often too cold to be outdoors for very long, we are not attempting more than walks around our neighborhood.

2020 02 IMG_7905 (3).jpg

The Pandemic. By March, we had an inkling that COVID-19 was not going way and that there was more around in the community that anticipated. The grocery stories started having shortages of toilet paper and disinfecting products and hand sanitizer. Fortunately, we had an adequate supply of those to last until the stores had them again (although maybe not the brands we bought previously – what happened to Formula 409?). I went to an ‘over 65’ shopping hour at a local grocery in March and it was crowded enough that it scarred me into switching to grocery delivery for 2 months. I tried to keep 2-3 weeks of food in the house at all times. We bought over the counter medications that might help symptoms if we got sick. By the summer I was comfortable going to the grocery store again – masked and going at 6:30 AM every other week and, now, extending to every three weeks. We do curbside pickup at some local stores and restaurants. My husband has virtual and in-person appointments with his doctors, but we both delayed routine optometrist and dental checkups that started to be due; those appointments and my annual physical can wait until after we are vaccinated.

Cultural, environmental, and political drama. The pandemic would have made this a challenging year but with the cultural, environmental, and political drama happening as well – the news was overwhelmingly bad…traumatically bad. The trauma of seeing the murder of George Floyd by a policeman brought to the consciousness of the country that racial equality before the law is not something the US has achieved…and the varied response to the event showed us more about how deep the challenge runs in our culture…and highlighted other manifestations of inequality in our country. Because of our ‘stay at home’ strategy during the pandemic, we didn’t witness any unrest – but the news prompted some donations and solidified our votes in November. There were environmental disasters – fires in the west, hurricanes on the Gulf Coast; neither impacted us directly in Maryland, but it was very easy to be traumatized imaging how awful it must be for people trying to take precautions to not get COVID-19 but having to evacuate and then returning to find their home gone or damaged. The political drama – much of it seemingly intentionally done to sustain a level of chaos – continued through the end of the year; I became more angry as time went on that the leadership of the country – in a year of extreme national stress – seemed to be acting to increase the trauma.

Virtual birding festivals and conferences. I saved some positive things to write about for the last of this post….we all need something positive to sustain ourselves. My husband and I both enjoyed virtual birding festivals and conferences in 2020. They added variety to our weeks; we appreciated the work of the teams that made the transition to virtual because they took us away from our immediate environment (not quite as good as travel but the best we were going to do during the pandemic). We hope to be back to some in-person events in the second half of 2021. The ones we did virtually in 2020 were:

20201030_115626.jpg

  • May – Cape May Spring Festival (New Jersey)

  • June – Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference

  • July – Get into your sanctuary (NOAA)

  • July and August – Sara Via Climate and Sustainability Webinars

  • September – Yampa Valley Crane Festival (Colorado)

  • September – Puget Sound Bird Fest (Washington)

  • October – Cape May Fall Festival (New Jersey)

  • October – Hawaii Island Festival of Birds

  • November – Crane Fiesta (New Mexico)

  • November – Patuxent River Conference Reflections

  • December – Maryland Water Monitoring Conference

  • December - AGU

At home. I spent more time at home this year than every before in my life (that I can remember…maybe I spent more time at home from birth to 4 years old). It’s been different but not hard. The house is well situated with forest to the back and a 30-year-old neighborhood street to the front with lots of trees as old as the houses; the views from the windows are all good – and there is wild life (birds (including an occasional wild turkey!), squirrels, deer, chipmunks, and racoons (seen only on the bird feeder cam in the wee hours of the morning)). Individuals and couples take walks…the neighborhood does not feel vacant or isolated. Inside - my husband and I have plenty of room to enjoy our individual projects/activities then be together for meals and shared activities…settling into a comfortable way of living in the house together and probably becoming more synchronized emotionally than we have since early in our marriage – simply because we are around each other more.

Conscious efforts to sustain healthy mental and physical health. As we’ve gotten older, we have become more intentional about our lifestyle – making sure we get enough exercise…eat healthy…assess our feeling and act to keep them positive. During this year – we have increased our focus. I had time to process the bounty of the CSA season (June-October) and am just now beginning to see that we have space in the freezer again. We eat well but keep our portion sizes reasonable; we haven’t gained weight…maybe we’ve lost a few pounds. We both try to get some outdoor time as frequently as we can – walks, yard work, reading on the deck, photography (stars/planets, sun, plants, animals, and snowflakes) etc. It was easier before it got cold. More of our exercise has shifted indoors at this point. We do things to brighten our mood – flowers, purchases to use for projects (mounted insects, clickers and magnifiers for cell phone photography), special pens, special food – things to make each day a little different.

Overall – at the end of 2020, I am feeling optimistic about 2021 and pleased that my husband and I have responded with resilience to the changes in our lives during the past year. We had ups and downs but on the whole managed to sustain ourselves and to enjoy parts of every day (for me it was easier when the television was off, and I wasn’t reading my news feeds).

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 26, 2020

/

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!