Gleanings of the Week Ending July 2, 2022

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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.

What if all roads went underground? – Thought provoking…wish there were ways to make it a more practical solution since the aesthetics of a world that has more natural surfaces (rather than roads) is very appealing.

Endangered Whopping Crane Hatches at Smithsonian National Zoo Site – The egg was found on an abandoned wild nest in Wisconsin and given to a pair of whooping cranes in the zoo that had produced 2 infertile eggs. The live egg was put into their nest on 5/18 and the baby crane hatched on 5/26!

BLM, Forest Service, Five Tribes of The Bears Ears Commission Commit to Historic Co-Management Of Bears Ears National Monument – Wishing the best for this endeavor.

Fifth of global food-related emissions due to transport – The takeaway message for us in the US: eat locally! This summer I am visiting the local Farmer’s Market weekly…maybe next year I’ll join a CSA.

Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier’ melting at fastest rate in 5,500 years – Thwaites Glacier (nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier…Florida-sized) and Pine Island Glacier were studied. The ice shelf holding the Thwaites Glacier could collapse withing 3-5 years.

Finding mini frogs: these aren’t babies, they’re just little – And they hatch as frogs…no tadpole stage. They live in leaf litter…humid and moist but not near water.

New safe-sleep guidelines aim to reduce infant deaths – New guidelines have been coming out from time to time at least since my daughter was born over 30 years ago. When she was a baby, the recommendation was for babies to sleep on their tummy…very different from these current guidelines.

2021 Share the Experience Photo Contest (National Park Foundation) Winners – Special places…full of great experiences.

Los Angeles becomes the latest city to hire ‘chief heat officer’ – Miami and Phoenix as well as cities in other countries (Athens, Greece; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Monterrey, Mexico; Santiago, Chile) have similar positions.

One in 500 men carry extra sex chromosome, putting them at higher risk of several common diseases – A surprising result…most of the men were unaware they carried an extra X or Y chromosome. Those that are XXY had higher chances of reproductive problems. Both XXY and XYY individuals has higher risks of type 2 diabetes, deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Whirlwind trip to Maryland and Back

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I left early after only one day in the Missouri house that was now ours…to go back to the Maryland house. It would be a 4-day trip with lots of driving each day. The weather was good for the whole trip although it had been very wet the days before. The early rest stops were soggy. I drove from Springfield MO to Huntington WV the first day…a bit long but I knew I would need time at my Maryland house to load the car on the second day. It rained heavily after I was at the hotel!

The Red Roof Inn in Huntington was a surprise. Perhaps it had been recently renovated because the lighting over the bed and the size/arrangement of the desk area were more functional than most hotel rooms.

I was up early the next morning and heading to my Maryland house. At one of the West Virginia stops, I noticed a dead tree…took a closer look at the fungus growing on the trunk.

The drive was uneventful…arriving early enough to have lunch with my husband on our Maryland house deck…and then start the daunting task of loading the cars. Our plan was to caravan back to Missouri with everything from the Maryland house….but we couldn’t quite fit everything so we’ll return to Maryland for the closing on that house; everything left will easily fit in one car. I took pictures of the house without furniture…with the new carpet…before we headed to a nearby hotel for the night.

We headed out early….saw morning sun on the Sidling Hill road cut.

After another night in a hotel, we got another early start…destination our house in Missouri. The drive took a dramatic turn at mid-morning: the front driver’s side tire blew out on my car just east of the Skeeter Mountain rest stop in Indiana. I was glad my husband was following me. It occurred on a bridge….part of the tire flying off…I managed to control the car well enough to pull onto the shoulder past the bridge. I sat in the car after I got it stopped. My husband came up and asked if I was OK…’not really’ was my response. Fortunately, the trauma was emotional rather than physical. We both stood further off on the shoulder, and he called for a tow (my car does not have a spare). I took pictures of the car…and the vegetation nearby. The tow truck came in about 20 minutes…about 10 AM; the tow to a tire place took about 30 minutes and a new tire was on the car by about noon. We continued toward our Missouri home.

Fortunately, the rest of the drive was uneventful…the blow out episode causing a 3-hour delay…not bad overall. Both of us went to bed early - emotionally exhausted once the drive was over.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 18, 2022

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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.

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.

When will the movers arrive?

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The timing of the arrival of truck truck at our new house in Missouri was a range of more than a week at the beginning; on the day they loaded the truck, we were told it would arrive the last day of the range. On the day after closing, the driver called in the morning. If he could get a crew to help, he could deliver  later in the day and finish unloading the day after. I went into panic mode to get the house ready: putting everything I had brought in the car out of the way and making signs for the floor or walls to indicate where major furniture would go.

Later in the day, the driver called to indicate that he had not been able to arrange for a crew so the truck would arrive a day before the original delivery date…in 5 days. I was almost overwhelmed by the whiplash of changes but I quickly recovered and made plans to make a return trip to Maryland to get the last items our of our Maryland house and then drive back with my husband --- both of us with fully loaded cars.

What a flurry of activity the day after closing on our Missouri house!

MD to MO with a very full car

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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.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 4, 2022

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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.

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!

Our Maryland Neighborhood

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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!

Ten Little Celebrations – May 2022

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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.

Brookside Gardens – May 2022 (2)

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Continuing the sights from a stroll through Brookside Gardens last week…

The Flamingo Flamboyance exhibit near the visitor center and conservatories is looking lusher that the pictures on the garden website.

The big leaf magnolia (I think….didn’t see a sign for it) was blooming! It was the first time I had seen the flowers – probably the botanical high point of this last visit to Brookside. Most of the time the big leaf magnolias in the forest have branches so high off the ground that it is hard to see the flowers.

The weather is still cool enough for the rose bushes to be full of blooms. The pergola has been rebuilt recently so the wisteria/climbing roses are severely trimmed…full of promise in the upcoming years with the improved structure.

Overall – the walk around Brookside was full of reminders of how much I’ve enjoyed the place over the years….so glad I had a few hours to savor it one more time before we move away.

Brookside Gardens – May 2022 (1)

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My daughter and I took a stroll through Brookside Gardens when she was here last week; we both savored it – anticipating that it would be a long time before we were back…or maybe it would be the last time. There was plenty to see…starting with the spring bulbs in the parking lot rain gardens. I noticed that the new growth in the stand of horsetails near the visitor center is a lighter green.

The new growth of ferns contrasts with the greens around it. The glossy green bushes in the background are camellias that are completely done with their blooms.

The rhododendron blooms are past their peak. There were some flowers that had been knocked off by the rains of the previous day.

The spiral walk in the 2009 anniversary garden is less distinct with the spring growth than it was in the winter.

The new sculpture made from the trunk of the sycamore that had to be cut down (uphill from the conservatory) is well done – representing some of the trees that are prevalent in our area: oaks, pines, maples.

My daughter hadn’t seen the other more recent sculpture…liked it as much as I did.

It’s easy to like flowers – big and small…lots of them to enjoy this time of year.

We didn’t go into the Tea House since there was a yoga class in progress. I settled for a cypress (with reflection) picture from the path.

Another new-to-me feature of the garden…that I photographed near the visitor center: mobile sculptures. They stand out now…will even more in the winter!

More about our visit to Brookside tomorrow….

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 28, 2022

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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.

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 Pace of our Lives

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In April our preparation to move started an uptick in the pace of our lives  and May is continuing the upward trend. It should plateau at the higher level soon…..and hopefully  begin to decline by mid-summer. I find myself reverting to techniques I used during my career to organize my life – adding detail to my calendar, making lists of things to do, taking notes in key meetings, and adding to a timeline of events for reference later.

It’s not just the pace but the variety of activity and the amount of money involved with moving. Perhaps right now is the highest stress; even though everything seems to be happening as it should, there is always the niggling feeling that either we have overlooked something or there will something major that will turn up and cause a delay rippling through all the subsequent activities.

It will be good to have less stress…but perhaps the pace is not too bad. Maybe – we’ll decide we like this faster pace and organize our life after the move to achieve the pace we had pre-pandemic (not quite as ‘hot’ as it is now…but a significantly faster pace than we lived during the pandemic).

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 14, 2022

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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.

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?

26 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

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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.

30 years ago – May 1992

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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.

Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge

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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!

Harriet Tubman Byway/Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

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The 2nd of 4 Delmarva Birding field trips was Birding the Harriet Tubman Byway. It was a mixture of cultural and natural history of the area around Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and Cambridge, Maryland – an area Harriet Tubman knew well as she was growing up and returned to after she escaped slavery to help others make their way to freedom. There is a map of the byway available from the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center (we stopped there before the field trip…great orientation for the cultural history portion of the field trip) of the sites along the byway; our field trip visited a handful of them with excellent guides. From a natural history perspective - two species that are gone for the scene that she would have known are the American Chestnut and Carolina Parakeet.

The birding at Blackwater NWR was spectacular – just as every time I visit the place; it is where I saw my first Bald Eagle in the wild (in 1990 when my daughter was a baby). This year there were several Bald Eagle pairs that are nesting at the refuge. At one nest, the babies had evidently just been fed and were sleeping off their meal; the adult was still at the nest watching over them.

Osprey are making use of the nesting platforms and snags. There are more snags that ever because the water level is rising at the refuge…killing more trees that remain standing for a few years.

The muskrat mounds in the marsh were numerous. The color of the mounds is good camouflage for small birds. One of our guides commented that sometimes an eagle wll perch for a little while on a mound. If the muskrats are home…they probably go very still until the large bird leaves!

Rusty, the screech owl, is a well-known resident along the wildlife loop. The bird has a favorite perch in a pine with an hollow which provides protection for the bird’s back/sides. The hole where the bird might ‘live’ and raise young is in a nearby tree. The eyes moved while we watched but the bird was otherwise very still.

There are still parts of the refuge where the water level can be controlled; small fish swam in the shallow water….good snacks for some of the birds we were seeing.

Great Blue Herons are nesting at Blackwater. They like the tall pines just as the eagles do.

Great Egrets were also fishing in the shallows. I learned that they too were nesting at the refuge, but I didn’t see those nests.

Somehow moss and pine needles seemed an appealing mini-landscape on the spring day.

Redwing blackbirds were noisy….defending territory…finding mates.

The field trip group continued into Cambridge to the courthouse – a place where the laws governing slavery in Harriet Tubman’s time were administered. The short lecture and conversation were thought provoking and heartbreaking. Fortunately, the field trip ended on a happy note at the nearby Harriet Tubman mural in Cambridge.

Stay tuned for my posts about 2 more Delmarva Birding field trips!

Phillips Landing Park

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My husband signed up us for 4 Delmarva Birding field trips as a last excursion to the eastern shore before we move to Missouri. The first field trip was at Phillips Landing Park near Laurel DE. It was a weekday so most of the other participants were retirees like us; we had two guides that were very familiar with the area…so we saw more than we would if we’d gone on our own.

Shortly after we started, my camera had a problem and I was challenged to work around it by using the eye piece rather than the screen for the rest of the morning….not what I usually do so my focusing/composition was not as good as usual even though the skew of pictures toward botanical rather than birds was probably about the same as it would have been with the camera working perfectly.

The plants are at the height of their variety in the spring with blossoms and unfurling leaves – the bright greens of mosses growing rapidly in the new warmth – unfurling ferns….good for photography although my eyes were itchy from the pollen laden air.

The high point of the botanical sightings: One of our guides pointed out a native orchid in bloom beside the path. They aren’t the large showy orchids of warmer climates; it takes a sharp eye to notice them!

There was an area near the path that looked like an egg laying site for a reptile….but something had found the eggs before they could hatch. There were eggshells among the acorns.

I did managed to photograph a few birds: courting cowbirds in the parking lot, a yellowlegs among the reeds, and a prothonotary warbler high in a tree.

The park was a good mix of habitat – watery area near the parking area (Broad Creek that flows into the Nanticoke River nearby) and a path through forest.

As we returned to our car, I saw a tiger swallowtail flit across the grassy area nearby. A good finale to a morning field trip!

Unique Aspects of Days – April 2022

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So much happened in April that was unique – or at least something we had not done in over 25 years! More that half the ‘days’ featured this month’s post are related to our move. I’ve listed then in the order they occurred and am surprised at the move milestones that occurred in April:

1st virtual house tour. This was not an option 25 years ago and both my husband and I were skeptical that such a tour would be ‘good enough’ to enable us to be comfortable bidding on a house. The first one convinced us that such tours were adequate to eliminate houses from consideration! Our realtor was very patient and good about highlighting aspects of houses as she walked through…and later in the month – after several experiences with virtual tours – we did indeed bid on a house before we saw in in-person.

Finding no houses available in Springfield that we liked. What a depressing day. Both my husband and I were primed to buy a house but there was a day that we had eliminated all the houses on the market.

Bid on house. And then a house came on the market. It wasn’t perfect but we had honed our idea of what we wanted enough to know that it was as close as we were going to get, and we could live with its imperfections. We scheduled a virtual tour and bid on the house the same day.

Contract signed. After one round of negotiations the contract was signed….and we were on the path to buying a house!

Seeing our house. Within 4 days we were in Springfield and walking through our house for the first time. It had a surreal quality after seeing it so thoroughly in the virtual tour.

Accepting a mover’s bid. Long distance moves are expensive and the last one we had done was paid for by our employers. The process has changed somewhat…the biggest one being the virtual way of creating the inventory of what is being moved!

There were some other unique experiences/sights in April:

1st long road trip with my husband post-pandemic.

74 black crowned night herons roosting.

A policeman – lights flashing - removing a deer carcass from a narrow roadway. I was thankful that he was taking care of it before the morning rush hour.

Several bald eagle and great blue heron nests…close together.

Zooming - April 2022

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I am featuring 12 pictures this month using the zoom feature of 3 different cameras (my phone which is digital zoom, my point and shot with optical zoom, and my bridge camera with even more optical zoom).

The point and shoot provided more than half the images: Sidling Hill, the Japanese garden and some of the spring flowers. The bridge camera was used for the spring looks at redbud and tulip poplar. The phone was used for the peacock horse sculpture (at a Kentucky rest stop) and the morning light picture. Using all three of my cameras in ‘zoom’ mode was a first!

Enjoy the slide show!