The joys of a camera with optical zoom (rather than a phone with just digital zoom) --- I see more detail through the camera than I can see with my eyes! There were several times I was out and about looking for opportunities for high key and pushing the limits of the optics. Several of those experiments were successful enough to be included in this month’s collection.
Enjoy the slideshow for the September zoomed images!
Celebrating the waning of summer…the beginning of fall –
Brookside Gardens field trip. Spending a few hours at Brookside always results in at least one mini-celebrations. This month there were three: hummingbirds – bees – and roses.
New low weight for the year. With a whole month at home, I managed to control my diet….and achieved a low weight for the year --- 3 times (lower each time). I’m celebrating the achievement and working to continue the trend!
Easy flu shot. I celebrated how easy getting the flu shot was…no waiting, the pharmacy already having all my information. And now I’m as protected as I can be for my next road trip.
Macro photography. Celebrating images capture with my phone, a clip on lens and a clicker!
Melons. The season for melons was winding down but we celebrated 2 tasty cantaloupes from the Farmers Market in September.
Early morning in the grocery store. I enjoy grocery shopping….and celebrate that I have the store almost to myself…a low risk return to ‘normal.’
Volunteering. Returning to volunteer gigs – doing outdoor programs with students.. it’s another celebration of going back to a pre-pandemic ‘normal’ that isn’t quite the same but just as satisfying.
Beautiful weather. Sunny days…cooler…a little breeze – this is the time of year that it gets easier to celebrate a day outdoors.
Ferns under the deck. I celebrated that there were more of them than I expected this year!
French fries. I have been dieting so carefully….it was a celebration to have French fries (and cut back enough on other foods that day to not make it a “weight gain” day)!
I volunteered for a pilot program about climate change concepts (carbon capture, water infiltration, urban heat island) for 6th graders held on their own school grounds. It was a positive learning experience for me…and the students as well. Howard County Conservancy held training beforehand so when the first one was held I was relatively well prepared….but the first time through is always tricky. My station was about carbon sequestration; the students measured the circumference of trees on their schoolyard to estimate the weight of carbon in the tree and the weight of CO2 absorbed by the tree. The students became more coordinated with the process as they measured more trees: using a tape measure - 137 cm up from the ground and then measuring the circumference. Teams of 3 worked well (2 for the tape measure and one recording results). Then in the last part of the session we use a table to determine the carbon in and absorbed by the trees.
The second school was an earlier start…out of the house at 7 AM! It was also a cooler day (in the 60s and lower 70s) so more comfortable wearing a mask. The students are mostly too young to be vaccinated yet. I took a quick picture of my front flower bed and the morning sky before I left the house.
My first assignment was carbon sequestration for 2 student periods and then water infiltration for the next three periods of the day. Many of the trees we measured were about the same size – probably planted when the school was built. We learned that even the grassy areas of school yards don’t have good water infiltration – maybe because the mowers used on them are heavy enough to compact the soil! And even the water retention ponds (which were dry during the session) did not let the water soak in. The mulched areas under the trees were the only areas that showed good infiltration. Most of the rain that falls simply runs off rather than soaking in close to where it falls.
There was some break time between periods, and I observed some sparrows taking dust bathes in a bare spot near the edge of the school ground.
Overall – the students seemed to enjoy the program and collected data that they will use in their classrooms. I had my best experiences ever with this age group. Middle school is such a mix of student maturities…but the small groups made it relatively easy to engage all of them and keep them focused on collecting information about their school yard in a consistent, organized way. My lesson learned was that signing up for the full 5 periods is a bit overwhelming…probably won’t do that again!
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 25 birds of the week: September 2021 – Such a variety of birds in the world!
The Love Stories of Sleepy Lizards – An Australian lizard…they are monogamous and have a surprising threat display. They have been studied for over 40 years.
Searching for the Fisher Kings – The Calusa of south Florida…a capital on a man-made island made of shell. Surviving the Spanish but not the British.
New Coal Plants Dwindle Amid Wave of Cancelled Projects – Good! We need to be ramping up generation of electricity with renewables….and dramatically reducing the methane released by the oil and gas industry in their extraction processes…and then begin to reduce our need for oil and gas in areas that can be electrified (like transportation and heating/cooling).
Explore Life Under the Microscope with the Winners of the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Contest – Photomicrography frequently creates art from reality that it too small for our eyes to see without the magnification and specialized equipment.
August 2021 global climate summary – From NOAA. Two global maps (temperature and precipitation). Where I live, August was hotter and slightly wetter than the average (averages from 1981-2010 for temperature…from 1979-2020 for precipitation).
People synchronize heart rates while listening to stories – Thinking about the brain as part of physical body….looking at the brain-body connection more broadly.
Study Links Transportation Noise to High Rates of Dementia and Alzheimer's – From Denmark.
Indigenous Resilience Center Launched at the University of Arizona – My daughter did her graduate work at University of Arizona; I’m glad they are launching the center to find and implement culturally appropriate solutions to the challenges of climate change.
The chemistry of dahlia flower colors – Also explains why there are no blue dahlias.
I enjoyed the books – lots of nature themes and ideas for Zentangle patterns. Some of them looked very abstract – geometric – hits of realism. There is a modern quality to many even though they are more than 100 years old. Maybe nature images are timeless as long as the animal/plant depicted still exists in our world.
Silk and cotton are luxuries now – the inexpensive fabrics are synthetic creating a lot of ‘fast fashion’ with interesting fabric patterns….like these.
Looking up into our oak that grows near our mailbox, it looks like fall is well underway. The flags left from the periodic cicada larvae this summer have dropped their leaves and the rest of the leaves are turning now too. I’ll need to do a round of mowing soon to keep the leaves from getting too thick on the grass. The Virginia Creeper has grown a lot this year…reaching higher into the tree than ever before. It’s a native and climbs with suckers rather than rootlets; it only damages the tree if it gets too heavy; right now, it is well within the range that the tree can handle.
That’s not to say that the tree is in great shape. Oak decline is happening all over the Mid-Atlantic. There are stressors are thought to weaken the trees: climate change, tree age, site conditions, history of disease. Our tree is probably 30-40 years old (the house is about 30 years old but the tree was planted as a sapling)…not very old for an oak. There is pavement on two sides of the tree (the street and our driveway) so soil compaction might be a problem. It has always had mulch and grass around its base and there are no exposed roots.
The stressors might have weakened our tree enough to make it vulnerable. The way some of the leaves look is indicative of Bacterial Leaf Scorch. It will be years before the tree succumbs – finally starving (i.e. leaves turning brown and falling early…not continuing to produce food for the tree during the entire growing season). We’ll shore up its defenses by watering it during drought…keeping the fallen branches and debris picked up around its base. And eventually cutting the Virginia Creeper.
On Sunday morning we left our house about 7:30 AM to drive to Conowingo – about a 1.5 hour drive from where we live. Below the dam is our favorite place to see bald eagles. This is not the best time of year, but it was a sunny fall morning – a good time for a short daytrip.
There were some black vultures on top of a car parked near the entrance gate at Conowingo Fisherman’s Park. I had heard about it happening but hadn’t see it before. There didn’t seem to be many photographers along the fence however there were cormorants and gulls over and on the water. There were more cars than usual but apparently the owners were mostly there for fishing. We saw several with very large catfish (looked like the invasive flathead catfish). The spillways on the far side of the dam were active…but it didn’t seem like there was much water churn on our side of the river.
I had just started surveying the abutment, rocks and island with my bridge camera mounted on a monopod, when the battery connection problem that I had experienced previously began. I had to take the camera off the monopod and remove the foot to open the battery compartment and try to increase the thickness of the paper wedge I had been using to hold the battery more firmly on the contacts. I put everything back together and it still didn’t work consistently. I was able to see an adult bald eagle on the abutment and a great blue heron on a spit of rocks and gulls flying over the water --- but the camera would not work for long enough to get a good picture. So – I gave up and pulled out my small Point and Shoot (Canon Powershot SX730 HS). I was very disappointed in what I could do with less zoom than the bridge camera. So --- I opted to try some high key pictures. My first subject was large sycamore with branches that hang over the water. The color variation in the leaves was more visible with the background mostly bright white although I did one with the water partially visible.
My favorite is the one below with the foliage in the lower right corner. I can image this in a presentation with some words in the upper left!
Next --- I chose to photograph the electrical towers. I was not aware of the blue (vignetting) in the upper corners until I looked at it on the monitor at home….but I like the little bit of color!
One of the towers on the island in the river contained a surprise that I didn’t see until it was on the larger screen: a bald eagle standing on a nest! It is not a good eagle shot…the bird is facing away and blurry….too far away for the Point and Shoot to get a crisp image. But it shows how the eagles use of the manmade structures!
Overall – I was pleased with the morning…even though it was quite different than I’d planned!
It’s that time of year again – time to get the annual flu vaccine. This year it was very easy for me; I went to my grocery store pharmacy just as I did last year… right after they opened. There was no line, and their system already had all my information. I filled out a form on a clip board, provided an electronic signature, and got the shot.
I refrained from buying myself a treat like a piece of cake or a soft drink -went to the nearby thrift store instead. I found 2 pairs of ‘like new’ leggings that are easy additions to my fall wardrobe!
I am still planning another road trip to Texas in October so getting the flu shot in September means it will be fully effective by then. I am hopeful that the high rate of infection and hospitalization along my route will be reduced by then – and that hospitals will not be as overwhelmed as they are right now…just in case some accident occurs along the way.
On the same day I got the flu shot – we had a very hazy day in Maryland and it was attributed to the California wildfires. Signs of climate change are everywhere. For me – getting the flu shot is an action to avoid a health issue at a time when the pandemic and climate change are straining the resources of our country to deal with those disasters – making it even more challenging to take the strategic actions to reduce and mitigate the climate change going forward.
My son-in-law saw (and photographed) a rough green snake while he was hiking at Ritter Springs State Park near Springfield, Missouri. What a wonderful color! His picture prompted me to do a search to identify it…learn more about the snake.
The highpoints of what I found: They are exploited by the pet trade – and people that want to keep them as pets (I’d rather they stay in the wild!). The snake eats insects and other small invertebrates - spends most of its time in trees, often near water. Not venomous. Their range evidently extends into the area where I live in Maryland, but I’ve never seen one. I’m going to start looking for them. It would be quite a thrill to see them in the wild.
Not long after I received the picture, there was a blog post from DFW Urban Wildlife that included some pictures of a rough green snake in Texas! It contained some other critters that are hard to spot in the wild. I am going to look more closely for them…hone my observation skill. It’s probably true that there is almost always more to see out in nature than we notice!
My smartphone, a clip on macro lens, and Bluetooth shutter control were the gear I used for the macro photos feathered in this month’s post. They are all from a short walk in Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant from the parking area and into the Honors Garden. The set up works very much like the bridge camera (with lens, diffuser, manual focus) in that I must get close to the subject and move the phone to get the focus perfect. It has the advantage of being a lot more compact than the other set up!
The rain from the night before had left everything with a sheen or droplets of water. Often the wet increased the richness of the colors…and the shine. The thin clouds provided good, diffuse light – a good day for smartphone macro photography. The cedar was on my way to honors garden.
The seed pods on the magnolia were not flat enough to be an easy shot! The depth of field is very narrow with magnification.
I experimented with different perspectives of cone flowers
And asters. In the last picture, the depth of field gave me the blurring around the edges than I wanted.
The birds nest fungus was in a mulched area near the parking lot. Some of the cups seem to hold water!
Even grass seeds take on a different perspective in a zoomed image.
…And these are the best of the rest (note the insect hiding inside a flower)!
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.
Young female black bears in Asheville, North Carolina, are big, have cubs early – More research needed…it’s still not known what is causing them to be so much bigger and mature early…or if the population is increasing or not. It is clear that there are quite a few bears and lots of opportunity for interactions between people and bears – many not healthy for the bears.
The alarming risks of mixing common drugs – It is a problem that is acute in most elderly patients with good medical care. Their various doctors have gradually built up the medications…and the regime to take them all appropriately becomes daunting. Hopefully it will become best practice to constantly review and minimize drugs that are prescribed.
Work Of First African American Painter With International Reputation Explored – Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937)
Hummingbirds can smell their way out of danger – I was thinking a lot about hummingbirds this past week after my success photographing one at Brookside Gardens.
Praying Mantis – I see these more frequently in the fall…but not every fall. There are so many mantis egg cases, there should be plenty to see; I need to improve my observation skills.
How much energy do we need to achieve a decent life for all? – The most important take away from this study: “energy for eradicating poverty does not pose a threat for mitigating climate change.” That is good news
The lost generation of ancient trees – The ancients are dying….and there are not enough trees old enough to replace them. There are various ways being tried to veteranize younger trees so they can play the role of ancient trees in ecosystems.
Fall Armyworms are Attacking Lawns and Crops on an ‘Unprecedented’ Scale – Hmmm…maybe this is a prompt to reduce or eliminate the grassy portion of the yard.
Mammoth Cave National Park: The World's Longest Cave Is Longer Than Before - 8 more miles mapped bringing the total to 420 miles!
Hand pollination of crops is of major importance – I was surprised that hand pollination is already used for important crops like apple, palm oil and cocoa.
Over the past couple of months – I browsed through 29 volumes of the Arts and Decoration Magazine from the 1920s and 1930s. There are a few color images – dominated by covers and ads. I enjoyed thinking about the history and mood of the times reflected in these periodicals.
In the 1920s – Some company names we still see today show up – Davey Tree Surgeons, Listerine, Armstrong Floors, Heinz, Lincoln, Cadillac; some ads for companies that no longer exist too: Quaker Lace Company, Oil-o-matic Heat, Insulite, Johns-Manville Asbestos Shingles. The depictions of women were changing just as the clothes they were wearing: less constrained. The magazine reflected the quickening pace and almost euphoric mood of the decade. 1923 (vol 18-19), 1923 (vol 19-20), 1924 (vol 20-21), 1924 (vol 21-22), 1925 (vol 22-23), 1925 (vol 23-24), 1926 (vol 24-25), 1926 (vol 25-26), 1927 (vol 26-27), 1927 (vol 27-28), 1928 (vol 28-29), 1928 (vol 29-30), 1929 (vol 30-31), 1929 (vol 31-32)
And then came the crash in the 1930s. The volumes from the 1930s contain less color – except for the covers. Most advertisers were weathering the Great Depression but not paying for color ads – except for Kenwood Blankets and a steamship company. The magazine was depicting the perspective of the wealthy but even they were not as flamboyant and exuberant as in the earlier decade. This was the decade when my parents were born. They were far from scenes depicted in the magazine…living in the middle of the US in rural areas where they had plenty of food their parents grew on their farms. 1930(vol 32-33), 1930(vol 33-34), 1931(vol 34-35), 1931(vol 35-36), 1932(vol 36-37), 1932(vol 37-38), 1933(vol 38-39), 1933(vol 39-40), 1934(vol 40-41), 1934(vol 41-42), 1935(vol 42-43), 1935(vol 43-44), 1936(vol 44-45), 1936(vol 45-46), 1937(vol 44-47)
Browsing magazines is a perspective of the important things of the day – carefully selected by editors to present to their subscribers. It reflects a narrow perspective – probably: wealthy, white, skewed to the east and west coasts. It would be interesting to know the demographics of the subscribers but maybe even the publishes didn’t know that!
Of course – the plants are always a big draw for a visit to Brookside Gardens – never an exception to that. I did a landscape shot of the garden area the hummingbirds come.
There was a plant in that garden with various stages of flowers that captured my attention while I waited from the hummingbird.
I never was able to find the hummingbirds perched in the magnolia even after I saw them fly into the tree…but the tree’s developing seedpods were good subjects too.
There was hibiscus blooming in a big pot to the side of our position.
Turning around – I tried to capture the colors in the castor plants – leaves and seeds.
It was beginning to get a little hot, so we walked toward some shade. I was glad I had my water bottole in the back pocket of my photovest. I can easily shorten the monopod for carrying or keep it extended to use as a walking stick. As we walked toward the rose garden – I took a zoomed picture of a datura flower. I liked the white color…gentle curves.
Maybe I was a little fixated on white since I photographed white roses as soon as we got to the rose garden.
I opted to sit on a bench in the shade under the wisteria arbor and took the rest of the photos of the morning for there! The zoom capability of my camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) is one of my favorite tools. I love to experiment. As I zoom beyond the optical zoom, the images tend to get a softer focus (for example, the very magnified underside of a rose below….which is my favorite flower picture of the morning).
And that was (another) enjoyable field trip/photography session to Brookside Gardens!
While I was watching for hummingbirds at Brookside Gardens, there was ample time to photograph the antics of bumblebees in the same flowerbed. They were all over the blue/purple plants.
Further back – there was a bush that was attractive to tiger swallowtails. I haven’t seen as many of them as I usually do this year, so I was pleased to photograph a female (with blue on the lower part of the wing) and a male with battered wings.
I also photographed two skippers – one in the same area as the bees and butterflies, the other in the rose garden. They look like they are the same species male and female (looking at the difference in the end of abdomen).
All the insect pictures are using the zoom on the camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) rather than trying to use a macro lens. The insects are too far into the beds to get close enough for macro work…and I like having more depth of field and blurring of the background. The second image of the skipper (on the rose bud and new leaves) is my favorite insect image of the morning!)
We visited Brookside Gardens last week – getting there about 9 AM when the temperature was still very pleasant. Our goal was to see some hummingbirds in the fragrance garden. We chose a weekday to avoid the crowd of photographers with the same objective in mind; the plan worked, and we were the only ones in the area the hummingbirds frequent. This is the toward end of the season for hummingbirds and the females are the ones still around…the males are already further south. We saw and heard the little birds almost immediately.
I was using my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) in Program mode…mounted on a monopod. That gear works well for me because it is maneuverable and has a lot of magnification adjustable with a fingertip. The camera also has a burst mode that worked well during this attempt. It helped that it was a sunny day – plenty of light on the birds!
Even though I saw hummingbirds frequently – in the trees, in the air, quickly flitting over the flowers – I only managed one good series of images. It was feeding near the middle of the bed with flowers attractive to hummingbirds. I’ve selected the 12 best pictures from the bursts of images I took for the slideshow below.
Note how compact the body of the bird is with the feet not visible at all. The muscles it takes to move the wings so rapidly to maneuver into position relative to flowers must be in excellent condition – and require a lot of energy. The bird looked nicely rounded; hopefully this bodes well for a successful migration south for the winter.
More about out visit to the gardens over the next few days about the insects and plants we saw…
On a recent walk around my yard looking for insects – I spotted a wasp on an allium in the chaos garden. I took a few pictures with my point and shot camera (zooming).
It wasn’t flying around so I decided to try to some macro shots with my bridge camera. Normally I would have been leery about being that close to a wasp, but it seemed to just be moving around the cluster of flowers. It was good practice.
It wasn’t until I got inside and was looking at the pictures on a large screen that I realized that the wasp was missing a wing! There was no way it was ever going to fly again.
On the same walk – I saw a tiny leaf hopper on the nine bark bush. This is a clipped image…a lot more detail and pattern that I could see with my eye.
18 months into the pandemic and the US is experiencing high rates of delta variant infections. The number of new cases is higher than it was in September 2020 and the number of new deaths is a higher too although not as much as the new cases; the vaccines and early treatments are reducing the number of deaths somewhat. The most people in the hospital and dying are unvaccinated. More schools are opening this fall – mostly with mask mandates. There is a lot of concern for the children under 12 since there is not a vaccine approved for them yet.
On a personal level, I am glad I am fully vaccinated, and that the KF-94 masks protect me as well as others. The availability of higher quality masks is one of the differences from last year when I was still wearing cloth masks (2 of them) that were protection for others – not necessarily for myself. I wear my mask anytime I am not at home indoors (like the grocery store) and outdoors when I am near other people (like at the Farmers Market). We are not eating in restaurants…but getting takeout occasionally. I haven’t done another road trip in the past month.
I am attending training for volunteer gigs coming the fall – ones that are primarily outdoors. Those will start in a few weeks if the local schools manage to avoid major COVID outbreaks that would force them to close. There are some places where it appears the delta variant has already peaked (like Springfield MO) but I’m glad I am not planning another road trip until mid-October when (maybe) the overall infection rate will be lower that it is right now on my route to and from Texas.
I wish I could see an clear end of the pandemic, but it may just be wave after wave of variants…some that the vaccine might not be effective against. I’m glad that masks are effective against respiratory spread in general and have grown accustomed to wearing one.
It is frustrating that COVID is still demanding so much of our attention at a time when we need to focus more on actions to address the larger rolling disasters of climate change.
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.
Wind Energy Accounted for 42% of New US Power in 2020 – And solar was 38% of the new energy. And 8 east coast states have large offshore wind projects in the works in the years ahead. Hurray! It’s a good trend and it looks like the slope of the trend will keep increasing for wind and solar (decrease and go to 0 for new natural gas).
How people respond to wildfire smoke - Another reason to slip on a mask.
Devastating Rain in Tennessee – A map of the change in soil moisture between August 20 and August 21. The floods on August 21 in Tennessee (area circled on the map) killed at least 22 people. I was surprised that there was an area of Illinois (to the north and a little west of the flash flood circle) where the soil moisture increased even more; perhaps that area floods frequently and the area is managed with flooding in mind.
New analysis reveals Vesuvius Victims’ diverse diets – From analysis of Herculaneum skeletons. Men got more of their protein from seafood. Women ate more meat grown on land, eggs and dairy products.
Eye provide peek at Alzheimer’s disease risk – Amyloid plaques can form in retinas of the eye. Does their presence there provide a visible biomarker for detecting Alzheimer’s risk?
Top 25 birds of the week: Wild Birds! – Bird photography…..challenging and beautiful subjects for our cameras.
Have you seen a weasel lately? – There is a suspicion that weasels are in the decline…but the data is circumstantial. These are not predators that have been widely studied. The post points to a role for citizen scientists!
Dispatches from a world aflame – Reviews of two books about the recent fires…and the relation to climate change.
Preemption of Green Cities in Red States – At a time when we need to get serious about addressing climate change – a drive by some states to keep local governments from taking any action. There is a cognitive dissonance between historically arguing for local control then usurping that control when the state government does not agree with it. I like local control but acknowledge that higher up the governance hierarchy could make sweeping changes easier. Perhaps some of these state governments will redeem themselves by quickly taking strong action toward climate change reduction and mitigation – soon. The top issue for me when I vote these days has become climate change!
Climate Change Is The Greatest Threat To Public Health, Top Medical Journals Warn – Another reason that actions to address climate change must be at the forefront of our thinking about the future. Medicine cannot make up for the injury we are making to ourselves and every living thing on the planet.
This summer I browsed all the Better Homes and Gardens available via Internet Archive; they are available in volumes of 6 issues each for most years from the 1950s through the early 2000s. It was fascinating to observe the changes in interior decorating, architecture, and food across the decades – and I picked up some ideas for my own home (some ideas have a timeless quality!). I picked the theme of Christmas (i.e. December issues) across the years to feature in this post. The links are for the July-December months of each year.
1950s. Pecans and walnuts were popular additions to Christmas goodies in the 1950s; perhaps they were still expensive enough to not be used throughout the year…unless you had your own trees. Evidently amaryllis bulbs and caladiums were also part of the December décor.
1960s. I have lots of memories of Christmases in the 1960s. I don’t remember every seeing a Marshmallow Men cake…but I do remember the large and small marshmallows…..and homemade luminaries. I remember artificial trees of different shapes. I am surprised that there weren’t pictures of the large colored lights on any of the trees in the pictures.
1970s. By the mid-70s, I had married and set up my own household. I made the bird pattern from the 1977 issue of my mother’s copy of Better Homes and Gardens in red and white felt with glittery red rickrack and red beads (and still have them). In the 1970s those were the colors of all the ornaments on my artificial tree (we did to a tree farm one year to cut down our own tree).
1990s. For us, the 90s included a major shift in our Christmas decorations in 1995; my daughter picked a white Christmas artificial tree for us (she was in 1st grade). Surprisingly all our ornaments still looked good on the new tree – but we did replace all our green wired lights with white wired sets. The look of the tree was very different than the dark green from before. One of my sisters made a pinecone wreath for us and I have refreshed it several times over the years. From the Better Homes and Gardens pictures – it seems the trend was toward decorations that were a little different – even though they might have some aspects from before. I wonder if the tree decorated with hearts and bows was intended to stay in place until Valentines in February.
2000s. The last of the Better Homes and Gardens available on Internet Archive are from early in the decade. We had a very similar light tree to the one in the last picture; it was frustrating that it didn’t last longer – once it broke it was trash (not recyclable at all) so we have not bought another.
The other big event for our family 30 years ago in September 1991 was finding a very large wasp nest in a maple tree near our mailbox. It was concerning to have wasps so close to a place we walked at least once a day. We decided the best thing to do was to spray the nest….wait a few days then cut it down.
It took 2-3 applications of the poison over several days before the activity around the hive ceased. Seven days after the first application – I cut down the nest and sliced it open There were layers of hexagonal compartments for eggs – some hatched, some still full of larvae. And there were a lot of dead insects. The nest was very light weight…but strong. My husband videotaped the action (with a 1991 vintage camera) – my 2-year-old daughter was marginally interested. These wasps are among the great architects of the insect world using thin layers of cellulose pulp to construct their nest. I regret that we didn’t keep parts of the nest in a display box.
In the 30 years since, we’ve never had a nest in a problematic place again. These insects are predators – controlling pests – so it’s good to leave them if the nest is not in a location that it could be accidently bumped by a person that would result in a lot of bites!
It seems that the numbers of these insects must be in decline just like many of the other insects. Culturally we usually think more negatively about wasps because of their sting than about other insects (butterflies are beautiful and they are pollinators…honey bees make honey and are pollinators…etc.), but ever insect plays a role in the ecosystem and our indiscriminate killing of them is producing unanticipated consequences. We’re going to need our ecosystems as health as possible to adapt to climate change impacts the world over…and that requires insects!
Copyright © 2024, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
Celebrating the whole of life....
Thanks for visiting my blog! Enjoy the photo picks from last month:
Copyright © 2024, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
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