March 12, 2024

Whooping Crane Boat Tour

March 12, 2024/ Gwen Morrison

We were at the dock for the 7 AM departure of our boat on the third day of the Whooping Crane Festival.

I took a few pictures before we boarded – the moon over the harbor area.

Our destination was the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge where Whooping Cranes feed in the marshy/shallow areas…only visible via boat and it took over an hour to get there from Port Aransas. We passed familiar areas early on and saw a group of American white pelicans, morning light with moon setting over the shore, roseate spoonbills and white ibis in the distance, and the Aransas Pass Lydia Ann Lighthouse.

Then we entered an area that was different than our previous tours and more open water…with occasional platforms with cormorants and great blue herons hunkered in the chilly morning wind. There was a tall bridge as well.

Then there started to be a lot of small islands full of birds: Cormorants, great blue herons and brown pelicans. One area seemed to have a lot of great blue herons and I wondered if the island was their roost. There were also groups of laughing gulls. (Click on the small images to see a larger version.)

And then we started seeing Whooping Cranes. Even at a distance – they are easy to identify because they are so large…and so white. The young are rusty looking – particularly their heads. Many sightings were of 3 birds: 2 adult birds and a colt; it must have been a good year for increasing the whooping crane population!

There were other birds to see too between whooping crane sightings – roseate spoonbills, green-winged teals, willets, American avocets, more great blue herons, buffleheads, cormorants, an osprey, and reddish egret (that took off as a wave covered the spit of shells the bird was standing on).

I took some closeups of some shells…out of the water at low tide.

I also realized how wakes of boats impact the shoreline…why there are often blocks on the shore to reduce the erosion wakes can cause. It doesn’t take a big or fast-moving boat to cause damaging wakes in smaller channels.

And then we took a break as we headed back to Port Aransas – no more photos until the jetty with the usual brown pelicans.

We got back to the dock with plenty of time before our afternoon field trip for lunch; we then headed back to the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center.

February 24, 2024

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 24, 2024

February 24, 2024/ Gwen Morrison

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.

Surprisingly vibrant color of 12-million-year-old snail shells – Polyenes (includes carotenoids) preserved almost unchanged…and found in fossils.

Asbestos: The strange past of the 'magic mineral' – Asbestos was woven into textiles fit for kings and used for party tricks. One 18th-Century philosopher even slept in a night-cap made from it. It was also used to make the funerary shrouds for monarchs; because it didn't burn, it helped to keep their ashes separated from the rest of the pyre. An account from Ancient Greece describes a golden lamp made for the goddess Athena, which could reportedly burn for a whole year without going out and had a wick made from "Carpathian flax" – thought to be another name for asbestos. In 1899, an English doctor recorded the first confirmed case of a death linked directly to the material – a 33-year-old textile worker who had developed fibrosis of the lungs. In the UK, all asbestos was banned in 1999, but much of the asbestos added before this date remains in place – as buildings degrade, it is posing a significant health risk.

Rise of Peru’s Divine Lords – Hilltop sites in the Andes…early examples of divine lordship - a form of leadership that would endure in Peru for more than 1,000 years.

Amid Record Drop in Fossil Power, Europe Sees Wind Overtake Natural Gas - The E.U. power sector is undergoing a monumental shift - fossil fuels are playing a smaller role than ever as a system with wind and solar as its backbone comes into view. Coal generation fell by 26 percent, while gas generation fell by 15 percent.

Student Design Competition: Integrating Solar and Agriculture - Some 2.8 gigawatts of agrivoltaics exist across the U.S. Many combine solar energy with pollinator habitat and sheep grazing. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is looking for new design proposals from graduate and undergraduate landscape architecture students to push the agrivoltaics envelope!

The Moon Is Shrinking, Causing Moonquakes at a Potential NASA Landing Site - Researchers examined data on moonquakes detected by lunar seismometers, which have been on the moon since Apollo program astronauts left them there more than 50 years ago. They also used mapping data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to identify the telltale creases on the moon. Through modeling, they linked these faults to seismic activity.

Texas Reservoirs Reach Dangerous Lows - In Corpus Christi, on the south Texas coast, authorities last month stopped releasing water aimed at maintaining minimum viable ecology in the coastal wetlands, even as oil refineries and chemical plants remain exempt from water use restrictions during drought. On the lower Texas coast, the Rio Grande has not been flowing consistently, and Colorado River water releases have been minimal as that river faces shortages farther upstream.

Extreme Birding: Gull Watching at the Landfill - You can find gulls around North America (and many parts of the world), including in interior states. At least 28 gulls can be seen in North America, with additional vagrant species showing up from time to time. Individual species look different depending on age and other factors. A gull goes through three feather molts in its first year.

Poisonous Seed Stash Discovered in the Netherlands – Black henbane contained in a hollow goat (or sheep) thigh bone sealed with a plug of black birch bark…from AD 70-200.

Ocean Sponge Skeletons Suggest a More Significant History of Global Warming Than Originally Thought - An analysis of six sea sponges—centuries-old creatures with an internal chemistry that holds secrets about climate history—points to global temperatures already having increased by 1.7 degrees Celsius due to human activity --- that’s more than scientists currently agree upon….so there is a flurry of activity to corroborate the finding.

January 20, 2020

Reeve’s Conchologia iconica

January 20, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

I usually select three eBooks to feature in a monthly post…and I’ll do that in a week or so. Today I want to feature a series of books I found recently on Internet Archive: Conchologia iconica, or, Illustrations of the shells of molluscous animals by Lovell Augustus Reeve. There are 20 volumes (Vol v.01 (1843), Vol v.02 (1843), Vol v.03 (1845), Vol v.04 (1847), Vol v.05 (1849), Vol v.06 (1851), Vol v.07 (1854), Vol v.08 (1855), Vol v.09 (1856), Vol v.10 (1858), Vol v.11 (1859), Vol v.12 (1860), Vol v.13 (1862), Vol v.14 (1864), Vol v.15 (1866), Vol v.16 (1866), Vol v.17 (1870), Vol v.18 (1873), Vol v.19 (1874), and Vol v.20 (1878)) all published in the mid-1800s. The author died in 1865 and the series was continued by George Brettingham Sowerby. Soweby did the plates for most of the volumes. I found a reference about the books that said: It will always remain a standard work, although many of the species which Reeve created are now held to be invalid. That’s probably to be expected given the many years since they were published; science is always learning more. Still – the plates are beautiful and provide a broad view of the variety of shells known at the time. I collected one plate from each volume to use with this post.

The question that I wonder about is how many of the mollusks that produced these shells have gone extinct in the intervening years. How many types of shells represented in the books are no longer grown? The International Union of Conservation of Nature lists 310 recently extinct species.

February 06, 2019

Feathers and Shells at the Beach

February 06, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

It was so rainy during our time in Florida for the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival that we only got to the beach twice and we were time limited because both were with a field trip group. I took pictures of birds but also feathers and shells. Most of the feathers were bedraggled because of the rain even though some were probably relatively fresh.

White was the most common color. I like the windswept curves.

Sometimes the shadow caught my eye and the relative difference between the end feather versus the part closest to the bird’s body that is more down-like.

This feather looked to be in good condition. I wondered if the thinner part of the feather was from wear.

This feather was almost buried in the sand. How long does it take for a feather to decompose?

What an odd feather! The strands of white were very long.

The swirls of strands and fluffiness of the down…a dance of filaments.

In one area that has been roped off for a bit there were a lot of shells…and a bit of sea weed. In other places, the shells were not as numerous because so many people pick up shells.

Most of the shells are broken or polished by the tumbling in the sea.

Some are almost buried in the sand. I didn’t pick up any shells on this trip. Maybe I will next time.

March 27, 2018

Ten Little Celebrations – March 2018

March 27, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

March 2018 had a lot to celebrate; some of the top ten were unexpected.

2018 03 IMG_9397.jpg — The ***Snow Day*** just last week was our first substantial snow of the winter. There had been so many forecasts that didn’t quite pan out that I didn’t bother to buy the makings for snow ice cream like I usually do. We celebrated with just the view and that we didn’t have to get out in the thick of the event.

Beavers at Mt. Pleasant

Two birds with fish at Conowingo. I celebrated that we saw both a bald eagle and a cormorant getting their fish within a relative short period of time after we got to Conowingo.

Another sign of spring – the first pre-K field trip of the season. I enjoy all of the volunteering I do but somehow the youngest children almost always are the highlight of the season.

The HoLLIE classes continued from February into March; each one was a finely-honed learning experience. I was overwhelmed with little celebrations so I picked a bird that I saw on one of the field trips that I had not seen before in our area – a hooded merganser pair.

2013 03 IMG_9064.jpg — The ***shell spiral in my front flowerbed*** was a visual celebration – somehow it made the day for me. I think earlier it had been covered with leaves but after the March winds, its whiteness made it stand out.

I also celebrated that we didn’t lose electrical power in the wind storm like a lot of other neighborhoods did. There was some siding damage and at least one tree down in our neighborhood….but nothing happened to our house.

The miniature iris at Brookside were something I did not expect; I didn’t remember them from previous years. Seeing them blooming among the other spring bulbs was a treat.

2018 03 IMG_9039.jpg — ***Yellow grass*** might not be something to celebrate in other seasons, but the bright color was like a beacon at the end of winter.

Finishing up our 2017 taxes was worth celebrating too. It’s something that happens every year and I’m glad my husband does more of the work…it’s celebration – and relief – when they are done.

March 13, 2018

Spirals

March 13, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Years ago, we found a large shell on a beach (somewhere on the Atlantic…I’m not sure where). It was already showing its spiral interior. I put it in the front flower bed and noticed its whiteness standing out among the brown leaves/seeds from last fall and the cold-battered leaves of some new growth. I don’t remember the pores being as deep on the outer surfaces. That texture is quite a contrast with the smooth interiors. I’ve always liked spirals. Are they a representation of time – back to the past or forward to the future? Or are they a journey to the unknown?

Finding this spiral was a reminder of a pleasant vacation…and a little serendipity to enjoy on a winter day.