Road Trip to Dallas in Late December

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My monthly trek to Dallas and back is never boring! This time I left at 6 AM (normal for me) expecting darkness but dry weather. It turned out to be foggy. The density of the fog seemed to increase as I headed west from my home near Springfield MO toward Oklahoma on I-44. It was reassuring to see taillights ahead or other lights along the road…and I appreciated my navigation system since the usual landmarks were not visible. The traffic was light enough that I was surrounded my darkness and fog for short periods --- but then some lights would appear out of the gloom, and I realized the fog had not thickened to the point of blocking out all light!

There was no color at sunrise. The fog and clouds blocked the light although it was obvious that it was lighter. Driving became a little more fraught because some vehicles did not have their lights on (and they really should have). I almost passed the QT in Muskogee where I had planned to stop because they did not have any external lighting on either. The fog finally dissipated by the time I got to McAllester OK – which is about 2/3 of the way to Dallas!

I stopped at the Texas Welcome Center on US-75 – finally all the way through Oklahoma. I took a few pictures of the plantings. It appeared that the leaves had just fallen from the oak trees.

When I got to the assisted living home, my dad had just finished lunch and was ready to go for a walk. It was about 68 degrees and sunny…very pleasant for a late December day. He wore a light jacket. We made our way slowly around the block seeing other neighborhood residents enjoying the warmer day. He is the only resident of the assisted living home that is still taking walks into neighborhood; he is using a walker with 4 wheels which is easier to maneuver on the rough pavement than his 2 wheeled version. We avoided puddles with rafts of wet leaves (mostly oak).

When we returned, we finished a puzzle that he had started with other visitors. I took a picture just after we finished it ….with his 93-year-old hands.

I visited again the next morning – making the frame of the next puzzle and talking to him while he ate breakfast.

The drive home was easier – sunshine…no fog. I saw an osprey, 2 bald eagles (not at the same place), soaring hawks…and a red-tailed hawk that was gliding down to the side of the road with its tail spread. I was tired when I got home but realized that my PT is paying off: my back was not hurting!

Different in 2025

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What am I anticipating being different in 2025?

It is a better thought process for me than making a list of resolutions…even though to make some of the ‘anticipations’ become reality it will take some intentional action on my part which might be very much like the focus a resolution can have. But I am noticing that what I have on my list this year are things that have been available in some form to me before; I am simply making the decision to follow through…and enjoy the ride.

Last year I enjoyed the Missouri Master Naturalist (MMN) training and in 2025 I am going to explore the opportunities associated with being an MMN. I’ll be organizing the monthly programs for the chapter and ramping up my volunteering. At the end of 2024 it appeared that 20 hours of volunteering per month would be feasible…and I might discover that I can do more during some months of the year.

My husband has pointed out that the local Audubon Society chapter has great field trips and we are already planning to go to 2 in early 2025….and more of those will probably become our norm.

I initiated some Missouri geology themed day trips in December (1st one was to the Joplin History and Mineral Museum and Grand Falls) and want to do more in 2025. We’re planning to go to Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge in February for birding….but there will be geology there too (it in the part of the state that was glaciated)! Maybe I will make a day trip to the Ed Clark Museum of Missouri Geology in Rolla in January. I’ve always wanted to take a basic geology class but never could fit it into my schedule back when I was in college…so I am registering for one during the 2025 spring semester at Missouri State University; maybe they will have a field trip or two.

I hope I can finally renew my friendship with a childhood friend (we’ve been exchanging Christmas cards for years but haven’t seen each other since we were in our teens). We have been communicating via text over the past year but then events in our families made it challenging to reconnect in person. Maybe it will happen in 2025.

The physical therapy I am getting now is beginning to yield positive results and I am anticipating that a lot of the activities I want to do are going to be easier for me physically…so I am very motivated to do what they tell me and continue a routine of exercises that will sustain the improvement.

I am looking forward to the differences from 2024 that I am anticipating!

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 4, 2025

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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.

Uplift Underway in Finland’s Kvarken Archipelago - Some 20,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum, the Baltic Sea sat under a sheet of ice as thick as 10,000 feet. Since the glaciers receded and the weight was lifted, the land has been bouncing back. The rates of uplift, known as glacial isostatic adjustment or isostatic rebound, in this region are among the highest on Earth. By one estimate, land about twice the size of Central Park in New York City rises from the sea each year along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, the Baltic Sea’s northern arm.

Silent Threat: America’s Abandoned Oil Wells and the Danger Beneath - Abandoned oil and gas wells across the U.S. pose significant environmental, health, and safety risks, with many leaking hazardous gases and chemicals, highlighting regulatory failures and the immense financial burden of remediation.

Lymphoedema: The 'hidden' cancer side-effect no one talks about - Lymphoedema is a chronic, incurable condition that causes excessive swelling due to a damaged lymphatic system, a network in the body responsible for maintaining fluid balance in tissues. It occurs when lymph fluid is unable to properly drain from the body, due to a dysfunction or injury to the lymphatic system. The condition is a common consequence of certain cancers and the treatments for them. It can also be a genetic condition, which people are born with, or it can be the result of injury, obesity, or infection. There are some clinicians who regard lymphoedema as an overlooked pandemic due to the significant chronic public health problem it poses globally.

Hazelnut DNA Study Challenges Misconceptions About Indigenous Land Use in British Columbia - Starting some 7,000 years ago, Indigenous people actively cultivated hazelnuts across the continent, disproving the settler-colonial notion that Indigenous peoples were simply hunter-gatherers. People were actively transplanting and cultivating hazelnuts hundreds of kilometers from their place of origin. People were moving hazelnut around and selectively managing it to the point that it increased genetic diversity.

Extreme Heat May Cause People to Age Faster - Researchers looked at such aging markers in 3,800 Americans over the age of 55, comparing the data with local weather records. They found that people living in places with more hot days tended to have more genetic markers of age.

An inexpensive fix for California's struggling wildflowers - California's native wildflowers are being smothered by layers of dead, invasive grasses. Simply raking these layers can boost biodiversity and reduce fire danger.

The Ten Most Significant Science Stories of 2024 – From Smithsonian Magazine.

Fluorinated “forever chemicals” and where to find them – Infographic and text. Studies have linked PFOA to some health conditions including cancers and hormone disruption. There’s also still plenty we don’t know about their potential effects. PFOAs are human-made compounds which do not occur naturally, so we’re only seeing the effects of their accumulation in the past decades.

Brighten Your Day with These 15 Photos of Beautiful Balloons from Around the World – Mexico, India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Turkey, Spain, and the US (Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Wyoming).

How an Extreme Combination of Fog and Air Pollution Brought London to a Standstill and Resulted in Thousands of Fatalities - On December 5, 1952 (a little more than a year before I was born) as cold weather in London prompted residents to burn more cheap coal, a high-pressure wind system known as an anticyclone settled over the city, trapping cold air beneath warm air. Pollution from coal fires, diesel buses and factories could not travel up in the atmosphere, instead hovering in a deadly, stagnant smog. When the Great Smog of 1952 finally lifted on December 9, 4,000 people were dead from the effects of the extreme pollution. Retrospective assessments estimate that the number of fatalities could be almost triple that. While the government’s response was sluggish at first, the Clean Air Act of 1956, passed in response to the Great Smog, heavily regulated the burning of coal and established smoke-free urban areas throughout England. In the years that followed, a host of other industrial nations were inspired to follow suit.

eBotanical Prints – December 2025

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Twenty more books were added to my botanical print eBook collection in December - available for browsing on Internet Archive. They cover a range of botanical topics: medicinal plants (9 volumes), ferns (2 volumes), plants of China (2 volumes), and fungi of Scotland (7 volumes).  Overall - the 20 books were published over less than 100 years (1760-1852).

My list of eBotanical Prints books now totals 3,023 eBooks I’ve browsed over the years. The whole list can be accessed here. Click on any sample image below to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume where there are a lot more botanical illustrations to browse.

Enjoy the December 2024 eBotanical Prints!

Plantes de chine * Buc'hoz, Pierre Joseph * sample image * 1760

Herbier ou collection des plantes médicinales de la Chine d'après un manuscrit peint et unique qui se trouve dans la Bibliothèque de l'Empereur de la Chine * Buc'hoz, Pierre Joseph * sample image * 1760

Icones filicum ad eas potissimum species illustrandas destinata V1 * Hooker, William Jackson; Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1831

Icones filicum ad eas potissimum species illustrandas destinata V2 * Hooker, William Jackson; Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1831

Flora Edinensis, or, A description of plants growing near Edinburgh * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1824

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V1 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1823

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V2 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1824

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V3 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1825

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V4 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1826

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V5 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1826

Scottish cryptogamic flora, or Coloured figures and descriptions of cryptogamic plants, belonging chiefly to the order Fungi V6 * Greville, Robert Kaye * sample image * 1828

Icones plantarum medico-oeconomico-technologicarum cum earum fructus ususque descriptione V1 * Vietz, Ferdinand Bernhard; Alberti, Ignaz * sample image * 1800

Icones plantarum medico-oeconomico-technologicarum cum earum fructus ususque descriptione V2 * Vietz, Ferdinand Bernhard; Alberti, Ignaz * sample image * 1804

Icones plantarum medico-oeconomico-technologicarum cum earum fructus ususque descriptione V3 * Vietz, Ferdinand Bernhard; Alberti, Ignaz * sample image * 1806

Flora medico-farmaceutica V1 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1847

Flora medico-farmaceutica V2 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1847

Flora medico-farmaceutica V3 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1848

Flora medico-farmaceutica V4 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1850

Flora medico-farmaceutica V5 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1850

Flora medico-farmaceutica V6 * Cassone, Felice * sample image * 1852

2024 Festival of the Cranes Last Hurrah

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This is the last post about our road trip to the2024 Festival of the Cranes in New Mexico in December! It is mainly about our trip home. My husband was driving again so I could take pictures!

We left after the morning with the falconer (peregrines and Harris’s Hawks) so the sun was almost overhead when we passed through Albuquerque NM. I hadn’t noticed the big pots between the two directions of the interstate when we can through in the other direction. I did remember the big aloe/yucca sculpture perched on a ledge above the highway – and was pleased that I managed to photograph it.

Santa Rosa NM was our stop again for the night and we left early the next morning for the long drive back to Missouri. We were near Tucumcari for the sunrise. The clouds and the vegetation along the highway made for a great photographic opportunity.

We were lucky that the clouds were thick when the sun popped above the horizon – no painfully bright sunshine in our eyes!

We saw the wind turbines in the panhandle of Texas again and a Route 66 mosaic in the rest stop bathroom.

Later in the day, there was Tulsa highway art.

We were glad to be home again but are still savoring our December time in New Mexico.

Previous Festival of the Cranes posts

Zentangle® – December 2024

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31 tiles for the 31 days of December.

They are all presented as square tiles this month. I segregated the ones I made in New Mexico for this first group of 12.

The rest were made mostly at home. I am using a lot of different colors of card stock…mostly black or white pens although there is a smattering of other colors.

Making Zentangle tiles almost every day is rewarding…and a way to create islands of calm in otherwise hectic days.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. “Zentangle” is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Joplin History and Mineral Museum

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My daughter and I picked a sunny day before Christmas for a ‘field trip’ to the Joplin History and Mineral Museum. It was the first of my planned geology field trips in the coming months; as soon as I realized that the Missouri Master Naturalist training did not include a geology segment, I started thinking about how I could educate myself and field trips are probably my favorite options.

Joplin has a lead-mining history so many of the minerals on display include galena (black cubes usually). There were big chunks of rock and crystals. The smaller items were in glass enclosed cases around the edge of the room…large pieces on stands in the center. The labeling was well-done with numbers by the specimen and then signage nearby with the information about the specimen.

On the landing of the stairs was a case of Missouri fossils and ancient Native American artifacts. I liked the poster of different types of arrowheads.

The history side of the museum included a cookie cutter museum. I was intrigued by a circular one from Mexico with multiple shapes inside….very little dough to roll out again. They used a set of state shaped cookie cutters as part of the transition to the Route 66 part of the museum.

There was a room with models of circuses and a Victorian doll house. The doll house has plastic over the open side…but it looked like the model dog had run around and knocked over things (the Christmas tree on its side…a book and lamp pushed off a table); I told the person at the desk and we both chuckled. The doll house has had the plastic barrier on it for a long time, but the house has been moved recently and the jostling might have been enough to knock over the items.

There was also a display of the very destructive 2011 tornado in Joplin which tried to show how destructive tornados can be. The twisted muffin tin was the first item that caught and held my attention. Not far away there was a tree that had been splintered. I read more about the event when I got home and discovered that the tornado’s upheaval of the soils along its route caused re-contamination from lead mining remnants in southern Joplin…so the natural disaster recovery had a linkage to the city’s lead mining history too.

Outside there was a bench painted with wildflowers and towers of Missouri rocks. There was a metal sculpture that was interesting too.

My daughter and I had a pleasant lunch at Los Primos Mexican Grill in Joplin….sharing guacamole at the beginning and flan at the end of the meal.

Our next stop was Grand Falls – not far off I-44 west of Joplin. The lower falls is Grand Falls Chert, at 20 to 30 foot think bed of pure chert in an area otherwise dominated by limestone. The chert is extremely resistant to erosion because it is made of silica. The falls is the state’s broadest continuous flowing waterfall.

On the way home toward Springfield, my daughter looked closely at the road cut at mile marker 27.0 as I drove by and saw that the Chesapeake Fault Zone displaces the beds by a few feet toward the western end of road cut on the north side of I-44.

Both the Grand Falls and Chesapeake Fault Zone geology minutes were prompted by a few paragraphs from Roadside Geology of Missouri by Charles G. Spencer.

Overall – a good first ‘geology’ field trip.

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2024

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December has so many big celebrations. My little ones ended up not being as associated as usual with the big ones. Half the celebrations were at Festival of the Cranes…perhaps because my husband and I were so glad to be there again after a long hiatus beginning with the COVID years.

First frost. I celebrated noticing frost crystals on a car next to mine in the parking lot of the clinic where I go for physical therapy….and photographing them!

Warm drinks on cold days. Hot chocolate is my favorite, and I celebrated figuring out that the cocoa will dissolve better in a small amount of hot water before adding the other ingredients. I enjoy a cup every morning. Hot cider is my other hot drink on cold days.

PT exercises for the Road. I anticipated asking my therapist for some exercises I could do during our road trip to New Mexico…and celebrated that they worked!

Easier drive than expected to New Mexico. My husband I celebrated that there was no heavy traffic or construction along our route during the long day of driving from Missouri to New Mexico. It was a great beginning for our Festival of the Cranes experience.

Cranes at Sunset. We celebrated two great sunsets photographing cranes. The first one was my favorite because we thought the clouds were going to block too much of the sun at first…and then a hole appeared at the perfect time.

Bluebirds and green heron. Campuses are quiet places in the early morning…great places to see some birds – at least in the case of New Mexico Tech in Socorro. We also saw a great horned owl!

Harris’s hawk. These are probably my favorite raptors because they hunt in groups…are beautiful birds. I celebrated seeing two of them at close range with their falconer.

Sunrise in Tucumcari. As we headed back toward Missouri in the early morning, the sun was rising as we neared Tucumcari, NM. The clouds were in perfect position to keep the sun from shining directly in our eyes and the color (and reflection of color) spectacular.

Red velvet cake. Celebrating just the cake – no icing!

Joplin Mineral and History Museum. A day trip with my daughter…celebrated the time to talk, the museum (interesting display of minerals along with galena which was mined in Joplin), and the Mexican food for lunch.

Zooming – December 2024

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20 images – using the camera’s zoom to fill the frame. The moon in a dark sky, sandhill cranes at sunset, a Japanese lantern with yellow ginkgo leaves around its base. There are lots of favorites in this set for me.

Themes for the zoomed images of December: fall/winter and birds.

Locations: Springfield, Missouri and Socorro, New Mexico.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 28, 2024

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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.

5 New Year’s Resolutions for Your Garden – All 5 are good ideas! I am on my second year of ‘turn an area of turf grass into a native garden.’ If the native trees/shrugs I planted last fall survive…it won’t be hard at all to reduce some turf in 2025. I haven’t used pesticides since we moved to Missouri and we already use electric or hand-powered tools. We have a bird bath. I am not at 70% native plants – yet. That one could be hard although I am going making some progress; I will eliminate a Japanese barberry and forsythia in the spring to make way for more native plantings.

Best of 2024 – Square Meter Prairie Photos – Macro photographs from The Prairie Ecologist.

Scientists Unlock the Secrets of Crocodile Skin and Its Irregular, Mystifying Patterns – Research that discovered that the uniqueness of crocodiles’ head scales is driven from mechanical processes, such as growth rate and skin stiffness, rather than gene expression.

The Case of The Missing Cinders from Yellowstone's Cinder Pool - What happened to the cinders that used to float atop Cinder Pool in the One Hundred Spring Plain area of Norris Geyser Basin? Cinder Pool was one of the few known cinder-producing pools in the world. Using historical water chemistry data, the pH (4.1 ± 0.2) of Cinder Pool was fairly constant from 1947 to 2015, and the sulfate concentration was relatively low (80 ± 20 mg/L). Cinders were last observed in 2018. By April 2019, the pool was lacking cinders and had become significantly more acidic, with the pH dropping to 2.6 and the sulfate concentration increasing to 350 mg/L. Cinders were no longer being generated, and the appearance of the pool changed drastically. Dynamic Yellowstone!

Animals That Turn White in Winter Face a Climate Challenge – There are some snowshoe hares that stay brown during winter…and they may be surviving better in areas that are now getting less snow in the winter. Animals that are adapted to winter by turning white…might find the adaptation a hazard if there is no snow!

Natural disasters killed thousands around the world, caused billions in damage in 2024 - In the United States alone, there have been at least 24 weather-related disasters that caused more than $1 billion in damages each according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Since 1980, the annual average number of events is 8.5. When counting the most recent five years alone -- 2019 through 2023 -- that average increases to 20.4 events per year. The cost of climate change is increasing around the world…impacting everyone.

The global divide between longer life and good health - Life expectancy, or lifespan, increased from 79.2 to 80.7 years in women and from 74.1 to 76.3 years in men between 2000 and 2019, according to WHO estimates. However, the number of years those people were living in good health did not correspondingly increase. The average global gap in lifespan versus healthspan was 9.6 years in 2019, the last year of available statistics. That represents a 13% increase since 2000.

Scientists Just Dissected the World’s Rarest Whale in New Zealand - Only seven spade-toothed whales have ever been identified, and the species has never been seen alive. When a 16-foot, 3,000-pound carcass washed ashore on the South Island of New Zealand in July; it was in remarkably good condition and appeared in a region of New Zealand that allowed researchers to perform the first-ever dissection of the species. The research and dissection process was under the guidance of both scientists and members of local Māori tribes on the South Island. Some discoveries: vestigial teeth, 9 stomach chambers, and head trauma was cause of death.

Interior Department Signed 69 Tribal Co-Stewardship Agreements In 2024 - The agreements cover a range of ways designed to bring tribes into management of public lands. That includes efforts by Interior to expand bison habitat and entering into bison co-management agreements with tribal leaders, shifting historic preservation responsibilities from federal agencies to tribal agencies, carefully weighing the impact of federal agency action on sacred sites, and expanding and reforming self-governance as part of the Practical Reforms and Other Goals to Reinforce the Effectiveness of Self-Governance and Self Determination for Indian Tribes (PROGRESS) Act.

Study likely to change standard of care for deadly strokes - Endovascular therapy, or EVT, -- a minimally invasive surgery performed inside the blood vessels -- is 2 ½ times more likely than standard medical management to achieve a positive outcome after vertebrobasilar stroke that affects the back of the brain, including the brain stem.

An early 1900s collection of art from hunting days in the Himalayas

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Lieutenant Lionel Bickersteth Rundall’s The Ibex of Sha-ping was published in 1915, the year after he died at the beginning of World War I in the trenches at Festubert, France because of a blundered order. He was 24 years old. The joy he must have felt in the Himalayas during his years in India shows in his artwork included in the book….a glowing reminder of a life that ended too soon. The book is freely available on Internet Archive and is well worth browsing.

The ibex of Sha-ping, and other Himalayan studies

Raptors and Photography

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Our last session at the Festival of the Cranes was titled “Deadly Beauty Photography” with falconer and wildlife rehabilitator Matt Mitchell. We saw three different trained raptors. The falconer had raised all the birds from their birth.

The first was a hybrid gyrfalcon and several different peregrine subspecies. It was a challenge to follow in flight, so I was thrilled to get even one good picture. The others are portraits which are still better photos of raptor sightings in the wild. My favorite image is the one with the falconer and the bird…obviously a bond there.

The native peregrine was the second bird and I didn’t manage an image of it in flight. The one of the peregrine on the ground shows how it hides its meal from prying eyes!

My favorite raptors were the pair of Harris’s hawks (sisters). The species hunts in groups. We moved to a location with more shrubs to give the birds places to perch. The two responded to prompts (and treats) flying around the area…plenty of opportunity to get them in flight.

One of the birds discovered at a young age that she got a treat very quickly if she perched on a person’s head…so she has done it since. I took a picture of my shadow when she was on my head. We had been instructed to wear a hat to the session…for just this situation!

It was a great finale to our Festival of the Cranes 2024 experience.

Previous Festival of the Cranes posts

Mission churches around Socorro NM

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We signed up for a tour of mission churches while we were in Socorro, New Mexico for Festival of the Cranes. These are small historic Catholic churches that served small communities. The first one was the church in San Antonio NM which we had driven by on our way to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge; its foundation is so unstable that it cannot be visited or restored. At some point it will be demolished. Fortunately, the others were in better shape and arrangements had been made for the caretakers to be there to open the building and talk about it. Vandalism has caused the security precautions of locking the buildings otherwise…unlike earlier in their history when they were open to all. None of them offer mass more than once a month…and only one had bathrooms.

The first one we were able to go inside was the San Jose Mission. The community has recently completed a renovation…putting tile on the floor and repairing the walls. There was an old organ with foot pedals; the caretaker said it had not been played anytime recently; a historian that was with our group was familiar with the type of instrument and was able to demonstrate that it was still functional…probably worth refurbishing and playing!

The second mission, La Sagrada Familia, was recently rebuilt. It was being renovated when one of the walls collapsed – making the project a rebuild rather than a renovation. They reused as much as they could from the original building – balcony railing, beams, wood doors, some of the windows. The new building is not as long or tall as the previous one.

The third mission we visited was San Lorenzo. It has a bell near the parking lot. The light through the stain glass windows were making patterns on the window ledges.

All the mission churches were built by the communities they served and often the original artwork was carved my regional artists that specialized in religious art. Many of those original carvings are gone either replaced when high quality plaster sculptures were available or lost to vandalism. The mission churches were originally staffed with priests…open to the community all the time – before it was feasible for people to travel to a larger church for services. There are cemeteries associated with the mission churches as well.

The tour was a good way to experience a slice of history of the area…and learn about the challenge to preserve these places…keep them relevant to the communities now.

Previous Festival of the Cranes posts

Sandhill Cranes at Sunset

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The winter sunrise and sunset with sandhill cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge are always good photography challenges. We had two sunset opportunities during our trip in early December for the Festival of the Cranes. The first day was cloudy but there was a ‘hole’ in the clouds at just the right time to light up a group of cranes. The problem was the cranes were grouped together…and chowing down rather than settling for the night. The birds were in one of the flooded ‘wet soil’ farming units that had plenty of small invertebrates and seeds in the shallow water for them to eat. The cranes were up and own…focused on feeding…and the stubble made for a messy water surface.

I didn’t ever find a solitary crane free of stubble. The image below was a closest as I got…but I still like the silhouette of the bird…balance on one leg…surrounded by the orange glint of sunset on the water.

The next opportunity was on a different pond, and we arrived well before sunset. I got a zoomed shot of a female Northern Shoveler than I liked…and turned around to get a picture of the moon. The idea was to use the color of sunset and then – perhaps – do some photography with the light of the moon.

The sun went down, and I realized that the water was shallow enough that the surface was not going to be a smooth in this location either.

I opted to try to photograph cranes as they flew in to roost…backlit by the waning sunset. I didn’t get good enough at it until the color was mostly gone. The moon was bright behind me.

The cranes were moving about their roost pond but not so intent on feeding as the previous day/location. My favorite picture was one of the last that I took….with two cranes moving through silver water.

Other Birds at Bosque del Apache

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There are birds other than cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge too. They didn’t seem quite as numerous as when we were there pre-Covid…but we didn’t spend as much time looking for them either.

In a trip around the wildlife loop, we saw Northern Pintails, Buffleheads, Northern Shovellers, American Wigeon, White-crowned Sparrows, Sandhill Cranes, Snow Geese, and Ruddy Ducks.

Winter plants/landscapes are also abundant…water, mountains, cottonwoods, cattails….knobby ice on the surface of shallow ponds.

There are two bird feeder areas near the refuge visitor center. Sparrows (white crowned and house), Gambel’s quail, starlings, Red-Winged blackbirds, Curved Bill Thrasher, Spotted Towhee, and White-winged Dove were frequent visitors either on or under the feeders!

My favorite non-crane sighting was the Spotted Towhee.

Previous Festival of the Cranes posts

Bosque del Apache Fly Out

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Arriving at the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge in the early morning when it is still dark…quiet…the birds just beginning to wake up. The sandhill cranes are dark ovoid silhouettes on the water that shimmers with the pre-sunrise light.

Ribbons of snow geese begin flying in. They seem to be up and about before the cranes in the cold (temperature in the 20s and ice on the ponds). The water begins to look like gold foil. Something startles the geese and they rise up from the water…before settling down again. The cranes sleep on although they might be beginning to stir. The noise of the geese overwhelms their noises.

We moved to the other roost pond and the cranes there are already beginning to “talk” – stepping up onto the ice from the water where they stood – close together – overnight. They begin to line up for flying out to find breakfast…leaving in small groups.

Some of the cranes sleep on while others stretch their wings…and head out.

The cottonwood tree on the other side of the pond looks like it has lost some central limbs since the last time I was here (pre-Covid).

And still there are sleepy heads.

I maximize the zoom on my camera…and photograph a sparrow on the other side the pond…feathers fluffed against the cold.

The cranes stretch out their necks before they fly out….and sometimes slip a bit on the ice as they try to take off from the slippery surface. It is not always a graceful lift-off.

I took some vegetation pictures…the remnants from last summer.

A few mornings later…we were back for another fly out. It was in the 20s again and we couldn’t stay as long. All the cranes in the group seemed more awake and vocal….maybe more anxious to leave the pond!

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 21, 2024

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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.

6 Things You Should Never Wear on a Flight – Most of the suggestions are good for road trips as well.

What Your Last Name Says About Your History – Interesting…a different perspective on names.

Photos of the Week – December 6, 2024 – Winter sunrise/sunset beauty on the prairie.

German Archaeologists Discovered the Iconic Bust of Nefertiti in an Ancient Egyptian Sculptor’s Studio – One of the most famous of ancient Egyptian artifacts…’ownership’ has been questioned from the beginning.

Lifesaver for wild bees: The importance of quarries – Research done in Germany, but Missouri has considerable limestone…perhaps we should be striving to keep quarries open rather than overgrown with woody plants. Many wild bees in Germany and in Missouri nest in the ground and often need open, sunny areas to do so.

Archaeologists discover key tool that helped early Americans survive the ice age - Tiny artifacts unearthed at a Wyoming site where a mammoth was butchered 13,000 years ago are revealing intriguing details about how the earliest Americans survived the last ice age. Archaeologists found 32 needle fragments made from animal bone buried almost 15 feet (nearly 5 meters). Analyzing the bone collagen of the needles revealed they were created from the bones of red foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, lynx, the now-extinct American cheetah, and hares or rabbits!

Here Are 2024’s Best Northern Lights Photographs - From a purple and green sky in Canada's Banff National Park to an unexpected, fiery orange appearance in Namibia, this year's auroras took us by surprise. While called the Northern Lights Photographer of the Year, there are plenty of Southern Lights represented in this year's collection too.

The Arctic Could Have Its First ‘Ice-Free’ Day by as Early as 2027 - The first summer on record in which practically all the sea ice in the Arctic melts could occur much earlier than previously expected. In a new study, scientists warn that the ever-increasing greenhouse emissions may bring us closer to an ice-free Arctic by the end of the decade.

Water Infrastructure, Disasters, Water Scarcity & Security, Potable Water, & Conflict – A post about what happened to Ashville, NC. Water-related disasters currently make up over 90% of all disasters on Earth, with record-breaking floods and droughts making headlines around the world. Over the past ten years, the number of fatalities from these catastrophes has doubled. Climate change, warming surface water temperatures, and more aggressive hurricanes making their way up to some of the planet’s oldest mountains in North Carolina have all contributed to a growing awareness that rising temperatures have disrupted the entire water infrastructure of the Appalachians.

Meet the Mysterious Woman Who Shaped MoMA – A biographical post about Lillie P. Bliss and the creation of the Museum of Modern Art as an exhibition focused on her opens.

James Bolton’s Birds

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James Bolton was a naturalist in the 1700s that published books about plants, fungi, and birds. He was a talented illustrator. The week’s eBook is his book about birds. He was a keen observer of the birds themselves and their nests. The book is available on Internet Archive.

 Harmonia ruralis, or, An essay towards a natural history of British song birds V1 and V2

James Bolton’s botanical books were included in my monthly botanical posts for August (flowers and ferns) and September (mushrooms) 2024.

New Mexico Tech Morning

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Our second morning in New Mexico started at the New Mexico Tech campus for an early morning look for birds. Before it was light enough for photography we heard, then saw, a great horned owl perched on a roof of a building. There were robins in the exotic pines.

As it got a little brighter, we headed to a pond and immediately saw western bluebirds!

There were ring neck ducks there as well…and American wigeons.

I took a couple of non-bird images – art and a pinecone among leaves. The campus has more trees that the general area around Socorro (they must water more).

There was a lone pied grebe.

A juvenile green heron was a surprise since it was in the 20s; most of the species has migrated further south already.

The most numerous birds were the interbreed mallards/domestic ducks. One had a tuft of feathers on its head that looked like a toupee!

Macro Photography in Bosque del Apache Desert Arboretum

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The Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge’s Desert Arboretum is near the visitor center…and was the location of our first formal activity of the Festival of the Cranes last week: macro photography.

I started out with my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) and a tripod. I learned very quickly that the tripod was too heavy and unwieldy for me. I struggled to get myself positioned without stepping into the beds to get close enough to the plants. The macro lens that I’d added to the camera did not work well enough for me either,  so I reverted to hand held and using the zoom from just far enough away to allow the camera to focus. I photographed cactus spines, screwbean mesquite…white crowned sparrows.

I had the best results with my phone (iPhone 15 Pro Max). Cactus fruits and spines dominated but I also managed to photograph some creosote bush seed pods and some bark. I challenged myself to pay closer attention to focus and background along with overall composition.

The session would have been more enjoyable had a opted to bring my collapsible stool so I would not have been standing the whole time (my back was painful by the end)….a lesson learned that I will (hopefully) remember for next time.  

Previous Festival of the Cranes posts