Staunton River Star Party

My husband and I spent last Monday and Tuesday at the Staunton River Star Party (held at Staunton River State Park). The park is an International Dark Sky Park….lots more stars visible than in the area where we live. The park prepared well for the event – with star party themed jack-o-lanterns, red cellophane on all windows were white light my leak, and paths marked with red snake lights or small red LEDs on stakes.

The observing field already had a lot of people setting up by the time we got there but we managed to get a spot that was close to one of the electrical hubs – good to be able to run equipment directly and/or easily recharge batteries during the day. We started to unpack and quickly discovered that we had forgotten our tent! Fortunately we did have the tent-like cover for the back of our SUV and some extra tarps. My husband and I managed to sleep inside the car on an air mattress (it helped that he was observing until the wee hours of the morning since the space was a narrow enough that we could only roll over in unison)!

We tied one side of a tarp to the roof rack and used tripods we had brought for our cameras to hold the corners away from the car. The wind came close to knocking the tripods over before we hung heavy equipment bags as weights. Having the tarp helped during the day when it got a bit warm in the bright sunshine.

I took sunrise and sunset pictures too: Sunrise on Tuesday morning. Note the various tents, trailers, awnings and cars…the whole field looked like this with a lattice of drive lanes to provide just enough organization so vehicles could get in and out.

Sunset on Tuesday evening. There were enough clouds at sunset that everyone was looking around for signs of clearing…and it did by the time it was fully dark.

Sunrise Wednesday morning – a few hours before we left. There were quite a few crows greeting the sun and they seemed to like the bare tree – stopping there before moving about and sometimes coming back to perch again for a little while.

The clouds on that last morning looked like they were losing part of themselves as they floated into morning.

The dew was heavy both nights we were at the star party and people generally called it a night before 3 AM. Those that did not have heaters to keep condensation off their mirrors had to stop earlier. I took pictures walking around during the mornings when the telescopes were generally neatly covered.

 

I took one short hike and found more fungi than I expected. There were a few colorful trees as well. Otherwise – I was feeling relaxed and lazy with the flurry of star party activity going on all around me.

Bird’s Nest Fungus

As I hurried back to the car to meet my husband after his walk at Centennial Park I spotted some tiny birds nest fungus in the mulch of a raised bed beside the path near the canoe and paddle boat rentals. Photographing them took a few just minutes.These fungi are only a little larger than a pencil eraser. I noticed their color first

Then some dimples

And finally some ‘eggs’ where the covering had torn away to reveal them in the ‘nest.’ Notice the one at the top middle of the image below that still had part of the covering.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 16, 2015

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.

New app puts the world's biodiversity in the palm of your hand - The Map of Life app makes it easier to identify local wildlife. It’s a location specific reference for amphibians, birds, fishes, mammals, reptiles, turtles, bumblebees, butterflies, dragonflies, and trees. The down side is things you find that are normally in that locality. I’ve already experienced one - a bigleaf magnolia growing in the woods in Patapsco Valley State Park in Maryland. It is a tree that usually grows further south. The app will still provide information but it is not quite as easy as plants/animals that are ‘normal’ for the area.

What happens to our bodies after we die - Maybe some of the concepts in the article are a little familiar from all the CSI programs on television these days….but it’s hard to separate fact from fiction in those programs. This post from the BBC is on ‘fact’ side.

Idle Electronics and Appliances Waste $19 Billion Annually, Study Says - A study done with 70,000 residential customers in California found that 23% of home electricity usage was from always-on but inactive devices. That can’t be good. Appliance designers need to work on reducing that….and maybe consumers need to be content with stoves and microwaves that don’t have clocks!

Harmful algal blooms in the Chesapeake Bay are becoming more frequent - Ugh! Even with all the work being done to reduce the nutrients going into the bay…the growing population of people and animals is overwhelming the progress made.

Everybody Dies: How to Preserve Your Digital Legacy - It is not just about preserving your legacy…it’s also to whoever will be handling things for you. Wills need to include more than they did 50 years ago!

11 Ways to Increase Electric Car Adoption - My next car might be electric. For my day to day driving it would already be acceptable. It would not work for road trips - and that is a problem even though it is only a few weeks a year.

Long-term study on ticks reveals shifting migration patterns, disease risks  with a larger version of the infographic here (click on the image to make it even larger) - Maryland has the dog tick, Lone star tick, and deer tick ---- and Lyme disease…not good. One of the places where I lead hikes is part of a study to identify the diseases ticks carry in the area.

Maryland and Food Self-Sufficiency - More and more people are becoming more aware of where their food is coming from and some are attempting to become locavores. The findings for Maryland are probably pretty typical. The three foods Maryland produces in enough quantity for our entire population are: chicken, lima beans, and watermelon!

Forests at Valley Forge National Historical Park Coming Back After Deer Culling - There are quite a few areas along the east coast that have an overpopulation of deer. I know the forest behind our house has very few small trees because the deer eat the saplings before they grow taller than the deer can browse. I appears that the Valley Forge National Historical Park is having some success with their program…but they are still monitoring to verify that the forest is indeed sustaining itself.

Real Plants and Fungi That Look Like Something from the Monstrous Manual - A series of videos. The Venus Flytrap film is dramatic!

Master Naturalist Training - Week 6

Last Wednesday was the 6th of eight days of training to become a Master Naturalist in Maryland. We managed to go out for a short history walk at Belmont before the rain started. I noticed a lower branch of the English Elm on the slope in front of the house and got this close up of the buds.

Back inside we talked about native and invasive species in Maryland. I’m motivated to think about planting some ‘natives’ at the edge of the forest behind our house. The area has a lot of deer traffic so I may have to protect whatever I plant.  We have big trees but not many samplings because of the heavy browsing. I am starting with two items in a two small areas: ferns in the dampest area of the yard and a spicebush or service berry or winterberry to provide a shrub or understory level plant in the area where it has gotten too shady for grass to grow well. I still love the crocus, snowdrops and daffodils in the spring - even though they are non-native. Our neighbor has an expanding clump of daffodils at the edge of the woods and I enjoy them every spring. Maybe I’ll plant some bulbs next fall around my young understory tree.

In the afternoon the topic was fish. After a short lecture we did several classification exercises with various fishes on newspaper. I appreciate that gloves were provided…and that my pen worked just find to spread the fins and open the mouth! We headed out to the pond; it was cold and we did not get a single fish in the net although we did recognize scat (from our week 3 lecture on mammals). This one had a lot of hair - so a predator - and too big for fox - so probably a coyote. They seemed to frequent the area around the pond.

I also got some images of the bald cypress from the other side of the pond. See the people to the right of the tree…for scale.

Also near the pond are some trees that were planted in protective tubes that seem to be thriving. One had a delicate birds nest from last summer. The ornithology segment of the course is part of the last class.

I did some follow-up work at home from the week 4 lecture on microbes. I made a spore print with a baby bella mushroom I had from the grocery store. It is an easy process: 1) remove any remaining veil covering the gills on the underside of the mushroom and the stem 2) turn it gills down on a piece of paper 3) cover it with an upside down bowl to keep it from disturbed 4) come back in 12+ hours, carefully remove the bowl and mushroom…the spore print will be on the paper. I was surprised at how much moisture the mushroom leaked onto the paper…next time I’ll not used paper that has printing on the other side!

Another follow-up was from week 5. When we went to the stream - we scraped the rocks with a toothbrush and kept the sample of watery debris in the refrigerator for a week. There was no compound microscope in the building for week 6 as originally planned so I took the sample home to look at with my microscope. And there were living diatoms in the sample! I same two different kinds right away….and will look again sometime this weekend.

Ten Little Celebrations - March 2015

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are my top 10 for March 2015.

Snow Day. It was pretty…and I enjoyed it - but I was ready for it to be the last one of this season.

A Muddy Hike. Who knew it would feel go to be outdoors on a cold cloudy day - squishing through the mud to find animal tracks. It felt good to get out of the classroom.

A March Day. It seemed like there have not been very many of the sunny, breezy, warmer days yet this year but there was one - and I celebrated it between the recurring waves of cold weather.

Fungi of Belmont. The snow had just melted and the jelly fungi were making fruiting bodies - a first bit a spring color to celebrate.

Magnolia puzzle. It is sometimes challenging to identify something with just dead leaves from last season and buds….I am planning some hikes to watch the trees flower this spring to make the final ID.

Brookside on the edge of spring. There was not a lot blooming last weekend ---- but there was a hint of the season. It will be worth a weekly trek to celebrate new flowers.

New hiking boots. So comfy! They felt great as soon as I put them on. I have worn them on one hike already - just to confirm that they are ready for a day long hike. The old ones still have some life in them - but I’ll wear the new ones for the longer hikes.

Last class of the week. March has been a busy month for classes…sometimes 3 days a week. I generally like class - but I’m saturated and celebrating when the last one ends for the week.

A day at home. I celebrated that I had no reason to leave home on one of the icy days early in the month. It seemed like I had a commitment to be somewhere else every other day that week!

Mailing books. I celebrated mailing off books to family far away. It harkened back to when I was mailing off books frequently via paperbackswap and I enjoyed the trek to the post office with my packages.

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 28, 2015

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.

Pollinator Partnership Planting Guides - Planning a garden? How about giving the pollinators in your area a boost too? This site has a planting guide for ‘ecoregions’ in the US - accessed by entering your zipcode!

A Wet and Wild look Inside the 'Mushroom Houses' Of a Fungi Farm - Ever wonder how mushrooms you buy in the grocery store are grown? This post includes a short video. If we had household gardener robots - would you grow mushrooms as well as vegetables?

The Surprising, Depressing Reason Why City-Dwelling Robins Sing at Night - When I saw the picture at the front of this post, my first thought was “that’s not a robin.” But it is - a European robin. I was thinking of the North American variety. It is disturbing that our lights are messing up circadian rhythms - our own and other organisms.

What is the oldest city in the world? - It is surprisingly controversial. How many of the possibilities in the article have your heard about before?

Deconstructing mental illness through ultradian rhythms - A study that suggests that regular meals and early bedtimes may lead to a better life and prevent the onset of mental illness. The study discovered a new dopamine-based rhythm generator. The full paper is available here.

Retracing the roots of fungal symbioses - Mycorrhizal fungi live on the roots of host plants where they exchange sugars that plants produce for mineral nutrients that fungi absorb from the soil. It is hard to visualize - and often not well understood. Now genomics is being applied. Climate change will put whole new stresses on symbiotic relationships. I hope the knowledge gained from this type of research will help us maintain or increase food production as the environment changes.

Liquid Biopsy - Fast DNA-sequencing machines are leading to simple blood tests for cancer - There are some technologies that are so appealing…that you wish they were already available. But it is not easy. So far - the work is for specific types of cancers. The ability to do faster DNA sequencing is improving the prospects.

Ocean circulation change: Sea level spiked for two years along Northeastern North America - Climate change and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)…most of the models predict a weakening of the AMOC over the 21st century and it appears that there was changed in the 2009-2010 time frame.

Computational Anthropology Reveals How the Most Important People in History Vary by Culture - This study looked at articles about significant people in the English, German, Chinese and Japanese language versions of Wikipedia as a data source.

These Brilliantly Colored Bolivian Buildings Look Like Alien Spaceships - Wow! Almost too much color…but certainly different than the majority of buidlings.

3 free eBooks - February 2015

It was hard to pick my three favorites this month. I settled on three topics: Mayans, Fungi, and Chinese Painting.

Maudslay, Alfred Percival. Biologia Centrali-Americana, or, Contributions to the knowledge of the fauna and flora of Mexico and Central America. London: R. H. Porter and Dulau & Co. 1902. Four volumes available from the Internet Archive: volume 1, volume 2, volume 3, volume 4. These books focus on the archeology of a region - primarily Mayan - in the late 1800s that has gotten more attention over the past century. There are lot photographs (sometimes with people to help understand the scale of the ruins) and drawings. There are also a few color plates. The photograph at right is quite well know (it’s in the Wikipedia entry for him and is in many textbooks). Many of the ruin were roughly cleared of vegetation or still partially obscured at the time Maudslay documented them.

Banning, Mary Elizabeth. Fungi of Maryland. Available via the New York State Museum here. This is an online exhibit more than a book but I am including it here to show off the beautiful illustrations done by Mary Banning. She began her work in 1868 and continued for over 20 years producing 174 detailed 13” x 15” watercolor illustrations. The online exhibit includes 48 of them. Unfortunately - she was unable to get her work published; she sent it to the New York State Museum as a ‘safe place’ in 1890; it was found again 91 years later in 1981.

Barnhart, Richard M. Peach Blossom Spring Gardens and Flowers in Chinese Painting. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1983. Available from the Internet Archive here. Some of the images are very colorful and some are muted. I particularly liked the muted image of the lotuses.