Gleanings of the Week Ending June 11, 2016

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 Climate Spiral – A visualizing of average global temperatures. Do this little exercise with the graphic – if you live to be 100, how much hotter will the planet be than when you were born? For me – it is about 2 degrees…almost 3 degrees hotter than in 1850.

Climate change poses threat to World Heritage sites - Melting glaciers, rising seas, increasing wildfires and harsher droughts….these could diminish the value of protected sites and even make them unsuitable for World Heritage designation. That would have a domino effect into local economic development, in particular the tourism sector.

Bionic leaf turns sunlight into liquid fuel – And at a higher efficiency than the fastest-growing plants!

Washington grapples with a thorny question: What is a GMO anyway?  and Report: Still lots to learn about GE Crops – The terms GMO and GE are inadequate to describe the complexity of what is happening now. Both of the articles are about a recently released report on the situation.

What’s up with microbeads – Plastic microbeads cause long term health effects in our waterways (streams, rivers, lakes, oceans). There are US regulations that are being phased in over the next few years to require that manufactures no longer make products with microbeads but prior to that individual can stop purchasing the products. I’m going to check packaging to avoid products with microbeads; the key ‘ingredients’ to avoid are polyethylene, acrylate copolymer, and polypropylene.

Top 25 informative maps that teach us something uniquely different about the world – Displaying data by location makes for easy comparison. If you did not already know about the US and paid maternity leave – the map makes if very clear – not something to be proud of.

Teenage brain on social media – It’s always been true that teenagers are better at doing than not doing (i.e. inhibition develops more slowly than other forms of cognition). This study was about how that translates into the social media realm.

Antibiotics from scratch – Drug resistant bacteria are becoming more and more problematic. This research is a ‘bright spot’ in developing antibiotics to stay ahead. No one wants to go back to the time before antibiotics.

Arctic Foxes ‘grow’ their own gardens – From Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Image of the day: don’t eat me – Usually moths are rather drab – not this tiger moth!

Brookside Gardens at the end of May

The overabundance of rain we got in April and May caused the gardens to become lush very quickly as soon at the temperatures began to warm toward the end of May. There were people enjoying being outdoors before we went into the butterfly exhibit…and after we came out.

There were still some azaleas blooming although the peak of their season was well past.

The rhododendrons were full of blooms. I took a cluster through a veil of a cluster closer to the camera.

There were other flowers as well – in small trees.

Mixed with green foliage closer to the ground,

And vines (I think this was a morning glory just beginning to unfurl for the day).

Insects were beginning to make an appearance too. This leaf hopper was using a bridge railing as a highway to the next plant.

There was a moth perched on a poppy.

Sometimes – leaves are spectacular enough to catch attention: the color of these in the shade and sun – layers or

The combination of color and shape (I think these were leaves although I wonder what the flower will be like) or

Huge leaves uncurling (this one reminded me of a scroll with the bumps being writing).

Peonies were blooming the gardens near the exit from the butterfly exhibit. The plants were full of blooms…were lots of buds left to open too.

The alliums caught my attention as I turned to go. They often remind me of the large fireworks that burst into a ball of bright light. The big difference is size and the alliums are more durable!

Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy

Brookside Gardens’ annual butterfly and caterpillar exhibit is going on now - continuing until September 25th. It’s best to go as early as possible since the conservatory where the exhibit is housed is about 10 degrees warmer than the outdoors. It if gets above 100 in the conservatory, they often close the exhibit; the butterflied like the heat but people wilt quickly in the heat and humidity.

The caterpillar part of the exhibit is an entry way before the main exhibit. A volunteer is there to explain the exhibit and point out the caterpillars on the food plants. Can you find the cecropia moth caterpillar in the image below?

If not – I’ve circled it in this thumbnail.

Right after I entered the butterfly exhibit – a blue morpho settled for a bit on one of the walls. Usually they do not sit for long with their winds open like this so I felt lucky to get the picture right away. This one looked very battered – probably near the end of a relatively short life cycle of about 115 days.

The day was warm enough for all the butterflies to be active and one of them settled on my T-shirt; I got a picture before it flew off.

But it came back and landed on the hat I’d tied to the strap of my bag.

Another butterfly liked the back of my pants.

Enjoy the slide show of my photo picks from the rest of my walk around the conservatory. I’ll be going again every time we have guests from out of town this summer!

Camping 35+ Years Ago

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, most of the vacations we took involved camping. It was a way to travel inexpensively and we enjoyed National Parks and Forests. One of the first places we camped was at Mesa Verde National Park – driving from where we lived near Dallas all the way across the panhandle of Texas and Colorado to get there. We borrowed a relatively large tent and purchased a Coleman stove and lantern…some ice chests. My husband took one campsite documenting picture on that trip. I was only in it for scale! Surprisingly – we still have and use the green ice chest seen in the picture.

We bought a smaller tent that took a lot less space for subsequent trips. There was an annual fall foliage trip to southeastern Oklahoma (Ouachita National Forest). On one such trip there were 3 couples. Our new 2-person tent is the one in the middle.

We made trip to Colorado the next summer with the smaller tent. The space we saved by having a smaller tent was taken up with the addition of a lawn chair. We still had the Coleman stove but often cooked our meal over a camp fire in a ring of stones. By that time, we had our own grill to put over the fire that we also packed with our camping gear.

The chipmunks were interested in everything going on in the campsite. We were glad we had not left the bag of M&Ms open! This picture also reminds me that we were still using borrowed sleeping backs (the red, yellow and brown colors behind the rodent).

The spring before we moved to the Washington DC area, we made a trip to the Grand Canyon with friends. We camped the night before we hiked down to the plateau. I vividly remember my legs being very sore before we even got back to the top and realizing that my hiking boots were not as broken in as I thought they were (raw ankles). Standing in the camp shower (coin operated) felt so good and I used up all the change I’d taken with me! We were all feeling even more sore the next day – no additional long hikes for that vacation. The blue ice chest in the picture is still something we have and use; our choices of ice chests have proved to be very durable. The blue car with the trunk open is a 1983 Honda Accord that we had just purchased; we owned it until the early 1990s.

Between that time period and now we have not done much camping. We’ve recently bought a new large tent and two air mattresses. The motivation is not so much to save money but to be able to stay at Dark Sky sites for Star Parties. The camping equipment can only take about half the cargo space because a telescope has to come too!

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 4, 2016

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.

Exposure to chemicals in plastic and fungicides may irreversibly weaken children’s teeth – Another reason to pay close attention to Bisphenol A (BPA) and Vinclozolin in diets of children. Based on this study – this is not something that fluoride treatments or supplements would overcome.

Identifying Wildflowers: part one, part two, part three, part four – From Elizabeth’s Wildflower Blog. This series include a lot of practical advice for identifying wildflowers in the field (and confirming after you get home). I’ve been following Elizabeth’s blog since I was in Master Naturalist class with her --- learning about wildflowers.

Language of Women versus men – An analysis of language in Facebook messages shows that women use language that is warmer and more agreeable than men. The graphic associated with the study is worth a look.

Mysterious Cave Rings show Neanderthals liked to build – And more than 1,000 feet into the cave where it would have been very dark.

Kazakhstan’s treasure trove of wildly-flavored apples – Forests where apple trees are the predominant species!

Tidal Troubles in the Mid-Atlantic – A place where the sea level is rising at a much faster rate than almost anywhere in the US (except parts of Louisiana and South Florida)…and an explanation that goes back to the last ice age which left the area with a ‘fore-bulge’ – so the land is sinking from that then the ocean is rising too! The net is a predicted sea level rise of 3 feet around much of the Mid-Atlantic by 2100.

Three perfectly blue days at Crater Lake National Park – I haven’t been to this national park – yet. This is an article to look at again when I finally get around to planning the trip.

Swarms of Octopus are taking over the oceans – Cephalopods as ‘weeds of the sea’!

The Cactus Smuggler: Are Desert Plants Being Loved to Extinction? – Not a good trend and very difficult to change.

Low-salt diets may not be beneficial after all – Evidently the prior recommendation for low-salt diets was not based on data – the old recommendation was ‘popular thought’ rather than based on objective evidence! High-salt is still bad….but average (between 3 and 4 grams per day) is best!

Arecibo in 1978

I saw a story about a large radio telescope being built in China recently and it reminded me of the one in Puerto Rico – Arecibo. My husband was there in September 1978 – just a few months after he went to Wallops and Chincoteague. It was all part of his first years as a graduate student. The trip he made to Arecibo was the longest travel-for-work either of us ever did and we were a little discombobulated by it; looking back I wonder why I didn’t take the opportunity to take some vacation and see Puerto Rico; I suppose that we were so unsure of our financial situation that we didn’t even think about it. He brought back a lot of photographs of the place. Look closely at this first picture and note the people on the structure (upper left) and in a small enclosure evidently hoisted to allow work on the structure (center).

There are some pictures of 1978 vintage computers.

Then the view looking down to the dish at an angle

And to the very center.

Underneath the vegetation is kept at bay.

At that time – I had never seen variegated croton. My husband brought back pictures and some dried leaves as a souvenir.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 28, 2016

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.

Hawai’I at the Energy Crossroads – A case study about the issues with how we produce electricity – now and into the future.

“Top tips for men juggling a successful career and fatherhood” hilariously nails how sexist the advice given to working women is – For anyone that doubts that gender bias is still quiet prevalent in the workplace.

Ancient tsunami evidence on Mars reveals life potential – Evidence of cold, salty oceans on Mars (the image of Mars was produced using Google Earth!)

Restoring an Ancient Nursery for Atlantic Sturgeon – These fish can reach 14 feet in length and weigh 800s pounds – a species that has been around since the dinosaurs. In the 1890s, caviar from Delaware River sturgeon was a thriving enterprise. Within a decade, the population of sturgeon fell to 1% of its historic numbers. Even with a moratorium on sturgeon fishing in the 1990s, the fish were not recovering due to ship strikes, channel dredging, and poor water quality. Now – with focus on dissolved oxygen, salinity, and flow conditions….and understanding the extent of spawning and nursery habitat in the freshwater portion of the river…slow recovery is beginning.

Antibiotics that kill gut bacteria also stop growth of new brain cells – Another reason antibiotics should not be overprescribed….and that we look for ways to resolve an infection that does not kill gut bacteria.

Wildlife is where you find it – A reminder that the natural world often survives even in a very man-made environment…and to be observant enough to notice it.

Bright light alters metabolism – Blue-enriched light in the evening seems to be problematic….will electronic devices of the future modify the type of light they emit based on time of day to help us stay healthy?

State of North America’s Birds Report Released to Commemorate Centennial of the First Migratory Bird Treaty – Birds connect our continent and some progress has been made. There is still a lot to be done. Individual actions like choosing sustainably created products, preventing bird collisions with windows of our houses and office buildings, and participating in bird related Citizen Science project (like eBird) make a difference.

10 Overlooked Wildlife Experiences in our National Parks – Sometimes small creatures that make their homes in National Parks are just as memorable as the scenery.

Toothpaste Tips and Myths – Toothpaste comes in lots of different formulations. Educate yourself about the good – and not so good – aspects of some of the benefit claims.

Patapsco Valley State Park – Volunteering

Earlier this week I spent the day with 1^st graders in Patapsco Valley State Park. They were releasing fish they had raised at their school into the river. There was a ‘field day’ planned around the release and the activity I helped with was looking for macroinvertebrates in the river.

There was a nice pebble beach and gentle slope a little way into river although the current further out was swift due to all the recent rain. The water had run off enough that some pools had separated from the main channel. Our gear was simple: seine nets, strainers, ice cube trays, plastic tubs and jars, magnifiers, and pictures of macroinvertebrates we were likely to find.

The view in the other direction shows the sticks we put into the river to mark the area the 1^st graders were allowed.

The day started out cool but warmed up enough that no one complained about being in the water.

Across the river, some geese with goslings decided to go further upstream before entering river rather than encountering the students.

We did find hellgrammites which are an indicator that the river is clean enough to support ‘sensitive’ macroinvertebrates – a good sign for the fish being released as well.

Belmont Cemetery

One of the stations on the 6^th grade field trip to Belmont is at the cemetery not far from the Manor House. It was my station earlier this week; I walked out early to get everything set. The cemetery is situation on a gentle slope at the edge of the forest. Looking toward the Manor House, the trees on the grounds are large enough to almost hide the house. The cemetery was used by the family that owned the land from the late 1700s until the mid-1900s.

The longest lived person in the cemetery was 95 years old…and a relatively recent burial.

There was a baby that only survived a few weeks. The cemetery prompts discussion of history…of health care. There are also other topics. Note the difference in weathering of the stones between the one from 1922 and the one from 1972; the newer one (1972) looks more weathered --- different types of stones --- geology.

Another stone toward the back – a child 2 years old with a different last name than any other person in the cemetery. This child was a visitor from Baltimore that died at Belmont and buried in the cemetery in 1834. Her grandfather was Francis Scott Key – another link to history. This grave is toward the back and appears to be isolated but a survey with ground penetrating radar found graves in the open area in the center of the cemetery --- bringing up technology and archaeology.

Lichen growing on a stone that is old enough to be so weathered it cannot be easily read brings up biology and how rock is chemically weathered by the algal/fungi symbionts.

The very large (and old) Tulip Poplar tree just outside the cemetery’s fence is also something the students noticed.

The buses were 20+ minutes later than expected so I had time for some bird observation as well. The blue birds, robins, and tree swallows were enjoying the mowed grass area in front of the cemetery.

Other posts about volunteering at Belmont this month:

• Belmont BioBlitz
• Birds at Belmont for Pre-Schoolers

Mt. Pleasant in May 2016

I volunteered for several field trips in May at the Howard Country Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm – but only managed to take pictures the morning I spent with some middles schoolers engaged in ‘service learning’ which translates to cutting or pulling invasive species. It was a cool, cloudy day like much of our May has been. The Honors Garden gate was open as I walked by – the fountain was on and the garden looked well-tended.

I noticed the old pump – now disconnected but still in its originally location.

The flower pot people were dressed in spring finery.

The wagon shed has a display explaining tree rings but I’ve also become quite familiar with the space since it is ‘cover’ when the day as become rainy – a frequent occurrence this field trip season.

And then this odd gall in a cedar. I did a quick search for it when a got home. It looks like a cedar apple rust gall.

By the time I took these few pictures it was time to get focused on the business for the morning – the wheelbarrows for each group were full of tools,

the left glove and right glove bins were positioned. I got the tutorial on recognizing the plants we were to remove. And then the buses arrived!

We worked for a couple of hours. Honey suckle and wine berry were the most dominate in the area my group was assigned. We cut and unwrapped honey suckle from a small tree – saving it from being strangled and suffocated by the vine. Everyone worked on cutting wine berry to the ground and trying not to grip it to tightly since the fine tips of the thorns sometimes penetrated the gloves. The pile of culled invasives was pretty high when we finished and the students went off to have their picnic lunch – a job well done.

Wallops and Chincoteague in 1978

I’ve been scanning our collection of old slides and will be posting about some of my ‘finds.’  This post is about the first exposure to Chincoteague and Wallops Island. My husband – in the early days of grad school – went on a research trip there in May of 1978 and stayed at the Refuge Inn (still our favorite place to stay). The picture of the pony corral from an upper floor of the Inn looks about the same – dated only by the cars in the parking lot.

Growing up in north Texas – the ocean scenes were new to him. The research was a collaborative effort with the Russians and they were based on a research vessel off the coast which added to the experiences. One trip out to the Russian vessel resulting in my husband’s camera getting sprayed with salt water; it never recovered fully and he started his collection of Canon cameras with the following year.

Pictures of nature are relatively timeless. There are still egrets, water, and grasses,

Gulls (and unfortunately discarded tires),

And my husband and I still try to photograph the birds in flight. He succeeded with an egret in 1978! I was surprised that there were no pictures of Great Blue Herons from 1978. Did he just not notice them….or were there not as many as there are now?

The lighthouse still shows up above the trees although the trees seem higher now.

There are still a lot of radio dishes at Wallops island that can be seen from the road.

Since he was actually on the facility, he got closer views.

He travelled with a lot of instruments. He checked a lot of equipment. He was assigned a small vacant observatory for his set up for the week. This pile was what it looked like after he packed it all back up to come home. I suppose some of the briefcases and luggage date this picture too! The plaid suitcase was one that had been collapsed on the trip up but contained laundry and seashells collected on the Wallops Island beach for the trip home!

The last to be packed: the insect repellent (he still remembers the salt water mosquitoes vividly) and his sunglasses. The packaging for OFF has a familiar look!

Four Days of Belmont Bioblitz

I spent Monday through Thursday of this week at the Belmont Bioblitz. Fifth grade students from 2 elementary schools participated on Monday and Tuesday; on Wednesday and Thursday it was seventh graders from a middle school. The observations the students logged into the iNaturalist app will be used to refine the Belmont Species List; the list originated from previous Bioblitz events at Belmont. All four days started our similarly – the volunteers gathering in the morning to help the staff prepare. It was quiet enough for some birds (like the nuthatch below) to be at the feeders near the nature center; the feeders would get refilled before the students arrived.

The volunteers would gather in a long line across the drive from the Manor House where the buses would eventually pull up.

Turning around - the swallows and red-winged black birds swooped over the grasses and down to the pond. The volunteers enjoyed the past bit of calm.

And then the buses arrive – almost hidden by the trees as they first come through the entrance gate.

Then more visible as they get closer. The students pour out of the buses and into groups - each with a chaperone (or 2) and 2 volunteers. The volunteers have been assigned zones where their group will focus for the duration of the morning.

Trees are easy to document although the blooms of the horse chestnut were already fading by Monday.

The leaves still were distinctive enough to make identification easy.

The pecan was a popular entry into iNaturalist – one of the native trees that produces something we eat.

Many students were surprised that there are different kinds of oaks – easy to tell by just looking at their leaves.

There were toads hanging out near the pool on the first three days – laying eggs.

They liked the wells around the pool where the water was shaded by the cover.

By the fourth day they were mostly gone and we found one further away into the trees and brushy area.

On Tuesday it rained and on Wednesday, the participants found quite a few mushrooms in several areas where the grass is mowed.

One the last day – the highlight (for me) was a lacewing one of the students managed to capture. We photographed it in a magnifying box

Then released it….it paused for a few seconds for me to get one last picture.

At the end of each day - there is hand washing and then a picnic lunch. On Monday and Thursday, the picnic was on the lawn in front of the Manor House. On Tuesday is raining and the BioBlitz picnic was inside the big tent used for weddings at Belmont. The students sat on the carpet under candeliers. The same location was used for Wednesday too since the lawn was still very soggy.

After lunch - it's time for the students to return to school on their buses...the Belmont Bioblitz field trip is over. But - the collection of pictures and descriptions in iNaturalist has grown each day of the event - quite an accomplishment.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - May 2016

May was the height of the spring school field trip season and three was something to celebrate about all of them –

The preschoolers that earned to recognize red winged blackbirds both by sight and sound

Being remembered by a 2nd grader as his hike leader from last fall (and the hike that followed),

Getting through a very wet field trip with 3rd graders – hiking with umbrellas through the meadow,

The 5th graders on the first Bioblitz day finding a toad near the pool in a formal garden – on their sunny day,

The 5th graders on the second Bioblitz day documenting beetles and trees and slugs and flowers – in the rain making the most of their teams of two or three: one holding the umbrella and the other entering the data into iNaturalist…..and then having their picnic brown bag lunch under the chandeliers in the tent that usually hosts weddings,

And the group of middle schoolers that removed a big pile of invasive plants…..before the rain started!

The trip to Conowingo was worth celebrating. I enjoyed it while I was there and then even more once I looked at my pictures! It helped that we managed to go on a sunny day.

A wildflower talk was worth celebrating for the topic and the ‘new to me’ tidbits sprinkled through the lecture.

I am celebrating a good start to my project to digitize our slides. There are some hidden treasures there!

Another project – cleaning out stuff – is also proceeding well. In this early phase, one of the measurements is how much (paper) is going in the recycle directly or being shredded (and then recycled.

Birds at Belmont with Pre-schoolers

Last week I spent a day volunteering at Belmont for a pre-school field trip. I led an activity about birds – with the children sitting on a blanket and looking out over the meadow. There were 5 groups in all: 3 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. We talked about birds using pictures of birds on a felt board and feathers (I whooshed a turkey feather through the air and they were surprised at the noise it made!) – but the real show was behind me at the bird feeders and the meadow and a high snag in a tree a little further away.

At the feeders: one group saw a nuthatch, several groups saw the grackle,

And all of them saw red-winged blackbirds.

There were some ‘mystery’ birds at the feeder as well and birds we could hear but not see. But that just made it fun to listen and see how many birds we could hear.

In the meadow, the mourning doves looked for food among the grasses dried from last year and the newly emerging plants. The red tailed hawk was in a high snag across the meadow for all the morning sessions! The afternoon sessions got a fleeting look at the red trailed hawk flying across the meadow and into the woods where we were hiking.

Toward the end of each session we listened to recorded birds sounds. The preschoolers were very tickled to discover that the recorded sound for ‘red-winged blackbird’ matched what they had been hearing all morning!

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 14, 2016

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.

Nanoscale solutions for hospital acquired infections – Antibiotic-resistant pathogens are problematic…and racing to find new antibiotics is getting harder all the time. Seeing different solutions – like these (click in the red circles to see the description) is reassuring.

Umami Flavor on the Rise – The ‘pleasant savory taste’ of soy sauce, hard cheeses, and mushrooms or nutritional yeast….but how to get the flavor without high sodium.

Changing the world, one fridge at a time – What can we do about food waste? The problem is in the production side in the developing world and the consumer side in the developed world…so in the US, it is in each of our refrigerators and pantries. I’ve gotten better over the past few years and rarely have anything spoil. I also dry orange peels instead of putting them into my compost!

Green light for plant-based food packaging – Part of the solution to food waste? Based on this story from Science Daily – I’m not sure this one is ready for prime time.

How Safe is Your Drinking Water? – A well-organized article with some tips on how to find out more from Berkley Wellness.

Enthusiast Builds Website to Collect, Share Free National Park Maps – Find it here. This is a site to bookmark and check when you are planning a trip to any National Park.

A Surprising Look at Crow Family Life – We are seeing more crows this year – recovering to the numbers from before West Nile Virus killed so many of them. I welcomed hearing about cooperative breeding among crows in this article (and maybe it includes the blue jays too).

9 Dangerous Beauty Trends – How many of these did you already know about?

How a Cancer Drug has saved people from going blind – My grandmother was blinded by macular degeneration so I’m always interested in the ongoing research to prevent or treat it.

Kids win another climate change lawsuit – A Superior Court judge ruled in favor of 7 young plaintiffs ordering the Washington (state) Department of Ecology to promulgate an emissions reduction rule by the end of 2016 and make recommendations to the state legislature about how to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions in the 2017 legislative session. Similar legal action is pending in North Carolina, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

Conowingo – May 2016

We made the trek to Conowingo Dam to see Bald Eagles last weekend. There was some action right away – but at about the limit of my Canon Powershot SX710 HS point-and-shot. The images are not as crisp as a photographer with a more expensive camera and big lens...but still good enough to capture behavior. It was entertaining to watch the eagles – many of them juveniles (i.e. without white heads and tails yet).

I got one sequence with an eagle coming into to land near another on already perched on a rock. Notice how the one in the air has extended legs/talons.

The eagle that he is joining appears to be vocalizing (open beak) and still has some white feathers mixed in with the brown – not quite an adult probably.

Note the 6 eagles on the dame abutments (2 adults on the closest one…and 1 adult with 3 juveniles on the far one).

A few minutes later – the adult on the far abutment has moved closer to the other adults. The juveniles are on their own.

The dam did not appear to have all its turbines in operation so there were not as many stunned fish around for the eagles. Cormorants would fly up close to the spillway and then float down river getting fish along the way.

I saw a few Great Blue Herons but then when I got home I noticed even more in my pictures…like this one flying past a bald eagle on a rock.

The Great Blue Heron I noticed the most while I was there was on a point of rocks for a very long time. I didn’t ever see it catch a fish so maybe it was savoring a fish it caught before I noticed it. The cormorants in the background are flying toward the dam (to the left in the picture) and would then float back down stream as they looked for breakfast.

Now for a little game. How many Great Blue Herons do you see in this picture (click on the image to see it larger)?

I count 6. Now for one a little more difficult. This one has Bald Eagles and Great Blue Herons. How many of each bird can you find (the smaller, dark birds are cormorants…don’t bother counting them)?

I count 6 eagles (4 adults, 2 juveniles) and 9 herons. The next one has more eagles in the air. How many Bald Eagles and Great Blue Herons in the image below?

4 eagles in the air (3 adults and 1 juvenile) and one eagle in the rocks. The herons are more of a challenge because there are so many. There are at least 12 (note – one is on the far right catching a fish, the body is hidden behind a rock but the neck and head are showing). What about the image below…the last of this game of eagle and heron counting.

There are 4 eagles (only the back is seen of one of them) – all with white heads. But there are 17 herons!

And now for one plant from near the dam. I took a picture of the Princess Tree back in back in February.

Here is what it looks like today. Still non-native and invasive…and growing beside the parking lot at the base of Conowingo Dam.

Rain and More Rain

It has been very rainy in our area recently. It has not been with the fanfare of thunder and lightning – more prolonged and gentle showers. We’ve sandwiched in some outings – not always being able to dodge showers. On one trip to Brookside I took very few pictures because it was sprinkling the whole time! We did walk around with the hoods of our windbreakers up and generally enjoyed the scenery.

There was a field trip with 3 graders that it rained the entire 2 hours we were hiking. I was prepared with my stream boots and an umbrella for myself and 4 extra umbrellas for the students (I had 8 in each hiking group so it worked out OK with 2 students for each umbrella…and the chaperones had brought an umbrella too. We proceeded to be out on the grassy trails until everyone was tired of dodging muddy patches and puddles. The challenge turned out to be shoes; some students had boots but most were wearing their normal athletic shoes; eventually – there were a lot of wet feet (uncomfortable and cold). By lunch time they were ready to be indoors! When I got home I had a very wet backpack, hat and umbrellas - which we draped across the yard equipment in our garage.

I’ve been noticing that a lot of the water retention ponds are very full. That means that they aren’t slowing down the run off any more. Our 10 day forecast shows half the day with less than 50% chance of rain….so maybe we won’t stay quite so soggy as we are right now.

The best of the rest of Brookside

There was a lot more than fiddleheads, azaleas and goslings at Brookside Gardens last week….so this post is a ‘best of the rest’ from my collection of pictures.

The Red Buckeye near the conservatory parking lot was blooming.

I’d never looked at the flower up close before. I looked it up and discovered that it is closely related to the horse chestnut.

The jack-in-the-pulpits were coming up. These are flowers that one has to be looking for to spot although these striped ones are pretty distinctive.

Many times the leaves and the flowers are almost the same color.

The dogwoods were blooming too. Depending where they are in the garden they can be still green in the center

Or already yellow.

And there are some that are very different – from Asia rather than our native variety of dogwood.

There as a chipmunk sorting through the debris in a concrete culvert – finding seeds.

The area of the gardens that has been ‘under construction’ for the past few years was open and there were yellow irises around the pond,

A newly planted magnolia with large leaves and mature blooms, and

A robust stand of horsetails.

I noticed a bench that evidently is not used often ... judging from the plants growing around it.

I’d never noticed how the bark of this Hawthorne wrinkled as the branches flared out from the trunk!

Even the pines have interesting features in the spring.

It’s a great time of year to take a closer look at the garden!

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 7, 2016

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.

Winding Pathway Offers Unforgettable Journey Through Portugal's Stunning Natural Landscape – A rugged area – made more accessible via a boardwalk!

Motherhood without maternity leave – Why is America one of the only countries in the world that offers no national paid leave to new working mothers? 88% of working mothers have no access to paid maternity leave!

Trouble in Paradise: Fatal Blight Threatens a Key Hawaiian Tree – The beautiful Ohi’a trees we saw are in trouble!

10 Unexpected Impacts of Climate Change – How many of these 10 were you aware of before this article?

Winners of the 2016 Audubon Photography Awards Celebrate Diverse Birds of North America – These are birds in action – not posing for a photograph!

Four Ways to Explore the News through Maps – This post was for teachers (and via them to their students)…..but could be interesting to just about everybody. It is a different way to access news.

Pulling it all together – I took a Systems Biology course from Coursera last year and realized the need to integrate what has been compartmented for study – a needed simplification until recently. Systems Biology requires computers and models that have a lot of similarities to those for research into global weather or astrophysics. This article highlights 4 strategies for hunting new cancer targets.

Dreamlike Watercolor Paintings of Iconic Skylines Around the World – How many of these skylines do you recognize?

Fructose alters hundreds of brain genes, which can lead to a wide range of diseases – Interesting research done with rates. Fructose was found to impair memory but rats given DHA (an Omega-3 oil) along with the fructose performed comparably to rats that were not on the fructose diet.

Satellite maps shows explosion in paved surfaces in D.C. region since 1984 – I moved to the Washington DC area in 1983. A lot has happened since then. On the ground, the increase in paved surfaces has not kept up with the number of cars trying to get from one place to another.

Brookside Fiddleheads

The fiddleheads were another sign of spring at Brookside Gardens last week. I enjoy seeing how the fronds of different ferns start out so tightly packed and then unfurl in graceful curves.

Some start out very fuzzy looking. It is hard to image the frond from the fiddlehead form.

Some of the fiddleheads are further along and the expansion of the frond nearest to the stem happens rapidly enough to make it look like the tip of the frond is a knot…but is simply has not expanded quite yet.

Sometimes I imagine other things that look a little like fiddleheads  - like intricate round earrings heavy enough to weight their wire

Or the tentacles of an octopus.

I generally thing about fiddleheads being near circular but there are exceptions – the oval shape shows up almost as often.

Fiddleheads are another sign of spring – the harbingers of the lush ferns of summer.