Gleanings of the Week Ending November 9, 2019

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.

Infographic: How Air Pollution Could Affect the Brain | The Scientist Magazine® - A quick and disturbing summary. The evidence of harm: particles like those produced by vehicle engines found in frontal cortex (postmortem), reduced volumes of white matter, slowed development of children, inflammation related damage to brain cells, and higher accumulation of Alzheimer-associated proteins.

Happier Babies Have an Edge - Scientific American Blog Network – The more children experience happy emotions, the more time they spend building skills and relationships that help them in the future.

900 Pythons Removed from South Florida – That’s a lot of snakes. Kudos to the Python Action Team. There are other organizations (government and non-profits) working on this too. I wish the article would have included information about what they do with the snakes after they are captured. Presumable they are killed.

Study: 95 percent of baby food contains traces of toxic metals - UPI.com – Not good. The full report referred to in the article is available here. I wonder if pediatricians are changing their recommendation when it comes to some foods (like rice cereal for babies).

Newly discovered virus infects bald eagles across America -- ScienceDaily – Over 1/3 of America’s Bald Eagles are infected…and it might be causing a fatal disease – Wisconsin River Eagle Syndrome.

BBC - Future - What life might be like in alien oceans – Lots of possibilities. It will be interesting to get some probes (submersibles, etc.) out to the moons of other planets in our solar system that have alien oceans…maybe life.

From quills to typewriters: how the industrial revolution changed our writing culture | Europeana Blog – A little history lesson.

National Science Board highlights Skilled Technical Workforce shortage in new report - The Bridge: Connecting Science and Policy - AGU Blogosphere – “Without immediate action, the US risks falling behind other nations that are making significant investments in their Science and Engineering workforce and the Science and Technology enterprise.”  The whole report can be found here.

The Platypus Is Weirder Than You Ever Imagined – Cool Green Science – They don’t have a stomach, their venom can help treat diabetes, their milk can help fight antibiotic resistance….the list goes on.

Photography in The National Parks: Your Armchair Photography Guide To Olympic National Park, Part 2 – The Forests – National Parks….always a great destination for nature photography.

Conowingo in October – part 1

A couple of weeks ago we headed up to Conowingo Dam. This time of year the local Bald Eagle population is supplemented by birds coming from further north to enjoy the bounty of fish at the base of the dam through the winter. It was a clear and cool morning with the moon still visible near the treetops.

The water was much lower than earlier this year when the water was very high and fishermen/birds were elsewhere.

Fall was in full swing. The drought had reduced the color but there were still burst of color and seeds to notice while we were looking for eagles.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

My best eagle pictures of the day were of one that flew into a tree on the slope above us (i.e. we were between the bird and the river. I zoomed in for a picture of the head and the talons. The bird flew back toward the river a few second after the talon shot.

There are always a lot of Black Vultures at Conowingo and this time was no exception. They like the vantage point of some of the high structures on the dam and the abutment down closer to the water. Vultures are the bird version of a ‘cleanup crew.’ Based on the number of black vultures always around Conowingo, there must be a lot of carcasses (fish?) around there. This time we didn’t see any congregate near the parking lot gate….they were all out on structures or rocks…in the morning sun.

View fullsize

View fullsize

Now for some challenge pictures. How many eagles do you see in the pictures below? Remember that juvenile eagles do not have white heads or tails. They are clearly different than the black vultures in the pictures.

There are 3 juvenile and 1 mature Bald Eagles. What about the next picture?

In this one there is only one juvenile Bald Eagle, but I took the picture to show how distinctive the wing tips of the Black Vulture are. They often spread their wings like this --- very dramatic black and white bird. In flight the white tips are also visible and make them easy to identify when they soar overhead.

Tomorrow I’ll post about the other birds we saw at Conowingo.

Zooming – October 2019

October was a great month for getting out and about. The weather cooperated. There were birds and butterflies and colorful leaves…some flowers and frogs…even a sunrise. I had a lot of pictures to choose from for this zooming post! I use the feature on my camera for most of my pictures…to get the image framed the way I want…avoiding the need to crop.  Enjoy the October slide show!

And Happy Halloween! A restaurant we went to recently had a clever Halloween decoration in one of their small bushes! I didn’t have to zoom for this picture…just stood on the sidewalk and took the picture with my cell phone!

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

Last weekend we made a trip to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. We stopped at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge along the way and drove around the wild life loop.

Blackwater was the first place I saw a Bald Eagle in the wild (back in 1990) and now they are even more numerous in the refuge. This time the eagle we saw was in the far distance. I zoomed as much as I could and got an OK picture for identification.

There were also quite a few Great Egrets. The breeze was enough to ruffle their feathers.

But the big drama was between a turtle and juvenile Great Blue Heron. I saw the turtle first. It seemed to notice our car – which we were using as a blind. I already had the window rolled down.

Then I noticed a heron a little to the left of the turtle….and the heron started walking toward the turtle.

View fullsize

View fullsize

The heron stepped up behind the turtle and the turtle withdrew into the shell.

View fullsize

View fullsize

Then the heron stepped on the turtle and I was holding down the button to let my camera take pictures as fast as possible…doing the best I could to hold the camera steady. Did the heron mistake the turtle for a rock? The turtle must have wobbled and the heron extended its wings for balance. The turtle plopped into the water with a splash…and the heron perched on the snag that had previously held the turtle.

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

We visited a second National Wildlife Refuge last weekend: Blackwater. We usually visit Blackwater on the same trips at Chincoteague because it is ‘on the way.’ Of the two – Blackwater is my favorite. It is the first place I saw a bald eagle in the wild. It was back in 1990 when by daughter was a baby - a pleasant spring day and we were sitting out side on a blanket letting her finish off a bottle….and a bald eagle soared overhead. It was idyllic when it happened and in my memory. We saw eagles during this visit too. On the first day it was raining and the eagle was looking very wet. Note in the last picture of this series, the membrane eyelid on the right eye is closed (must have gotten a rain drop in the eye!).

The next morning when we drove around the wildlife loop again, it was sunny and there was an eagle on the same platform – maybe the same one – looking much happier. It took off before we could get pictures and continued to soar in the area until it vanished into the trees. There was another eagle on a snag near a blind – almost out of range for my camera.

View fullsize

View fullsize

The visitor center has a little garden at the back with small trees (like dogwoods) and a butterfly sculpture. There are bird feeders that attracted a few small birds. The red-winged blackbirds were very vocal. I saw a hummingbird sampling the clumps of columbine in the gardon on the sunny morning.

View fullsize

View fullsize

My husband saw a lump in the road and stopped quickly for us to get out and take a look: a baby snapping turtle. It didn’t move while we watched it, but it was in a patch of sun and would warm up enough to finish crossing the road soon after we left. It was already close to the edge of the road.

I’ll post later about the other birds we saw at Blackwater. I see something new just about every time we go to Blackwater…and this trip was no exception.

Conowingo – March 2019

My husband and I made the trek up to Conowingo Dam last weekend. The water was high and laden with silt (although not quite as high as the last time we were there).

View fullsize

View fullsize

The trip was a success as soon as we got there: a bald eagle was preening in a tree next to the parking lot. I took some traditional portraits.

Then I zoomed in on the talons.

At one point the eagle did a little dance on the branch (watch the feet)!

One of the other photographers told me about the nest up in the right tower across the river from the wharf where we were. It is on the narrow platform below the top of the tower. I zoomed in and saw sticks that are probably one side of the nest but no birds coming or going.

View fullsize

View fullsize

There were cormorants fishing in the rapidly moving water although I didn’t see any successful catches.

I did manage a sequence of a cormorant flying low over the water.

Overall it was a good spring outing – warm enough that we didn’t need out coats!

Port Canaveral Boat Tour

After we picked up our registration material for the Space Coast Birding Festival, we went out for lunch then headed to the Kelly Park dock for a boat tour of Port Canaveral. It was a pontoon boat with bench seats. Shortly after we sat down – it started sprinkling then raining harder. We got off the boat to stand in the drier picnic pavilion in the park. The wind was blowing enough that we had to stand well under the pavilion roof.

I took a picture of a little blue heron that did not seem bothered by the rain and wind at all.

Then the rain stopped, the seats were dried off and we headed out only about 15 minutes late. I took some pictures of barnacles around the dock area.

View fullsize

View fullsize

We saw evidence of manatee in the water….the flat circles of water as they swim along…and then the tips of their noses when they come up for air. The ‘slow speed’ signs did indeed mark areas where there were manatee in the water.

We saw birds along the canal before we got to the locks: anhinga,

Great blue heron (looking scruffy from the recent rain),

Osprey,

And double crested cormorants.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

We entered the lock and tied up.  I took some brown pelican portraits while we waited.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Then the gates started to open.

The pelicans road the little water wave as the water leveled…and one took flight.

There was an immature brown pelican outside the lock area. The light on the water was perfect.

The high point of the trip was a frigate bird soaring overhead. I just watched it. My husband got the picture.

There was a cruise ship and the SpaceX barge (used for rocket recovery) in Port Canaveral itself. I was more interested in bird pictures…so didn’t document those sights.

We headed back through the lock. I turned back to take a picture of the white pelicans grouped on the bank and

View fullsize

View fullsize

The horseshoe crab shells that accumulated to the side of the lock.

I managed to take a picture of a bald eagle just before it flew way…a good ‘last picture’ before we docked back at Kelly Park.

Zooming – January 2019

I have a bigger than usual group of images for the zooming post this month – primarily from a trip from Florida last week. They’ll be more details in posts coming out over the next few weeks. So sit back and enjoy the slide show. It only includes one snow picture!

Ten Little Celebrations – November 2018

At the beginning of November, we had a short burst of color before the leaves fell off the trees. I celebrated a glorious fall day…wishing the season had not been so short this year.

HoLLIE (Howard County Legacy Leadership Institute for the Environment) graduation was this month after accumulating enough volunteer hours since finishing the class last spring.

And then came the Festival of the Cranes with so many little celebrations:

Seeing sandhill cranes in flight – being close enough to their fly out to hear the first few high-power flaps of their wings.

Seeing two barn owls circle above the field where I was standing. It was a first for me….so beautiful and ghost-like.

Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge. It was my first visit to the place and it’s hard to choose the high point maybe it was the screwbean mesquite the herd of pronghorn playing a running game with our caravan or seeing a shrike with a meal.

Hooded Mergansers. It was not the first time I had seen the birds (there were some on a local (Maryland) pond we visited during our 5th HoLLIE class). But they were not displaying like the birds we saw during the Festival of the Cranes.

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. What an amazing place….and great hosts to the Festival of the Cranes. I am already planning to go again! There are so many sights and sounds to celebrate here.

Home again. I celebrate returning every time I am away for longer than a couple days.

Bald Eagle seen from my office window. The morning we left to drive to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, a bald eagle flew over the forest behind our house while I was shutting down my laptop for the road trip. It continued over our house. Since I saw a pair of eagles soaring a nearby shopping center recently, I think perhaps their nest is somewhere in the forest along the Middle Patuxent River near us. What a way to start the Thanksgiving holiday!

Thanksgiving….celebrating the day…realizing how much I am thankful for.

Festival of the Cranes – part 8

After the fly out, we headed to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge visitor center to meet the bus for a Raptor ID tour.

The refuge is home to many red-tailed hawks…several different morphs. The basic ‘football’ shape is what we were looking for in the trees.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

The bald eagle was in the snag in the middle of the flight deck pond. Nothing happened when the eagle opened its wings and moved all little (just as I snapped a picture…good enough to identify it as a bald eagle but not much else).

Later the bird suddenly flew away….and caused a cloud of snow geese to rise all at one time from the water’s surface.

There are a lot of northern harriers this year too. Every time we drove the wildlife loop, we saw a few. They fly low over the fields looking for their prey.

There were other birds that were not raptors that we saw too. The ravens seemed to pose of us.

My favorite birds to watch were the hooded mergansers. At first there was just one pair interacting…then another male came along and then another female. They were almost beyond the range of my camera without the monopod. The first pair was acting a lot like is was time to breed but New Mexico is far from their breeding grounds.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

The tour was an enjoyable 3 hours around the refuge wildlife loop.

Ten Little Celebrations – October 2018

Glorious fall – even if our leaf color is the least spectacular of the 30+ years I’ve lived on the east coast. All my celebrations this month were outdoors!

Hiking in the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area after heavy rain – lots of mud but my boots handled it well

Bald Eagles – the serendipity of seeing them soaring over a shopping center parking lot

Common Buckeye in a native plant garden on a sunny day

Mushrooms and cobwebs at Centennial Park…spectacular on a foggy morning

View fullsize

View fullsize

Finding a crawfish and hellgrammite in the Middle Patuxent River with high schoolers. We were all very cold but managed to still find some interesting critters.

View fullsize

View fullsize

Fifth graders with clipboards and pencils on a BioBlitz at Belmont.

First graders enjoying a hike on a cold fall morning (seeing a immature black rat snake)

Finding a spotted salamander with a group of 7th graders on a BioBlitz at Mt. Pleasant

A rainy day in the Middle Patuxent River with high schoolers – and realizing that the students were pleased with the macroinvertebrates we found. They came dressed for the rain!

A long hike from Belmont to the Patapsco Valley State Park Avalon area – getting all my steps for the day in less than 3 hours

Bald Eagle

I made a quick stop at the Kings Contrivance shopping center after a training session for field trips last week and spotted some soaring birds over the parking lot. The birds we most frequently see soaring over our neighborhoods are turkey or black vultures. These 2 birds caught my attention immediately because they had white heads and tails. I put my purchases on the roof of the car and tried to get a picture.

The picture isn’t great…but it was good enough to identify that the bird was a bald eagle. A woman had noticed my hurry and picture attempt and looked to see too. She came over and watched the birds for a few minutes with me….as did some others. It was a ‘bald eagle moment’ of community.

When I got home, my husband said he had been reading about a pair of eagles in our area so maybe these two have made their home in the forested corridor of the Middle Patuxent River.

I’m always thrilled to see bald eagles because they were so rare when we moved to the east coast a little over 30 years ago. There are a lot more of them now. Hurray for the birds and our successful removal of environmental toxicity that had made it hard for them to reproduce successfully.

Ten Little Celebrations – March 2018

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

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

Beavers at Mt. Pleasant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bald Eagles at Conowingo Dam

Last weekend we got up early and headed to Conowingo Dam to photograph Bald Eagles. We go there about 30 minutes after sunrise and saw eagles in the trees next to the parking lot at the Conowingo Fisherman’s Park. There were two eagles in the trees near where we parked…along with a black vulture.

Both types of birds were enjoying the bright sunlight on the cold morning.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

There were other birds on the opposite side of the river….too far way for good pictures.

It seemed at first that there wasn’t going to be much action. Then one of the eagles took off.

It flew out over the river swooped down and came up with a fish!

It flew back to almost where it had been before…and started to enjoy the meal.

Then a second eagle appeared and wanted a share of the fish. My husband tried to take pictures of the tussle that ensued. The eagle with the fish is above the challenger in this picture. I just stood and watched.

Tomorrow’s post will feature a Cormorant at Conowingo.

Conowingo in January – part 1

My husband and I chose and sunny day …. Headed north to Conowingo Dam one morning last week. We hoped the day would be good for seeing the bald eagles. It was a bit of a disappointment: the birds all stayed on the far side of the river – seemingly even further away than usual, there were not very many of them, and the sky was hazy rather than blue. The gulls and cormorants (and maybe some ducks) were too far away as well.

I turned my camera to other things. The Princess Tree had velvety buds.

There was a small stand of trees near the edge of water that had quite a load of ice; I wondered if it would survive.

View fullsize

View fullsize

An old stump was deteriorating near the fishing pier. I thought part of it looked like a one-eyed owl looking out of the decaying wood.

There was an oak leaf covered with salt that had been liberally scattered on the sidewalk.

There were not many sycamore balls…last spring was not conducive to seed production in our area. This one does not look like it has been discovered by seed loving birds either.

Tomorrow – I’ll write about the ice at Conowingo.