It’s been a busy month with 2 trips to Texas and then a flurry of activity when I was home in Missouri. I tried to take breaks for photography…even if they were very short! There are pictures from my parents’ house in Carrollton that has been sold, Josey Ranch in Carrollton, Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge, and snow at home. Enjoy the February 2024 slideshow!
I left my hotel in Plano TX early enough to get to Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge about 15 minutes after sunrise. It was a cloudy morning, so the light stayed muted during my drive along the wildlife road. There were a lot of pintails feeding in the shallow water. They sometimes blend in with the vegetation and only become noticeable because they are moving!
In my favorite pintail picture of the morning, the bird seemed to be posing!
There were a few Northern Shovelers. I saw a lot more of them in previous winters.
A yellowlegs was in the same pond where I had seen one many times before. I’m not sure whether it is a lesser or greater. The coloring looks more like a lesser but the bill is long like a greater! I don’t have anything to help me gauge the size.
The male red-winged blackbirds were raucously defining their territory.
I spotted meadowlarks several times but only got one (not very good) picture.
A group of gadwalls was feeding in the shallows. They look like they are interacting with each other more than the group of feeding pintails were.
I didn’t see any snow geese until later in my visit…and then I saw a small flock just before I left. I didn’t see the large flocks this year at Hagerman. I wondered if the avian flu reduced their numbers or if the odd winter weather has the geese wintering elsewhere.
As I left to continue my drive toward home, I savored the hour well-spent!
When I first arrived at Josey Ranch, I didn’t think I was going to see very many birds. Then I started to notice more. Ring-billed gulls on the boardwalk and shore.
Pigeons strutting – the iridescent color of their feathers changing as they moved.
I excepted the flotilla of scaups. They seem to be the bird I see most this winter.
A coot came out of the water, and I got pictures of its feet (so different…they look a little dangerous) and next to a Canada goose for a size comparison.
There were a few shovelers.
But the treat were cormorants on the water….I took several sequences because there seemed to be so many cormorants making the maneuver.
One bird swam around with wings arched for a long time. Was it to dry the feathers….or show off for a lady?
There was not a lot of extra time during my work trip to Carrollton TX in late January…but I did manage a morning to check the birds at Josey Ranch. I was a little early; the sun was up but the large building to the east was still blocking much of the sunshine. There were quite a few birds to see.
The scaups
The Northern Shovelers (the first time I had seen them this season at Josey Ranch)
The coots
The Canada Geese
A Great Blue Heron…A Great Egret
The Double-crested Cormorants (although not in as large numbers as previous visits)
A male bufflehead (looking for breakfast so difficult to catch on the surface!)
The resident swans
It seemed that many of the birds were in motion….leaving wakes as they moved through the water. I enjoyed the few minutes I spent…getting my nature fix for the day before I started packing up items to be donated from my parents’ house.
January was a very light month for photography; I was recovering from the stress of being away from home and made 2 short trips to Carrollton very focused on helping my parents adjust to their new home and preparing to sell the house they had lived in for over 30 years. Even with fewer images to select from – I savor the 9 selected as the best for the month: birds and snow and sunrises….and a surprised flower (taken near the end of December just as the first hard freeze was sending the Carrollton TX area into winter). Enjoy the January 2024 slideshow!
The birds were very active at our feeders recently with the temperature in the single digits (Fahrenheit) and the wind blowing up to 16 miles per hour! Multiple perches were in use much of the time. The house finches were the most numerous but there were sparrows (white-crowned) and a woodpecker (hairy?) and a female Northern Cardinal too. It was quite a feeding frenzy!
I was taking pictures through an office window with a screen so the pictures have a softened focus. Sometimes birds were still enough for portraits (female finch, male woodpecker, white crowned sparrow, cardinal).
I attempted a picture of sparrow through vegetation….and liked the artsy veil that the automatic focus produced with the challenge.
Of course, there were other items catching snow around our patio – the chiminea, the holly trees, the gnarled vine to the side of the stairs to the deck, a paver near the almost covered lambs ear, fall leaves in the bottom of the wagon. I stepped outside to take these pictures….and all the birds flew away!
The birds returned within minutes of my exit from the patio back to the warmth of my office.
I got to the large pond at Josey Ranch (Carrollton TX) just after sunrise on the last day of 2023. The birds were in feeding mode. The ring-necked duck diving for fish…
The swans swimming up to a high bank to nibble the grass while staying in the water….
A flock of double-crested cormorants landing just as I arrived than quickly finding good places to feed on the pond.
They were more numerous than I had ever seen at the pond before…I was probably lucky to catch some that were migrating.
A great blue heron was statue-like – standing on the grassy shore.
When I looked at my images on a large sceen, I discovered that I had managed a photo of a scaup with its mouth open!
The sunrise was not spectacular; the clouds were thickening as the sun came up. It was spectacular to see the cormorants so active in the minutes of brilliant sunshine at one end of the pond. I headed back to work on tasks I needed to complete before I left for Missouri (going home) the following day.
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.
What were the death tolls from pandemics in history? – The two most recent ones are COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS. Death from the 1918-1920 flu pandemic was larger than both together….and the population of the world was less then too.
Moments of hope and resilience from the climate frontlines – Drought then intense rains leading to rolling blackouts, damage to infrastructure, agriculture failures, mosquito spread diseases. Heat stress leading to deaths of people and wildlife, wildfires. Protecting and rehabilitating damaged habitats. A new normal….not anyone ready. Heat officers to help residents cope. Coastal erosion (caused by coastal development, rising sea levels and storm surges). Taking two years rather than one to dry firewood in Lapland. Solar panels positive impact on health care in India (and anywhere where electric power is unreliable). Crop irrigation required where it previously was not. Learning from our past, simpler lifestyles.
European Imports of Russian Pipeline Gas Dropped by Half Last Year - Europe has implemented measures to conserve energy and has ramped up wind and solar power. Last year, Germany, the largest economy in Europe, drew more than half of its power from renewables for the first time.
NASA Captures Stunning Images of Jupiter’s Moon Io on Closest Flyby in 20 Years – Image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Io is the most volcanically active planetary body in our solar system with 100s of volcanos.
Christmas Trees on the Beach – The innovative ways communities are using the cut trees after Christmas!
How humans have changed the Earth’s surface in 2023 – Overhead pictures tell stories of the past year. The picture of the drained Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine was startling.
Photographer Travels Europe to Document Incredible Starling Murmurations – I see smaller murmurations every road trip….never in a situation to photograph them! They are not always starlings. I remember seeing one in Florida that was tree swallows.
Could Climate Change Cause More Lakes to Turn Bright Pink? – Single-celled, salt-loving halobacteria. There is a new pink pond at the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii…but it has been happening in the Great Salt Lake’s North Arm for several decades. The number of pink ponds could increase with warmer temperatures increasing evaporation (and increasing the salinity of waters).
Next Solar Eclipse, In April, Expected to Attract Upwards Of 4 Million Tourists - Great American Eclipse has developed a geographic model to estimate how many people will travel to see the April eclipse. This model predicts that between 1 and 4 million people will travel to the path of totality. Texas is expected to receive the majority of visitors, followed by Indiana, Ohio, New York, Arkansas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Oklahoma, Maine, and New Hampshire.
U.S. Dietary Committee considers if the potato is a vegetable or a grain - Agriculture officials say the average American consumes about 50 pounds of potatoes each year.
There was not as much time for photography this past month; I am combining macro (getting close) and zoomed (optical magnification) images in this post.
The macro images go first. The yellow cosmos were part of a small bouquet I cut and put in mini-vase for the middle of my parents’ breakfast table. They enjoyed the enlarged view that I showed them just after I photographed them. The leaves are probably the last new ones of the season on a rose bush that has been blooming next to their garage for over 30 years!
The leaves on a millet plant (came up under the bird feeder!) are interesting as they begin their end-of-season decline.
The zoomed images for December included some birds and plants at Josey Ranch, fall foliage, and zoomed images of glass orbs in yard art…the last flowers in the garden.
In the coming months – the stainless steel iris will be the highlight of the garden!
In the coming months – the stainless steel iris will be the highlight of the garden!
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.
Restored Glass Negatives Capture Daily Life in 19th-Century New England – Photographs taken from the 1860s to 1930s….Massachusetts…different photographers.
As Temperatures Rise, Dengue Fever Spreads and Cases Rise – The mosquitos that carry dengue viruses are extending their range. There were 0.5 million cases in 2000…5.2 million in 2019. In recent years, dengue has popped up in places it had never been seen, including Afghanistan, parts of Southern Europe, and, this year, Chad. An additional 2 billion people would be at risk of dengue exposure by 2080, compared to 2015. Areas unfamiliar with dengue may be hard hit even if case numbers aren’t high as people won’t have immunity from previous exposure to the virus, and public health systems may not be strong enough to cope with dengue outbreaks.
The World’s Largest Iceberg Is Drifting Three Miles Into the Ocean Each Day - The world’s largest iceberg, which had been grounded on the seafloor since the mid-1980s, is moving away from Antarctica and picking up speed. It could disrupt the foraging of seals, penguins and other seabirds. Called A23a, the iceberg measures around 1,500 square miles—more than 20 times the size of Washington, D.C.—and it’s roughly 1,300 feet thick, making it two and one-third times the height of the Washington Monument. It weighs nearly one trillion metric tons.
Landscape Photography Awards Rewards Authenticity in Photography – My favorite was “Little Leaves”….maybe because it didn’t have time to see a lot with fall foliage this year.
Expansive Alexander Calder Exhibition Opens in Seattle – Take a look at the museum’s site for the exhibit at well.
Bird Photography Contest Celebrates the Unique Diversity of Australia’s Wildlife - Nine winners were singled out for their work, rising above more than 6,000 images that were submitted. My favorite of this group is “Jambalaya on the Bayou.”
Volcano Monitoring Can Be A Risky Business: How Scientists Work Safely - Common PPE used in the field by HVO staff include respirators to filter volcanic gases, gas badges to monitor sulfur dioxide (SO2) concentrations, along with helmets and eye protection. When molten lava sampling, crews will carry a face shield, fire-resistant clothing, and gloves to protect the wearer from radiating heat.
Best of 2023: Top 42 Photographs From Around the World – I have two favorites in this group of photos: the bald eagles and the dancing mantises!
African Penguins Tell Each Other Apart by Their Polka Dot Patterns – Evidently the chest plumage is unique to each bird….and the birds recognize the dots of their partners!
Photographer Chronicles the Enchanting Life of a Wild Red Fox for 8 Months – A Hungarian photographer’s project at his cottage in the forest after he noticed a fox running under the window one night.
I made stops at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge on my way to and from Carrollton all during the year. On the way down, I arrived around noon; on the way home, it was just after sunrise.
Seeing/photographing birds is the big draw for my visits. I spend an hour or so moving slowly down the central wildlife tour road…sometimes taking a side road. I use my car as a blind and roll the window down when I see birds. My camera is on a monopod collapsed down to its shortest length. Most of the time I brace it in the cup holder between the front seats…tilt the head to get the image I want.
In the winter there are flocks of snow geese (and Ross’s geese) along with Northern Shovelers and Pintails. White Faced Ibis and American White Pelicans are seen during migrations. Egrets (snowy, cattle, great) are numerous in the spring and summer; I enjoyed an early morning seeing/hearing them on one of the ponds where they had obviously spent the night. Great Blue Herons are around all the time although are most numerous in the summer when the young are beginning life on their own. Red-winged blackbirds are year-round residents but murmurations of the birds are seen in the fall as they move about eating the mature seeds of the prairie plants. I saw Neotropic Cormorants for the first time this year.
Of course there are other things to photograph too – prairie type flowers, drift wood, insects, sunrise. This year I noticed a cluster of Queen butterflies in July…didn’t see many Monarchs until the fall when they were probably migrating. The butterflies were photographed in the butterfly garden near the refuge’s visitor center – along with a grasshopper! I was surprised to see a dragonfly perched on a plant so close to the car that I was able to photograph it during my drive down the wildlife loop!
Hagerman has become one of my favorite places in Texas…and I will continue to stop there as often as I can.
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.
Scientists found hundreds of toxic chemicals in recycled plastics - More than 13,000 chemicals used in plastics with 25% classified as hazardous. Numerous studies show that hazardous chemicals can accumulate even in relatively close-loop plastic recycling systems. We need to rapidly phase-out plastic chemicals that can cause harm to human health and the environment.
Giant Sequoias Are in Big Trouble. How Best to Save Them? - Giant sequoias are, by volume, the largest trees in the world, indigenous only to California. Reaching heights of 300 feet, they occur in 80 groves or grove complexes along the western flank of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Central California. Many of these trees live for thousands of years: The oldest sequoia is more than 3,200 years old. In North America, only bristlecone pines grow longer. The 2020 and 2021 fire seasons were a wake-up call: flames had killed between 13 and 19 percent of all giant sequoias more than 4 feet in diameter, and many trees were far larger.
Batteries of the future? How cotton and seawater might power our devices - In markets where consumers appear to really care about the sustainability of the products they buy, appropriately sourced alternative battery materials might have more of a chance – whether batteries are made with biowaste-derived carbon or any other potentially more sustainable substance. The public could play a big role in really pushing that effort forward.
Designing cities for 21st-century weather – A data-driven model to predict how urban areas across the country will grow by 2100 found that how a city is laid out or organized spatially has the potential to reduce population exposures to future weather extremes. Carefully designed urban land patterns cannot completely erase increased population exposures to weather extremes resulting from climate change, but it can generate a meaningful reduction of the increase in risks.
Stunning 2,700-Year-Old Sculpture Unearthed in Iraq – 18 tons of alabaster. 2,700 years old. 12.5x12.8 feet. Largely intact except for its head which is missing.
Larger Beaks, Smaller Bodies: Could Climate Change Literally Change Birds? – A study analyzed 129 species of North American migratory birds collected over the prior 40 years and found bodies are shrinking and wings growing longer. Smaller species of birds, like tiny warblers or kinglets, shrink faster than bigger birds like robins and grackles, so their rate of change over the 40 years, is much, much faster. They’re able to maybe adapt to warming temperatures faster than these bigger birds.
A step closer to injection-free diabetes care: Innovation in insulin-producing cell – Potential this safer and more reliable way to grow insulin-producing cells from a patient's own blood could eventually allow transplants without the need for anti-rejection drugs.
The Life and Death of American Dams - Many dams are now poorly maintained, clogged with silt, and pose an increasingly high risk of catastrophic failure. The recent recognition of the damage dams cause and the movement to remove them is part of the rewilding of America, long overdue.
An exotic tick that can kill cattle is spreading across Ohio – Asian longhorned ticks. The size of a sesame seed in some life stages and pea-sized when engorged. Surveillance showed they returned the following summer to the farm despite the application of pesticides in 2021. Asian longhorned ticks' secret colonization weapon is the ability to reproduce asexually, with each female laying up to 2,000 eggs at a time -- and all 2,000 of those female offspring able to do the same.
How Urban Design Impacts Public Health – Urban planning and design affects everything from air quality to temperature to risk of injury on roadways. Often with developers of public spaces it’s a sin of omission rather than of commission. In many cases, what is rarely apparent is what the health cost is, because that cost is born in a different sector and often at a different time.
November has been a more emotional month that usual…there are some little celebrations on my list for the month that seem normal….but others that reflect the rapid changes occurring with one of my parents.
90+ birthday. Both of my parents are approaching their mid-90s and my family tries to celebrate each birthday (realizing that it could be the last). The one that happened in November was celebrated over 3 days to avoid exhausting them both. I got to be there for all three days since I stay in their home when I am in Carrollton.
Birds at the feeder (after we unclogged them). I unclogged bird feeders at both Carrollton and my home in Missouri…celebrated when the birds quickly discovered that the seed was available again.
A cool sunny day. I had grass and leaves to mow…celebrated the sunny afternoon that was not too cold for the activity. It was one of the most enjoyable mowing experiences of the season!
Twigs burned/millet planted. I had other yard work to accomplish as part of fall clean up in my yard and there was an excellent day to get it done. I burned the accumulated twigs (savoring the heat produced) and put the millet seed heads in strategic places so that (maybe) plants will grow next summer. My husband helped me store all the tools that had been out under the deck for quick access during the summer. We both celebrated the completion of our preparations for winter.
A good nap today. I drove from Missouri to Carrollton the day after my parent entered the hospital and immediately went to the hospital to stay with them overnight. My sister arrived the next morning to spend the next 24 hours helping the parent in the hospitals and I managed to drive to my parents’ house….and celebrated another sister being there to fix lunch so that I could nap. I went completely to sleep…got a full 90 minute sleep cycle in 100 minutes….celebrated feeling so much better afterward.
Bluebird at Josey Ranch. Seeing the bluebird at Josey Ranch was a boost to my mental outlook. I celebrated that I was savvy enough to know that nature often does that for me…and to stop at Josey Ranch on my way from the hospital to my parents’ house.
A parent coming home from the hospital. The sunrise I noticed at the hospital was a good start on the day my parent was projected to come home from the hospital. I celebrated the beauty at the beginning of the day…glad that the homecoming occurred later in the day.
The home health nurse coming for a 1st visit. I celebrated that we got a visit from the home health nurse on the Friday after Thanksgiving (i.e. we didn’t have to wait for the week after Thanksgiving)!
The time I have with my parents now….being in the present. I celebrate the time I am having with both parents now. Appreciating joys in every day shared with them.
Thanksgiving. The holiday was very different this year. I spent it with my parents and having various family bring special foods throughout the weekend rather than one huge meal. Gratitude is integrated with all my other emotions right now…and I celebrate that it is. It makes everything else easier.
On the way back to my parents house after a 24 hour stint with my parent in the hospital, I stopped by Josey Ranch (in Carrollton TX) for an escape into nature.
The first bird I saw was a bluebird! Whether or not it was a good omen – it was a great boost to my mood.
I thought at first that there were only scaups on the water.
But then I noticed the coots…and that one of them was smaller than the others. Was it a juvenile? The grass that had grown in the pond over the summer when the water level was low is now flooded and the coots seem to love eating it.
And then a grebe swam by near the coots.
I photographed the sleeping swans with some grebes feeding in the grass nearby.
It was only a short escape from focus on what was happening at the hospital and at my parents’ home…but time well spent for sustaining a positive mental outlook.
Josey Ranch Lake in Carrollton (Texas) was not as full of birds as usual although some of the winter migrants were there in small numbers: American Coots
Ruddy Ducks (with a Scaup in the same picture…size comparison)
Scaups
There was a Great Blue Heron, probably a resident, that seemed very interested in something high in the cattails. When I looked at my picture on my larger monitor, I noticed a place high on the wing that seemed devoid of feathers (i.e. pink ‘skin’ showing). I wondered what could have caused that.
Both resident mute swans were sleeping on the bank…surrounded by a few fluffs of feathers dislodged by their preening.
I didn’t stay long…too breezy and cold. I’ll spend more time at Josey Ranch next time I am in Carrollton.
Last week, my husband and I visited the Butterfly Palace in Branson MO – less than an hour from where we live. My daughter had visited several days before and recommended it.
There were butterfly sculptures and stakes along the short walk to the building.
We walked around the Living Rainforest Science Center first…then the Emerald Forest Mirror Maze. The maze was a bit more challenging than we anticipated…more fun too. But the big draw is, of course, the Butterfly Aviary.
Visitors are given a vial with a ‘flower’ on top that attracts butterflies. They sip the liquid (diluted orange Gatorade) while people walk around the aviary.
The paper kites seem to settle in on the ‘flowers’ and stay for the duration! It was very easy to take close pictures of them with my phone (one handed since the vial was in the other one!). My husband had more butterflies on his flower than I did on mine.
The butterflies in the exhibit were the same species as I’d seen previously at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy in Maryland. There were some butterflies with iridescent blue wings (blue morphos?) but I wasn’t able to photograph them. I like the malachite butterflies a lot but, in this exhibit, the paper kites were the stars on the day we visited. There were fruit trays and sponges in sugar water for the butterflies….very few blooming plants. The paths were too narrow to allow for photography with other than phones…but many of the butterflies were stationery enough to get close with the phone!
There were some small rainforest birds that stayed in the trees around where their food was placed. They were as iridescent as some of the butterflies.
Outside the aviary the butterfly theme continued everywhere – chairs, artwork, on the walls. The butterfly chairs are surprisingly comfortable; I sat in one until the 3D movie about Monarch Butterflies opened for the next showing.
The store is large and had a good selection. I was surprised to find a new, sturdier stand for my large glass birdbath (I didn’t use it last summer because I was too worried that the stand was not stable enough)!
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.
Abandoned Lands: A Hidden Resource for Restoring Biodiversity – Nature colonizing abandoned land…maybe we need to learn to help it along. The amount of land under agriculture globally has been in decline since 2001. Sometimes the abandonment is not driven by economic, demographic, or social factors, but by pollution or industrial disasters. Hundreds of square miles of radioactive former farmland around the stricken nuclear reactors at Chernobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan are now within exclusion zones and could be without human occupation for centuries to come.
How to build for aging in place - Aging-ready homes address two core needs—single-floor living and bathroom accessibility—by providing a zero-step entry, a first-floor bedroom, and a full first-floor bathroom with at least one accessibility feature. Today only 10% of American homes are ‘age ready.’ When my husband and I bought our current home, we were conscious of buying something that would help us age-in-place. Everything is on one floor except for the laundry room….so we might have to eventually add an elevator to the house.
The Mississippi is Mighty Parched – The river south of Memphis has narrowed considerably in the past 2 years. Barge companies reduced the weight carried in many shipments in September because the river was not deep enough to accommodate their normal weight. Much of U.S. grain exports are transported down the Mississippi; the cost of these shipments from St. Louis southward has risen 77% above the three-year average. The lack of freshwater flowing into the Gulf of Mexico has also allowed saltwater to make its way up the river and into some water treatment plants in southern Louisiana.
Electric Cars Are Transforming America’s Truck Stops – I’ve been noticing the changes described in this article as I travel. More of truck stops have banks of chargers…and the Pilot just north of Denison has better food and a larger shopping/eating area… Adding charging equipment for electric cars is a major transformation for truck stops and travel centers but represents a new business opportunity.
The seed guardians in the Andes trying to save the potato – Climate change/disease are risks that all species are facing. There are 1,300 varieties of potato growing in the Andes. Potato Park, located near the Peruvian town of Pisac, was founded by six indigenous communities in 2002 to preserve the genetic diversity of potatoes grown in the region, as well as the cultural heritage of the people that grow them.
Chemical Analysis of Viking Combs Hints at Long-Distance Trade – 85-90% of the combs found in a Viking settlement in Germany, came from northern Scandinavia – made of the antlers of reindeer. So large scale trading between the two sites was happening as early as AD 800.
See Ten Stunning Images from the Bird Photographer of the Year Awards – Birds and photography…images to enjoy.
Japanese Scientists Find Microplastics in the Clouds Above Mount Fuji – Maybe we should be more surprised if we looked and didn’t find microplastics!
Why Flamingos are Showing Up in the U.S. this Fall – The short answer is hurricanes…specifically Hurricane Idalia. Flamingos are strong fliers and will simply return south eventually.
A Sample of Ancient Asteroid Dust Has Landed Safely on Earth – We were at the launch of OSIRIS Rex in September 2016…so I continue to follow news about the mission.
There are 4 Henry Nehrling books about birds available on Internet Archive. The illustrations are the work of Robert Ridgway. Both men were products of the Midwest – born in Wisconsin and Illinois respectively in the 1850s. Both became ornithologists and horticulturists (Nehrling skewing toward horticulture and Ridgway toward ornithology). Were they friends or was the creation of the books just a transaction?
Die Nord-Amerikanische Vogelwelt Heft 1-10
Die Nord-Amerikanische Vogelwelt
Our native birds of song and beauty V1
Our native birds of song and beauty V2
It is easy to spot familiar birds in the illustrations!
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.
Nature's great survivors: Flowering plants survived the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs – Ancestors of orchids, magnolia, and mint all shared Earth with the dinosaurs…and are thriving today.
Woman Uses Hidden Cameras to Get Candid Look at Birds in Her Backyard – Birds (and squirrel, chipmunk, and groundhog) at the food bowl.
Climate Change Hurting Water Quality in Rivers Worldwide – Cycles of heavy rainfall and drought are impacting water quality everywhere.
Large amounts of sedentary time linked with higher risk of dementia in older adults, study shows – The average American is sedentary for about 9.5 hours per day! This study found that the risk of dementia begins to rapidly increase after 10 hours spent sedentary each day for people over 60 years old, regardless of how the sedentary time was accumulated.
The puzzling link between air pollution and suicide - More than 700,000 people kill themselves worldwide every year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). People in the US might be particularly troubled to learn that the suicides here have increased by around 40% over the past two decades….and the nation now has one of the highest rates of wealthy, developed countries. Suicide disproportionately affects men. In the US, around 80% of suicides last year were male. More research is needed to understand the link between air pollution and suicide…but we already know that "tiny, invisible particles of pollution penetrate deep into our lungs, bloodstream and bodies…and are responsible for about one-third of deaths from stroke, chronic respiratory disease, and lung cancer, as well as one quarter of deaths from heart attack."
Archaeologists discover 1,000-year-old mummy in Peru – Long hair still preserved.
Older adults with digestive diseases experience higher rates of loneliness, depression - While life expectancy rates for older Americans are rising, nearly 40% of adults report living with a digestive disease of some kind.
A Chronic Itch: Burrowing Beneath the Skin - Approximately 20% of people suffer from chronic itch, which is medically defined as an itch lasting greater than six weeks. For many, there is no relief. Itch has historically been one of the most overlooked medical symptoms, reflected in the limited available treatment options, most of which have only been discovered recently.
Puffins Are Making a Comeback in Maine - The fifty-year effort that helped puffins rebound in Maine is cause for celebration!
Capturing carbon in savannas: new research examines role of grasses for controlling climate change - Grasses accounted for over half of the soil carbon content across tropical savannas, including soils directly beneath trees. In general, forests primarily store their carbon in the woody trunks and aboveground leaves. In contrast, a significant portion of carbon in grassy ecosystems, such as savannas and grasslands, is stored in the soil, primarily within the extensive root systems of the grasses as well as decaying organic matter. In the context of long-term carbon storage, carbon retained in soils proves to be more reliable, particularly for a vulnerable future marked by warming and increased likelihood of drought and wildfires.
Continuing the early morning at Hagerman….
Sometimes the birds move about in a kind of ballet on the roost pond before they fly away to spend their day elsewhere. In this instance – the dance includes two great blue herons in the middle and three great egrets a little to the right. Other birds on the pond are either oblivious or looking on.
I took pictures of a heron catching a fish and realized, when I looked at the pictures on my large monitor at home, that there were wood ducks in the background!
There aren’t as many plants in bloom right now…I fixated on one type I saw as I headed back to the visitor center area.
A pair of Dickcissels flew into the top of some vegetation near the road. I enjoyed taking portraits of them.
I took some portraits of a great blue heron and great egret backlit in the morning sun that hav a very different look than the roost pond. The water has a metallic look…the birds almost silhouettes. They were the finale to this Hagerman visit.
Copyright © 2024, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
Celebrating the whole of life....
Thanks for visiting my blog! Enjoy the photo picks from last month:
Copyright © 2024, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
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