28 April 08
Not Just Birds
We saw lots of birds in Texas. I sketched a good number of them; some of those sketches will be appearing on Bird by Bird.
There were other critters out and about, though, including javelinas, deer, coyotes, and bats. Millions and millions of Brazilian free-tailed bats that emerged from the mouth of a cave mere feet below us, at a rate of about 500 per second, for ages and ages. They swirled up into the air to be picked off at random by awaiting red-tailed and Swainson’s hawks (and be summarily eaten mid-air) yet drifted off toward Austin unfazed, eventually looking like smoke.
There are some sights that defy description, verbal or pictorial. This is one of them. I offer my meager attempts knowing that nothing at all can compare with being there. Certainly nothing at all can convey the ammonia stink of twenty million bats emerging from their sleeping quarters…
28 April 08
West Texas Tidbits
This morning we were having side-by-side views of Brewer’s and clay-colored sparrow in the scrublands northwest of Uvalde, Texas. We arrived back this afternoon from our trip to the Texas hill country, Big Bend, and the Davis Mountains and quickly saw our familiar crows and yellow-billed magpies again — quite a change of avifauna!
Best bird of the trip: the Colima warbler. In the United States this birds is only to be found in the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park, and it takes a long hike to get to the zone where it was found. We had a long 12-and-a-half hour hike that day, but after much effort and careful listening, we caught up with the bird. This was Pica’s 700th species of bird seen in the ABA region.
Most obliging life bird ever: on the Colima hike, a Mexican jay caught up with us hoping to procure some trail mix. He followed us up a few hundred meters, and often got within several feet of us. This was my first Mexican jay ever — I wish all life birds were so accomodating!
Most amazing astronomical sight: since the Big Bend area and the Davis Mountains have the darkest skies of anywhere in the continental United States, I figured on doing some good stargazing. I saw the zodiacal light for the first time ever, but what was incredibly cool was seeing the intersection of the band formed by the zodiacal light with the Milky Way. The former follows the ecliptic, that is to say the plane of our solar system. The latter marks the plane of our galaxy. Incredible to see this intersection in the real sky rather than just on a star chart.
16 April 08
700?
We’re off to Texas tomorrow. We’ll be looking at birds. (We won’t be on our bikes.) If we see the golden-cheeked warbler, black-capped vireo, and Colima warbler, that will put me at 700 bird species seen in North America.
My first big birding trip was also to Texas, in February 1990, also with Bill Drummond. I was recovering from a divorce and found the focused energy a wonderful outlet. I was mesmerized by pauraques and cranes, grackles and kiskadees.
I do not intend to stop birding, but I think this may be my last big trip that involves getting on a plane to see birds…
Lots of sketches ahead; I’ll post some when we get back.
15 April 08
Citizen Science Is My Life
We’re off on a birding trip to Texas in a couple of days, and we’ve been frantically trying to pull things together before then. One of which is getting the Yolo County Breeding Bird Atlas project underway. This will be a five-year project to inventory the birds breeding in Yolo County to a five-kilometer grid cell resolution. Somehow I’ve ended up being the volunteer data manager for the project, the biggest chore of late being producing a set of maps for the grid cells we’re surveying this year (the maps are available at the link above).
On clear evenings I’m still hard at work making variable star observations. I am not very quick at the process yet and seem to manage only two stars or so per session, but I presume I will get more efficient over time. It is fun the morning after to enter the data, since they get posted immediately on the AAVSO website. It’s great to be able to look at a graph of the change of a star’s brightness and see your own observations pooled together with everybody else’s. Here is an example of the light curve graph for the star R Canis Minoris. My own observations are the three points at right on the graph highlighted in a purple box.
13 April 08
Rediscoverng the Parsnip
My father loved parsnips. To me they were an unnecessary white vegetable at Christmas, competing with the brussels sprouts my mother had me peel and cut crosses in the base of, sweet potatoes or yams, white potatoes, gravy, and turkey. (We didn’t really do Thanksgiving in Madrid: it was a school night.)
I tried growing them this year, and a row of them sits outside. I pulled up a bunch this morning, and sautéed them with brussels sprouts (cut in half, not with a cross) in olive oil, till they both caramelized in the pan. It was delicious.
Our high temperatures over the past couple of days make me want to fill the garden with summer vegetables, but it can still get cold enough to make that a bad idea. The parsnips and snap peas will need to be eaten soon, though…
8 April 08
Second Week
In this second week of the season, the Giants today managed to win their second game of the year, in extra innings even. Nobody has high expectations for the Giants this year, so we’ll take wins when we get them. On the other side of the continent, Bill Buckner threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Opening Day at Fenway Park to a very emotional standing ovation. The Red Sox then went on to beat the Detroit Tigers 5-0, who now have a surprisingly horrible record of 0 and 7.
We’re going to the opening game of the River Cats this Friday! Should be fun.
4 April 08
Ink Under the Fingernails
I dropped and broke the water jug (it wasn’t empty), I left the binder in the wrong place, I lost my glasses, I’m behind on everything at home, at work, and in the garden.
Breathe, and get ink under the fingernails. I did. My, that feels better.
In other news and to get some perspective, one of my coworkers was rescued from the San Jacinto Mountains yesterday having hiked in the day before to retrieve a radio collar from one of our tagged lions. He twisted his knee (don’t know quite how badly he’s hurt yet, but he couldn’t walk). He was luckily a) with a colleague, b) carrying a GPS emergency beacon, which he activated at six the night before. They made a shelter (which didn’t cover his hurt leg, which he had to keep extended and which got rained on in the same rainstorm that delayed the Dodger/Giants game). (At this time of year it could still have turned into a blizzard…)
30 March 08
Rolling Opener
It’s getting hard to tell when the baseball season starts. The A’s and Red Sox opened the season on this past Tuesday with a pair of games played in Japan. Meanwhile, the rest of the teams were playing their final week of exhibition games. Today, there were two exhibition games, but the Washington Nationals opened their season with a game at home against the Atlanta Braves. President Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch, and promptly got booed. The rest of the teams start off their season tomorrow and Tuesday.
29 March 08
Shades of Gray with a Splash of Orange
When I first pulled out the freeway daisies in front of the house for a herb garden, I had this vague notion I wanted it to be predominantly gray. This doesn’t work very well if what you want are herbs that you use all the time, such as parsley, cilantro, or basil, but I thought I could hide them in among the lavenders and sages (and artichokes) and it would mostly be gray. (Note to self: never, ever can sorrel be hidden among gray; it perks up in its yellow green perkiness in pure defiance, but can’t bring myself to pull it out, so delicious is it…)
I made some mistakes — part of the gardening rite of passage — and it turns out that most of the items that have since been pulled out have tended to the yellow-green rather than blue-green/gray. The latest casualty was the lemon verbena that never really recovered from the frost.
What I didn’t plan for, though, was the delightful colonization by California poppies. They can, and do, take over, but who could mind it? And if they really do crowd out something, they’re easy to pull out (and will certainly come back next year).
The orange sets off the gray to perfection. I’m trying to focus on the rest of the flowers in this garden being bluish purple. I finally planted the olive tree Jennifer suggested a couple of years ago and though it will grow very slowly it will be the focal point.
Garden design is a difficult and serious art, but the good news is, even if you don’t know what you’re doing, most things will reward you anyway.
27 March 08
Lights Out Earth Hour
On March 29th at 8 PM local time the World Wildlife Fund is inviting everyone to turn off their lights for an hour, an Earth Hour to make a statement about energy use and climate change. What to do then? March 29th also marks the start of the 6th annual National Dark-Sky Week Celebration organized by the International Dark-Sky Association. It’s a great chance to get out and do some stargazing!