Month: May 2021

Field trip roundup

Blandy Experimental Farm/State Arboretum of Virginia, Clarke County

On the native plant trail, too late for spring ephemerals and too early for summer meadow flowers. I did see some Penstemon sp., and Oxeye Daisy was fairly common. Not very birdy—I saw some Chimney Swifts by one of the buildings. A mystery pink-flowered sedum-like something.

I got some reasonably good observations of Magicicada cassinii and M. septendecim. Cassin’s sounds like a recycling lawn sprinkler.

new growthwell drilledIn the conifer collection, I was taken by the bright green new growth of Nordmann’s Fir (Abies nordmanniana).

Red Rock Wilderness Overlook Regional Park, Loudoun County

Mostly families on the poorly marked trails. The drop down to the riverside is steep and slippy. Pass.

Fraser Preserve, Fairfax County

Six-spotted Tiger Beetles (Cicindela sexguttata) were tolerably common; a Great Blue Skimmer (Libellula vibrans) defending turf at the entrance gate. At Nichols Run, a mystery hollow-stemmed, maculate shrubby something and a handsome Northern Watersnake (Nerodia sipedon). Much lovely dappled shade on the trail/gravel road.

Waiting for an interview with Quexcorp

Two bits of juvenilia from my business school days, published in the student newspaper, The Wharton Journal, in 1978-1979: a guide to the non-credit courses in computing and calculus offered in the summer, and a satire of too much life hacking. I had about 20 pieces published in the paper, and in exchange for meeting once a week to proofread, I got my name in the staff box with the fancy title of News Editor.

Photo stop

At the lake we stop and stretch and mingle affably with the small crowd of tourists holding cameras and children yelling, “Don’t get too close!” and see cars and campers with all different license plates, and see the Crater Lake with a feeling of “Well, there it is,” just as the pictures show. I watch the other tourists, all of whom seem to have out-of-place looks too. I have no resentment at all this, just a feeling that it’s all unreal and that the quality of the lake is smothered by the fact that it’s so pointed to. You point to something as having Quality and the Quality tends to go away. Quality is what you see out of the corner of your eye, and so I look at the lake below but feel the peculiar quality from the chill, almost frigid sunlight behind me, and the almost motionless wind.

“Why did we come here?” Chris says.

“To see the lake.”

—Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), p. 341

70°

Pollution is just a resource in the wrong place: Denver is building a sewer heat-recovery program, as Sam Brasch of Colorado Public Radio reports.

[Shanti] Pless said the biggest barrier isn’t technology — it’s helping developers rethink the size of their heating and cooling systems. Sewer heat recovery often works best as the heart of a district-size energy system, where a central plant provides energy to a whole neighborhood or office complex.

At the park: 118

Last full work day of the season:

Three more boxes hatched out! This leaves one more clutch in box #2 to go, plus two eggs in adjacent box #4 that we’re monitoring. Box #4 probably will not be incubated.

Rather than a scheduled work day, K and C will check those boxes in the next week or so as is convenient.

I patched my patch on box #67, and I retacked the screening on box #3 that C and I improvised. That box was super-full of eggs (25), but it seems that all but 1 fledged. I didn’t count that many membranes, however, so the box remains a but of a mystery.

For next year, boxes #7 and #84 have cracked bottoms and are candidates for replacement.

I’ll prepare a full summary report after I collect the last data on our two outstanding boxes.

Rattlesnakeweed is blooming.

Thanks all!

At the park: 117

Sunday’s report:

Five boxes hatched out — it’s looking to be a good season for us.

I don’t have a full count of eggs for box #13. K, if you happen to have any other notes, please pass them along.

We patched a knot hole in the roof of box #67. I will come back and make a more permanent fix.

Remaining boxes with eggs: #2 and #4 on the inflow, #6 and #84 on the main pond, and #3 in the new pool by the tower.

Our next work day, the 23rd, may be our last for the season. We just have five boxes to spot check, plus the repair box. That said, box #4 had new eggs on Sunday, so this may be a late clutch that will run into June.

support systemI follow this log when I need to cross Barnyard Run. The water is about thigh-deep on me in the center of the stream, so the log gives me some support.

Germination

A little bit pitch drop experiment, a little bit Michael Apted, a little bit genetic repository: William Beal’s 142-year-old seed viability experiment, reported by Nell Greenfieldboyce.

A microbiologist named Richard Lenski looked on. “The others were digging and trying to figure everything out, and I sort of held the map and held it under my jacket to keep it dry at one point. That was my hard work,” says Lenski. “I was wondering if cops might show up at some point.”

At the park: 116

The report for last Sunday:

Box #68 hatched out — Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus). This was the box with 10 eggs on 7 March that I suspected was a carryover from last year. But 15 of the 16 eggs hatched, so it would seem the bird just got started very early this spring.

We’re watching 9 boxes with active clutches. I expect that many of them will be hatched by our next work day on 9 May.

We saw an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) carrying nesting material to the new platform, and several incidents of Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) chasing off crows.

C has reported wet chips in box #67. We’ll take a look to see whether we can improve the waterproofing for that box.

We’ll work again on 9 May and then 23 May. Depending on what we find, that might be all for the season.

The weather looks peachy this weekend! Take an hour and snap some pics for the City Nature Challenge.

I’ve seen a few exit holes, but no cicada adults yet.