Just checking in

So I'm feeling pretty guilty about not having appeared here for months (!) after being so gung-ho about blogging regularly again. After a bit of reflection, I realize that I was mostly enthusiastic about others blogging regularly again. ;-) I've been busy with the new job, of course, and busy sitting on my butt in the air-conditioning. This knee thing has really thrown me for a loop and I'm just now getting to feel better after a month of physical therapy. Why that dopey doctor I went to didn't recommend it for me, I don't know. I'm just glad I decided to be proactive after suffering for 3 months with barely any progress and so grateful to have good health insurance to pay for it. It's really made all the difference in my ability to function like a regular person again.

We've planned a camping trip this weekend and I'm looking forward to hopefully being able to hike without pain. Other than work and physical therapy, I haven't done much so far this summer other than try to avoid the heat. I still don't know how people stand it here - I've got major cabin-fever! We're sharing season tickets for the Braves and have been going to a couple of evening games each month. We're discovering new favorite places to have breakfast on the weekends. We're eating ice cream more often than is probably healthy. My brother and his family came to visit for a couple days at the beginning of July - it was super great to see them and to show off some of the fun things we do here in the A. I've been reunited with my dog Luka from that other life and just last week said goodbye to the senior shelter dog, Sadie, that we adopted only four years ago. I bought myself a new camera lens - a super wide angle - and look forward to playing with that in the future. J and I went out the weekend that I bought it to take some photos of the tall buildings in midtown Atlanta, but ended up at the High Museum of Art as a way to escape the heat and enjoy some free air conditioning. I'm not much of an art museum type, but I enjoy the High and it's folk and modern art.

The photo that accompanies this post was taken there. I plan to be back here in a couple days to share some memories of Sadie - once we're back from camping in the mountains where hopefully it'll be cool!

Wildflowerin' gone bad

He who limps is still walking. ~Stanislaw J. Lec

I love wandering in the woods to find the first sleeping plants that awaken from the forest floor. It’s something of a rite of spring for me, despite the fact that I no longer have to suffer through a cold northern winter. Many of these spring ephemerals, as well as being beautiful, are important food sources for the first foraging butterflies and bees that emerge. Many are even downward-facing to better serve the insects that cruise the forest floor.

A couple weeks back we took an impromptu Friday evening walk to the nature trail at Stone Mountain Park; a friend had mentioned that it's one of the best local places to see a few of my favorites. It's an easy 3/4 mile trail that meanders beside a stream. It was lovely; the azaleas were blooming and as a bonus we saw our first Louisiana waterthrush of the season!

There were many blooming mayapples - so hard to photograph nicely - and some pink lady slippers that I want to go back to check on. I found foamflower, I think, though it's much taller than what I'm used to seeing in NJ. The common name comes from the delicate white flowers that look like foam. I love the extra long pistils on the flowers that rise above the white petals like little golden crowns. Books say that these flowers were often presented by Greeks as tokens of their love.

We also found green-and-gold which is another favorite. It blooms in shady woodland places. So pretty! I believe it's in the aster family, so you know pollinators love it. We finished off our easy evening hike by deciding to head off the nature trail and into the forest proper.
 


We didn't get very far before we had to cross a wet area where the stream ran across a bunch of flat rocks. Despite being extra-super careful when crossing those slippery, moss-covered rocks, I managed to fall and twist up my leg. Bummer! Two weeks later and I finally worked up the courage to see a doctor today... the pain wasn't going away and walking/sleeping/sitting haven't gotten any easier. I have to go back for an MRI, but the chance is that I've torn a meniscus.

:-(

 
I'm studying up on knee anatomy (in between wildflower guides!) and hoping that rest and time and the brace the doctor gave me will fix it up. I welcome any suggestions for how to include/disguise this hideous-looking brace in my professional attire. I hope next time I'll be more careful; wildflowers are a risky habit to have!

Calling all zombies!

This photo has nothing to do with the subject of my post, but.... cute kitty!

So!

A couple of friends on FB have been lamenting the demise of our blogs. We all seem to mostly agree that, coupled with life changes or varying degrees of laziness/lack of interest, the popularity and ease of Facebook put the final nail in the coffin of what was a very happy time in our lives. All the writing. All the sharing. All the feels.

;-)

We miss blogging and we miss our blogging community. Some still blog regularly, some occasionally, some never do - but a couple of us have decided to give it a go again and see if we can't get back some of the magic that we used to share here, in this way. Isn't that exciting?!?

Wonderful sweet Jayne suggested that prompts might be helpful to get our writing juices flowing again, if need be. I like the idea of prompts, so long as they're not too restrictive, or too predictable. So in thinking about it and considering how much we all seem ready to write / talk / make excuses (?) for why we STOPPED blogging, it occurred to me that an interesting prompt might be to think and write about why we STARTED blogging. Others of you may have already addressed this at some point in your blogging career, but I don't think I ever have...

So what do y'all say? Can this prompt lead you somewhere interesting? Will you join us as we try to resurrect our dead or dying blogs? Zombie Bloggers Unite!

:-)

Comment here if you're in!  We'll promise to read and give feedback; that has to be part of the bargain if we're to feel like a community again.

Many, many thanks... I've missed you!

Ahem

I feel so rusty at this, so awkward. It’s not so much because actually doing it feels funny, but more because of the contrast between how unfamiliar it feels to be here, and how entirely natural it used to feel.

It’s like returning to anything, I suppose. The yoga mat, or healthy eating… we don’t slip right back in where we we left off – or at least I don’t. It’s more like returning from a trip, maybe a long one. Abroad. I bring back treasures and memories, something tucked in my pocket, photographs, experiences that I hadn’t had before. I’d like to think I’m richer for this time away from regular blogging, but I doubt it.

At any rate, Atlanta really knows how to do Spring! Everything just comes into bloom at once. I wish I could bottle the crazy combination of daffodils-azaleas-dogwoods-cherry trees-forsythia-viburnums that is Spring here and send it to my friends who are still threatened with snow in the north. I wonder if we don’t appreciate the change in seasons more when it comes slowly? I used to think March was the worst… but here there were even a couple days when it was in the mid 80’s and I was left looking for shade beneath trees that hadn’t leafed out yet!

What’s blooming in your part of the world?

Snowy

 Considering all the time I've spent in Florida the last couple years, you'd think I'd have seen a snowy plover by now, right? Well, I FINALLY got my life snowy at the end of last year when we spent Christmastime at Cape San Blas on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Cape San Blas is one of my favorite places on the "forgotten coast" - not too many people, no condos or hotels, and a 30 minute drive to a decent restaurant or grocery store. My kind of place!

I very nearly stumbled over this bird! It was so totally camouflaged in its winter plumage (and so tame!) that, were it not for its movement, I never would have seen it. I wonder how many others I've stumbled past without ever seeing...

You might notice in my photo that the bird is banded - only one leg is visible - I found out that this bird is a regular winter resident at St. Joseph's State Park on Cape San Blas, but that it breeds elsewhere.

Snowies are sweet birds - small and plain compared to the piping plovers I know so well - but pretty similar in their habits. And like other Florida birds, exceptionally tame. I wonder why that is?

Packing up

I finally took the plunge and moved my blog to Wordpress!

Please follow me there at:

Somewhere in NJ

Parasoled

It didn't feel much like the end of summer today; Atlanta is as hot as ever in the middle of the afternoon. We strolled along the Belt Line looking at the art on display and found these two sweet little girls...

Shine on

I was the-lady-behind-the-snowy-owl in a thousand photos taken that night!

Given the opportunity, I'll complain to most anyone who'll listen about how much I hate living in the city, but I have to admit (however grudgingly!) that it does have its perks, one of which is the Lantern Parade. It's such a fun event and is unique to ATL...

It feels like everyone in the city comes out and it's a crazy riot of colorful people (and their mostly homemade lanterns) and music. A group of us from the Atlanta Audubon Society walked the two mile route together with our lanterns decorated with birds - mine had monarch butterflies - along with an estimated 15K others. It's a wonderful event for the community; participants come up with a crazy, creative variety of ways to add color and light to the parade and people line the pathway and rooftops to watch. It's held each year to celebrate the opening of Art on the Beltline, an exhibition that I hope to post about later in the week.

I found the video below to give you a peak at the view from above... I especially like the dusk shots at the beginning with the skyline in the background and at the end from the after parade party in Piedmont Park!


Atlanta Beltline Lantern Parade 2014 - Filmed By American Drone Industries from E.T. Phoned Home on Vimeo.

Season's end

There is something deep within us that sobs at endings. Why, God, does everything have to end? Why does all nature grow old? Why do spring and summer have to go?
~ Joe Wheeler

My summer of sun and fun at the Jersey Shore has come to an end and I'm back in ATL to wait out the off season... 

We packed up the cars, the dog, the bunny and at least 5 gallons of beach sand in every nook and cranny of my belongings and took the long way home along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I've seen these mountains in Spring, but in late Summer they show their true glory framed by blooming Joe Pye and Black-Eyed Susan. It was already feeling like Fall last week at 6,000 feet above sea level, even if there were still a couple Least Tern chicks waiting for the sky back on my NJ beaches.

I'd thought I'd be despondent at leaving the beach and its birds, but it was time; the work I was there to do was done. My last week on the beach had been filled with gray days and a cool northeast wind. I felt the season beginning to shift gears, felt the summer fading into the wind. The birds, for the most part, had already moved on.

The idea that I'd have time to blog about any of the work that I was doing was ridiculous! I hope to revisit some of the highlights (and the failures) here in the weeks to come, and to process all that I saw and learned. I miss the beach already, of course; I miss staring out at the sea for hours, miss the little dramas that played themselves out among the beach-nesting birds that I was privileged to know, miss being a part of something important.

Anyway so... stay tuned! And in the meantime, tell me about what you've been up to...

Fast forward

Piping Plover chick 1 of 2. Day 25. Fledge Day!

We lost two chicks from this brood, but it's still a win.

If I repeat that often enough, I might begin to believe it...

Fresh from the nest!

Piping Plover chick 1 of 4. Day 7. 19 days until fledge day.

Today was our first sunny day with people on the beach.

We all survived without too many ruffled feathers.

:-)

How to: have hope

Least Tern scrape

American Oystercatcher caginess

Waiting to be found

Just as the sun steps over the horizon, head east. Drive with the sun in your eyes until you hit water. Do not think about yesterday's losses. Do not linger too long over what might've been. Do not wonder what you should have done differently.

Climb over the seawall and greet the Oystercatchers on their way to the river. Tip-toe through the wrack and nod towards the grumpy fishermen. Get down on your hands and knees to see what gifts the tide has left you. Do not mind the tears; the sand and the wind in your eyes are a good excuse.

See the Least Terns overhead: the brazen, bustling air-defense system of this beach. Let your eyes map their petite features: the quick wings, the black cap, the downward-pointing yellow bill. Count them by the dozens. Admire the simplicity of their nest: in a pebbly depression of dry sand, eggs 1 to 4, from pale greenish to dull drab, spotted with clear brown and some lavender.

A field guide to PIPLs

Much of the general beach-going public seems determined to believe that Piping Plovers don't really exist. Many act as if they're just an imaginary endangered bird the rest of us have made up to inconvenience dog-walkers or otherwise prevent folks from fully enjoying a day at the beach.

But, I have photographic proof of their existence!

;-)

The past couple weeks have been Piping Plover boot camp here. Like the mailman, neither fog nor rain nor blazing sun nor gust of wind stays this courier from the swift completion of her appointed rounds! (The weather has been pretty crappy.) I'm out there on the beach daily trying to piece together tracks and sightings of individual birds to predict where they might nest. There's been a fair amount of false starts and leads, and a steep learning curve for me, but we've got 3 pairs with nests!

I can empathize with the public's general cluelessness about these birds. They're really hard to see... even for those of us who are looking for them. They're designed to be invisible. Just imagine trying to find a tiny bird the color of wet sand on a beach strewn with shell shards. It's not easy! If nothing else, it gives you a real respect for the power of camouflage. But as a result, the public is left looking at yards and yards of "empty" roped-off beach that they're not allowed to use and wondering what all the fuss is about.

I spent my afternoon "off" the other day visiting with the plovers out at Sandy Hook. The National Park Service monitors the birds there; I just plopped myself down on the beach with my camera, well outside of the roped-off areas, in order to get a general beach-going public sort of view of them. Just to try and see them the way the rest of the world does (or doesn't!) PIPLs are very agreeable little birds... if you just sit quietly and still enough, they'll happily share the beach with you. Every little drama of their lives is playing itself out around us on the beaches...

I am not a figment of your imagination!

I like to feed on the sparkly parts of the beach.

The dunes hide me well; they're a good place to rest.

Pebbly and shelly places make me disappear even more.

If I position myself just so, I can have a private bath right at your feet!

My eggs: a masterwork of disguise.

Please share the beach.

Please encourage others to do so.

Please help others to see and respect even the hard-to-see wonders of this world.

These birds live here, too. They're our neighbors. They need our help.

Reading the morning papers

Every day I make "rounds" to the 7 or so sites that I'm responsible for; ideally I get to the beach first thing in the morning while the news is still current. Oftentimes, like any busy person, I just scan the newspaper's sections for stories I want to read further...

TRAVEL SECTION

This story was about a person and a dog breaking the rules. Dogs, even leashed and well-behaved ones, aren't allowed on most ocean beaches during nesting season. I read this story just about every day on every beach I visit.

CRIME BLOTTER

The same old suspects here... crows, of course (I think!)

I've been watching a pair of Fish Crows at one site collecting nesting material for the past couple days... I was happy to connect the tracks I was seeing in the Rugosa Roses in the protected habitat to the Fish Crows flying past with sticks. The nearby nesting American Oystercatchers are not happy with this news, tho and chase them out of the neighborhood at every opportunity!

CLASSIFIEDS - SINGLES ADS

Headline news in Spring is all about who's available and where, right? I'm hoping to see this scrape filled up with Piping Plover eggs before very long.

Click to enlarge and see plover tracks!

SOCIAL SCENE - WEDDINGS AND CELEBRATIONS

Weddings (and their associated baby announcements!) are the highlight of the daily social calendar published locally. All we beach-nesting bird people can talk about is who's expecting and when.

: )

This killdeer couple will be happy parents in 22 - 28 days.

OBITUARIES

Death notices are published daily and should attempt to give significance and honor to the life lived. Many things that wash up dead each day are surrounded by mystery: a dead loon on the beach isn't necessarily strange, but how it ended up more than 300 ft. from the ocean wasn't mentioned in this headline.

FASHION AND STYLE

Celebrity Piping Plover "Dexter" is sporting the latest in endangered beach-nesting bird bling... color-coordinated bands!

:-)

(I think I made my boss' day with this story plucked from the headline news!)

Stayed tuned...

*ALL PHOTOS IN THIS POST WERE TAKEN DURING THE OFFICIAL CONDUCT OF MY JOB TO MONITOR AND PROTECT BEACH-NESTING BIRDS, or, like a local fisherman has taken to calling it "as the official birdwatcher here".

It's a tough job, but...

My "office" for the day!

: )

It's been a busy first couple of days here in NJ, but I'm loving it! I started off on Tuesday with a boss-led tour of the sites I'll be responsible for and had some fun looking for American Oystercatcher nests.

My shoes, scalp and ears were full of sand at the end of the day!

I was rained out on Wednesday, but Thursday found me helping out (carrying and holding stuff) on a beach-nesting bird habitat survey and fixing fencing damaged in Wednesday's stormy weather.

Today I was on my own for a couple of site visits and had the chance to spend a few hours at Sandy Hook counting Piping Plovers for a migration survey. It was a beautiful afternoon and I learned my first important lesson for field work - always have an extra pencil!

I was carrying so much stuff on the death march out the Fisherman's Trail to the survey site and don't yet have my scope sherpas (student interns) to help me. I lost track of my pencil three-quarters of the way through the census and had to use moon shells in various pockets to keep a tally of the birds I was seeing!

:-)

622 miles closer to the perfect summer job

Today's sunset at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel

So I guess I finally have enough of my ducks in a row to tell you all about my plans for this summer...

I'm going home to NJ!

The perfect summer job landed in my lap... I'll be working for NJ Fish and Wildlife to monitor and protect beach-nesting birds.

Piping Plovers!

Least Terns!

American Oystercatchers!

Please don't anyone pinch me... I don't want to wake up if this is a dream!

: )

I set out early this morning with my bunny and my African violets and after 12+ hours in the car, we're all feeling pretty bedraggled.  I took the shortcut across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel to spend the night on the Delmarva Peninsula and will meet the ferry to Cape May in the morning. It's beautiful here (and there's still "sweet tea" available!) and I was treated to Brown Pelicans and frolicking dolphins this evening when I stopped at the scenic overlook on the bridge to stretch my legs. Plus, I can smell the sea again... But it's cold! I started the day with the AC running in the car and ended it with the heat blasting.

Some Piping Plovers and American Oystercatchers are already on eggs... I'm hoping to arrive on the beach with the Least Terns. I'm so excited! I can't wait to get started and share this adventure with you...

Heggie's Rock

Heggie's Rock Preserve is owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy and is yet another example of a granite outcrop community, much like Arabia Mountain. I was curious to see it because it's said to be the most pristine of Georgia's flat rock outcrops.

So last Saturday, I went along on a special guided tour meant for "serious" photographers. I was concerned with not being "serious" enough, of course, but no one checked my credentials.

: )

Granite outcrops are difficult places for the plants that try to make a life there. The temperatures are extreme and there's not much soil. In fact, the plants arrange themselves into zones according to soil depth. The hot, dry conditions foster plant life that dramatically differs from that of the surrounding forest... many are perennials that grow very slowly; others are winter annuals that survive the desert-like summer months as seeds.

Many of the winter annuals have adaptations like whitish hairs to reflect sunlight and smallish leaves that reduce surface-area water loss; others, like the Elf's Orpine (pictured here and above) are succulents that store water in swollen leaves and stems.

This environment was a first for many in our small group of "serious" photographers; this lady earned innumerable points in my book for forgoing the tripod and getting down on her belly in the dirt to make her photos!

(Instant friend.)

Mosses and lichen dry out and darken (or turn silver like this one!) but immediately turn green with moisture. We tested this out with our water bottles; the response was almost immediate.

Unfortunately, there was no "serious" plant person in our group to tell me the name of this one.

There's something in the experience of an outcrop that's very difficult to convey in a photograph; a wide-angle view mutes the beauty somehow, but the color contrasts feel lost without the context of the whole expanse. I dunno... I love the contrasts of texture and color in this pic. That's enough, I guess!

Occasionally, there's a brighter view where the soil is deep enough to support it. Just ahead of the woody shrubs, the yellow blooms are Rabbit's Ear, I think.

The Elf's Orpine is the star of the show, of course. The environment here is very, very dry but the blooming things still manage to arrange themselves artfully among the lichen-covered rocks.

Pretty, no?

I'd really like to know what this stuff is... any guesses?

Another artful arrangement... especially interesting because you can "see" the soil depth based on the plants that are growing... the unnamed plant in the deepest part of the solution pool, leading to the Elf's Orpine blooming in the dry sand on the right, and the lichen covering the bare granite.

Pretty.

Pretty with pinecones.

: )

I love the weird moonscape of granite outcrops here in GA; I love how stark they are and I especially love how surprising the color and beauty can be when you get down on your belly to find it. I love The Nature Conservancy for putting this place behind a fence to protect it for all of us "serious" folks to enjoy.

Heggie's Rock is open to the public on a limited basis... check here.

Please go; it's beautiful!

The camera's virtue

"The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking." 

-Brooks Atkinson

Elf's Orpine, a granite outcrop specialist

Rock moss and lichen

Fern unfurling into Spring

Rock moss and lichen, in a battle for dominance

Trailing Arbutus, a new find this year

Was has your camera helped you find lately?

: )