Learning of Nature

I don't expect to see anything interesting when I'm walking the dogs at 7:40am. Maybe I should, but years of nothing eventful taking place has surely jaded me. On the morning in question, I'm not talking about the lovely Monarch butterfly I saw hanging out on the Parkers' trellis, though Kathy and Emelia followed me out of the house, and Emelia was able to see the butterfly when we pointed it out to her.

What caught my attention was an odd sound high in a tree 20 feet away. It sounded like a cicada, but it seemed louder, somehow more insistent. Next thing I know two cicadas fell to the ground, and the clicking noise a cicada makes was altered by the brick on which they lay. I moved closer, and realized that it was only one cicada, still making that noise, and it was being attacked by, as Kathy put it, "a giant stingy thing." It looked like a wasp, but the coloring was unlike what I'd ever seen before. In another minute, the noise stopped, and the cicada was seemingly dead.

The giant stingy thing then began the task of carrying the cicada away. This wasn't an easy thing to do -- the cicada was quite a big bigger, but the GST persevered, dragging it for a while, flying for a foot or two, and carrying it into a bush. Eventually I had to go back to feed the dogs, but I was struck by this sight, something I'd never seen before.

Back home, sitting at the computer, Kathy googled around, and together we learned that what we saw was in fact a cicada killer wasp capturing its prey. Nice to know that being in the city hasn't deprived me of seeing a bit of nature every now and again.

Yellowstone Revisited

In 1989 during our cross-country road trip, Pete and I visited Yellowstone. There were two distinct reasons why that experience was less than ideal. First, record wildfires had hit
Yellowstone the year before, and blackened forests were everywhere. Second, we had no clue what we were supposed to check out -- we saw Old Faithful, saw the charred forests, figured oh well, and moved on down the road to the Grand Tetons. But Pete now lives just 90 minutes away from there for almost a decade, and he knows what spots to check out, which made our Sunday day trip far better than the first visit.

Sure there's Old Faithful, but there are many other geysers plus additional geological oddities in the area.









On this trip, we knew to check out "the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone," complete with waterfalls.









And as most of yesterday's Yellowstone critter pics show, we also knew to visit the Lamar Valley, which is replete with animals.

Pete took me out the Northeast Entrance, so we could travel the Beartooth Highway. The road climbs several thousand feet (and the temperature drops 20+ degrees) through switchbacks to end up back in Red Lodge, Montana.





Did I mention there was a brewer's taphouse waiting for us on the other side?

Critters From the Weekend

Tomorrow I'll post some of the scenery I saw during my visit to Montana and Yellowstone, but today I decided to focus on the myriad critters we saw over the weekend.


Along our first hike of the weekend we saw dozens of snails scattered along the path.


Butterfly, or moth? Regardless which, it's Pete's latest fashion statement, and one he paraded about for several minutes. For a while, we thought he'd acquired a new pet.


Pete has bunnies that visit his yard. I didn't have my camera when a couple of them were playing -- one lunged and the other leapt over the first as if they were in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Rabbit.

The rest of these were taken in Yellowstone on Sunday:

We saw lots of buffalo, but this is the only shot that included a calf.


This coyote was being chased by an antelope -- seems like they got their roles mixed up.


And speaking of antelopes, this one was just hanging out.


Moose! At least, it's supposed to be a moose, though in this picture it looks more like a horse.


An osprey in flight, one of several we saw (we also saw a few nests).


That blurry brown spot in the middle is supposedly a Grizzly bear. It was at such a distance that we couldn't see it clearly even with binoculars, but people around us with 20-40x scopes said there were three of them there.


The strangest critter of all from that weekend, a Petus goofius.

Spring!

Often Spring seems to vanish as quickly as it arrives, just a brief interlude between the cold grayness of winter and the sticky heat of summer. Never mind that the calendar says it lasts for three months -- it sometimes seems that two weeks is all you get.

This year, for the first time in a couple of years, we're getting a genuine spring, temperatures usually going from the 40s to the upper 60s or low 70s. It's been going on for a while now, and the forecast calls for it to continue in the near future. It's been great walking to work, the crispness of the morning keeping me from dripping with sweat, and the bright blue sky jolting my mood upward and away from work even as I approach the office.

The cherry blossoms are gone, but it seems like everything else is in bloom. In front of our house the azalea has gone crazy, the jasmine is in season, and poppies are starting to appear. But the real story is the daisies -- two years ago we planted some in our little patch, and they've spread all over the place, giving us a mini-field of sunshine.



Kathy thinks they're out of control, and she's right. For next year I'll pull some of them up before there's nothing left except daisies. Right now, however, I don't care -- just seeing them bobbing gently in the wind en masse keeps me buoyant.

Happy New Years

A snowy evening in Connecticut left a blanket of snow for this morning.



















The slate has been cleared, everything is fresh and ready to start anew.

Escape in the City

Where do you go when you need to escape the city, to reconnect with nature? Actually, you don't need to leave the city -- the National Arboretum is about one-and-a-half miles away from our house, and it makes for a nice getaway where we can take the dogs for a little walk in the woods. I wouldn't say it's the middle of nowhere, but it does make for a nice asylum.







When we went on Sunday, we saw only one other person in the area we took the dogs. It's not always so peaceful, but it's nice when it is.

If You Can't Sleep...

...you might as well go out on the roof in your underwear and watch the sunrise.

Sunday Boating

Kathy's Mom stayed with us on Saturday night, and Sunday morning the three of us, together with the dogs, headed to Gunpowder Falls State Park in Maryland. There, we met up with Kathy's Dad, who had boated down from New York (where he had stored the boat over the winter at the end of last year's travels). Mom had brought provisions, and was all set to join Dad for a couple of weeks of scooting around the Eastern Shore. Together we did lunch, then loaded the boat. Afterwards, we climbed aboard for a bit of motoring together, enjoying the hot and hazy, but quite lovely, afternoon. While Junebug wasn't too happy about being on a boat, she stayed below deck and out of trouble. After about 90 minutes, Mom and Dad dropped us off on the dock and headed on their way. Photowise on the day, there was only one critter truly worth sharing, and that's the blue heron.

Roses

Buy more stock in roses
Millionaires will always woo
Don't be shocked if roses
make a millionaire of you
-- "Roses," The Magnetic Fields

The first two are from our garden, and the bush is two doors down.

A Bird and 2 Bugs

Some photos from our Sunday trip visiting a friend in the nearby "country":








Think Junebug would be happy living in the country?

Birding

My boss' last day was last Friday, but early yesterday morning, the managers joined him for one last activity -- birding on Roosevelt Island. It's a nice activity for a couple of hours, though I wish it were doable later in the day. In addition to binoculars, I brought my new camera. While I was only able to get a couple of nice photos (out of the dozens I took), a couple are better than none.

Oriole way up in a distant tree -- make sure you click on it (the zoom really came in handy):


Gold Finch in a thicket:

Beautiful Day

Damn today was amazing! I was outside as much as possible, and it didn't feel like enough. So much is in bloom, and I want to capture all of it on film. Here's the second poppy from our little garden:



And here's one of our dozens of daisies (along with a visitor):



A neighbor has planted some really pretty flowers, though I admit I don't know for certain what they are (a type of daisy?):




While our roses haven't bloomed yet (though a couple are getting very close), someone on the Hill has done wonders with some rose vines:




Finally (for now), here are some gorgeous azaleas -- if you look closely on the white ones, you can see speckled streaks of pink: