A moderately full day today. While at McDonald’s this afternoon, I was intrigued by the cloud formations to the south. They looked fairly sculpted, but I’m not sure if they qualified as lenticular clouds.
This evening Rowan and I went for a short walk to Lower Gavan Trail where I wanted to check for crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) flowers. They’re an early season flower that’s very easy to miss, so each spring I try to make a special effort to find at least one. While there, I noticed there were several Lichenomphalia mushrooms – a lichenized mushroom that’s pretty common around here, but still a bit mysterious to me, especially when they show up in the middle of the sphagnum. It’s not at all clear how the non-fruiting part of the lichen persists.
Just when we got to the start of the trail, Rowan noticed a woodpecker tapping. It turned out to be a Downy Woodpecker – I was a little surprised that she heard it since we were talking at the time and it wasn’t very loud.
This evening we went to talk about recent work using tasers to help dissuade bears from going where it’s not good for them to go. It was pretty interesting, and the technology was remarkably effective at helping deter bears (much of the work was done at a hatchery which has a lot of bears around) so they don’t end up getting shot.
On the way to the talk there was a pretty nice sun dog. I didn’t really have time to find a nice foreground, so I just grabbed a quick shot by pulling over near Sealing Cove.
