On a Lifelong Journey to Learn my Place
Animals
On a recent walk to the park, I was interested to notice at least two different chunks of yellow jacket nests on the ground along the trail. I’m not sure what species was working on them – I’ve seen a couple of different ones here – but I imagine it’s the queens getting things going. … Read more
American Robin Alarm Calls A couple of weeks ago I was headed down to Totem Park and noticed the high frequency down slurring call of an American Robin’s aerial predator alarm. After watching a robin nest in my yard get cleaned out by a raven last year, and coming to realize a little better the … Read more
After weeks of steadily disappearing snow in the high country, I was a little surprised to look out my window this morning and see fresh snow on the Arrowhead Peak of Mt. Verstovia. It appeared that snow levels dropped to around 3000 feet overnight, which was not expected (by me, anyway). A walk through the … Read more
I was tempted to make this a quiz, but anyone who bothered to look at the image filenames could pretty much see the answer, so I’ll go ahead and forgo that approach in this case. I think it was in 2012 that I watched a yellow-jacket doing something on a wooden (probably cedar) lamp post … Read more
I checked in on the extra red red huckleberry I previously posted on while walking at the park today. I was interested to see the leaves were still somewhat red, though mostly they were green, as was the new stem growth. This suggests to me that it’s more likely the reddening occurs sometime other than … Read more
I had an e-mail this morning with a report of a godwit that had black and white on its tail and was hanging out with Whimbrels at Totem Park yesterday afternoon. I went down to see what it might be, and was able to confirm that it was a Hudsonian Godwit – the second reported … Read more