Many things to talk about, and I may run out of time, but here goes:
First, I haven't written yet today, though I did get in my 1500 yesterday. I'm getting a little bogged down in the story at the moment actually. I still like it and I'm becoming dangerously attached to a certain one of my characters, but the darn thing just keeps getting longer! This is good, because it looks like my story is definitely fully novel-length (always an issue for me, the queen of the 80-page novella...), but it's also bad because I'm trying to write quickly, so I don't give up or get distracted, but as each chapter blossoms into four or five chapters, I get the sense that I will never finish. I will be writing this book forever. At least I like it.
A brief note about some changes to my profile: I added more interests to help (theoretically) people find this who might like it. I don't spend a whole lot of time online, except to write these entries basically, so it takes a while for me to find new blogs/journals and very, very rarely comment on other people's entries. I should do that more often, actually. I also added a link. I will discuss why I've chosen those links in the future, I swear, just as soon as...Well, you know. I have a dream. My dream is that someday I will live in a little house in the country. I will have a studio where I can paint and sculpt and not have to worry about moving stuff off the table when company comes over, or you know, we have to eat. And I will have lots more time to do all the things I like to do, like read books, and sleep. Yeah. ; )
( Little Rant on RDR/WB Trial )
In other news, I went to hear Mary Oliver read last night. I bought two of her books two weeks ago, but I didn't want to write anything until after I'd heard her speak, as authors sometimes give insight into their work that changes the whole way you look at and think about it. And I liked hearing Ms. Oliver read her poems. She unconsciously ADDED PUNCTUATION where it BELONGED in the poem, so it was much easier to understand what she meant when she read it than when I read it. I still don't much care for any of her poems (OK, to be fair, there are one or two I kind of liked, but not in the profoundly passionate way I love the works of certain other poets. Actually, I usually detest the modern poems I read in literary journals, etc. I like Keats and Robert Browning, and even Shakespeare. I am starting to think there's really no hope I'll ever get any of my poems published...).
Somehow, hearing the awed and thoughtful "Hmm"s of the audience as she ended each piece only made them seem triter and less important to me. Somehow, I didn't hear anything new in her words. I don't know if, forty years ago, her poetry was new and important, but not only were there no really profound thoughts for me, her own profound thoughts never really changed over that whole long career. Her recent poems express the exact same feelings her earlier ones do. I actually find it kind of sad to think a person could live such a long time and not learn anything she hadn't learned by the time she was 25. Sigh. Someone who went with me suggested that I couldn't appreciate the insights she got from the little nature of New England, because I've been jaded by the grandeur that surrounds me every day. It's hard to have a small thought in a place like this. ; ) I did find it interesting that she saw a dipper once in Colorado fifty years ago and decided then to be a poet. Something kind of like that happened to me. ; )
Indeed, I was inspired to write two poems last night. And, on the way home, I saw a black (!!) fox, and a great horned owl. The fox was a red fox, of course, (Vulpes vulpes), but it was black with white specks, not at all unlike the black form of the yellow-bellied marmot I've seen around here sometimes, or even the black form of the fox squirrel. But I didn't know they came in that color! It wasn't the "cross fox"; it was just black. And the owls were calling outside my window all evening as the horned moon set behind the mountains...It's hard not to write poetry around here, come to think of it!
And, I was very happy this morning because my two favorite bloggers had new entries...but I think I've really run out of time, and space (I've run out of space-time!! Never mind...), to write about them. And I wanted so much to mention toilets in Australia...Yes, well, I'll talk about all these things eventually, I'm sure. Let me just add that everyone should have an Italian cousin with whom they can discuss art and tax shelters, and wasn't I going to write about the art museum? And didn't I say I'd talk about my future, as dictated by very bad fast food? And it's snowing again...actually mixed rain and snow. Well, there's always tomorrow. ; ) And now the sun has come out again. And a bunch of Cassin's finches (the first I've seen this spring!) are bathing in a puddle in the driveway. And we finally got the bat box hung this morning...
-Susie
Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts
Friday, May 9, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
The Bear Necessities of Life Will Come to You!
Bear 399 is the most photographed grizzly bear in Grand Teton National Park. And, finally, today, after three long years, I still did not take her picture. Some people near me did, though. : ) This is a very interesting bear for two reasons: one, she does not mind people too much (not necessarily a good thing, mind you! And she has the ear tags to prove it.), and two, she has successfully brought up three big healthy-looking cubs mostly in sight of the road. The cubs are entering their third year now, though they still are noticeably smaller than their mother. We watched them rest and play and fish (and swim when they fell through the thin ice!), and even, incredibly, saw 399 nurse her nearly full-grown cubs! I was amazed to see that--even after two winters with their mom, the cubs still get some comfort, and probably less nourishment, from their mother's milk. Of course it is wonderful to watch a mother bear nurse cubs (even three enormous ones as these), as they are a bit like humans in the way they behave. The mother sits up or rolls onto her back and pulls the cubs toward her with her forepaws and snoozes and nuzzles their heads. Indeed, it is amazing to see such a massive, powerful animal touch her babies so gently with paws ending in four inch claws! She also paused to play with the cubs a few times, even doing several somersaults in the snow.
All in all, it was a wonderful wildlife day--two pairs of common loons, five red-breasted mergansers (fascinating to see the young males, still mostly in female-like plumage, but with perfectly round green spectacles and goatees, and very messy "hair"), a young male common goldeneye, a Northern goshawk (my first positive ID of an adult!), pelicans, swans, ducks of all kinds, my first Northern rough-winged swallows of the year, and my first barn swallow of hte year, Audubon's and Myrtle warblers (both technically yellow-rumped warblers, but only the former breeds here), dueling sapsuckers (hee hee--by the way, kind of dirty joke: if a female is a hen sapsucker, what do you call a male?), bald eagles on a nest and an osprey dive-bombing them, turkey condors (I'll explain that someday I'm sure..."vultures" for those of you who are familiar with them), including one on an elk carcass (amazingly, the first time I've seen a "vulture" on a carcass! Though, he/she couldn't get anything out of it--I may explain that another day too...), muskrats (I do love muskrats...), ground-squirrels (I have a huge soft spot in my heart for squirrels...), and, the strangest thing I'd ever seen in just about my whole life: eleven beavers sitting in a huddle on the ice, with green leaves and twigs around them, snoozing against and on top of each other in broad daylight, completely exposed. I'm sorry they were too far away to get a picture of, though it was absolutely amazing. In one fell swoop it was more beavers than I'd ever seen in my life, and just sitting there! Apparently the bears had broken into their lodge and some coyotes had killed one or two. I guess they felt safer in the frigid air than in their breached fortress! They looked all right, though, just a little chilly and sleepy. They will rebuild when the ice melts, I'm sure. (Yes, amazingly, it's May, almost the second week of May, and the river is flowing, of course, but the lakes and oxbows are still frozen (though not solid), and there is still a large amount of snow on the ground. It snowed in the mountains today, but rained down here for the first time this year!) A picture of the snow (taken near String Lake) next to a scowling person for scale. (That's my dad, actually. No idea why he looks so annoyed!)
But the really exciting thing that happened was Tom Mangelsen took a picture with my camera!
Um...yeah. Well, on this scale, you see he does have an eye for framing and balancing light and dark. Of course the horizon is not straight and those four blurry brown dots on the snow are the bears. I guess even great photographers sometimes take terrible pictures. OR maybe it's the camera... ; D
Anyway, one of the reasons I love living here is you do run into people like Tom (and have nice long chats with them sometimes too). (Tangent: You should see the picture my dad took of Henry Holdsworth at the Swan Roundup last year...Oh yes...The Swan Roundup, another Wyoming kind of thing. I'll write about that probably after this year's happens in June. Yeah...taking candid pictures of professional photographers with stunningly beautiful young females in their laps is another perk of living here!) ANYWAY...Tom took a bunch of pictures of us (including one with him, although of course that was taken by his "assistant slash girlfriend" (Tom's words), who's also named Susie.). I don't think they'll be available for purchase at Images of Nature. At least I hope not! Today was also laundry day for me and I hadn't taken a shower...Of course Tom himself was pretty dishevelled, as they've been following 399 around for a week now. Tom is a great conservationist as well as artist and I wanted to share a few things he said (though I'm afraid I'm getting pretty tired. It's 10 already!).
I really appreciated his comment about wildlife in general. He said, "you can't hate wolves and love moose and elk. You can't pick some animals and call them 'good' and label the rest 'bad.' You have to take Nature in its entirety," because of course, that's what it is. There is no good and bad. Things, Life, People even, only ARE. (I was thinking about that yesterday too...How even actions you think are good will hurt somebody. How nothing exists in a vacuum; how nothing can thrive without something else declining. But that's for another day.) Tom also shared his version of the story behind "High Noon On the Oxbow Bend" which was even more amazing than the story I'd heard at the gallery. It's his story to share, though he thought I should write a book about a similar story my folks witnessed. It's a thought... : ) Anyway, the point of the story, I guess, is that great photographs, like so many other things, involve staying around when everyone else has given up and an extraordinary amount of luck. And I find that inspiring. I also find it inspiring to know that I'm not alone in the world in caring about animals and Nature and wilderness. And a lot of those people live here.
--Susie
P.S. No, I didn't write today! At least I did a lot yesterday, and I'll get some done tomorrow. But you know...it was Wednesday. : )
Saturday, May 3, 2008
It's May! It's May! The...Busy...Month of May!
I know my last post was actualy on May 1st, but I didn't realize it at the time. Well, I got enough sleep last night for the first time in a week, though I also took another nap yesterday afternoon. It's almost becoming a habit. Anyway, many things to talk about, as usual, and very little time. I'm feeling like the White Rabbit lately, instead of my usual mad March hare. "Oh dear, oh dear! I shall be too late!" 1,016 words today. Unfortunately, they were for a different project than the one I'm nominally working on! I think I'll get back to that this evening, however. It was a beautiful warm spring day. The violet-green swallows are back around the house after two days of snow. They should be nesting soon.
So, yesterday I spent the whole day wading in a creek counting cutthroat trout redds. There's a crossword puzzle word for you, along with lek and furcula. A redd is basically a trout nest--a depression in the rocks on the bottom of the stream wherein she lays her eggs. (Actually, the eggs are distributed in the "tail spill," a lump of rocks just behind the depression.) It was actually easier than it sounds. The day was overcast and chilly, but the water was crystal clear. There aren't really any other fish in our creeks besides the trout and not much disturbs the bottom. The redds are easy enough to find because the fish carefully clear away all the algae and sediment from the rocks, so the first thing you notice is a patch of clean grey and white rocks amidst the surrounding dirty brown. Glimpsed many fine birds, though I purposefully left my binoculars in the car (gasp! I know. How could I?), because I knew if I had them, I'd spend the day looking at birds and not in the water! Still--Cooper's hawk, swallows, cinnamon teals, red-winged blackbirds, snipes, and a Canada goose on her nest, watching us warily as we walked around her with her neck stretched out and down and her beak slightly open, silent and very still. And we counted about 60 redds. So, it was a fun, though tiring day.
But it wasn't over yet! After a shower and a brief nap, which was seemingly involuntary (I don't even remember lying down!), we went out to hear the author Joanne Harris (Chocolat, among many others). She was a very good speaker--funny and interesting. She seemed very tired by the end of the evening (and a number of quite stupid questions from some members of the audience), but was friendly and engaging. She said a few things that particularly interested me, the first was that she seems to work a bit like I do--no fixed schedule, though she writes whenever she can, and she also has several projects going at once. I particularly loved her theory of inspiration. Apparently, goblins come out at night and give you the ideas while you're sleeping. As she says, "It must be true. No one's ever disproven it!" She also described her birthplace as "twelve miles from Wuthering Heights," that is, near Leeds, the largest city in Yorkshire.*
She had a few things to say about "our Jo" as well. She said she'd met J.K. Rowling "several" times, and offered the following about Harry Potter: first, that it was wonderful for getting boys to read (much agreement from the audience), and second, that it was so popular for two reasons: (Hmmm...my sentence construction is starting to look a bit like Deathly Hallows) that is was simply a good story and not "a book about issues" (her example of an "issue" was a crackhouse in Glasgow), and also that "it doesn't take people too far out of their comfort zone." I agree wholeheartedly with the first point (although HP raises a number a issues, it doesn't really resolve them; they are mostly just set-dressing, unfortunately), and partly with the second. Yes, Harry Potter relies heavily on familiar fairy tale and (later) Biblical themes and conventions, but it also challenges what a children's book is and can be about, and pushes a little bit into the idea of Death not being Evil, which I appreciate a lot, certainly.
Ms. Harris was mostly talking about the sequel to Chocolat, The Girl With No Shadow. I haven't started it yet (as I'm working on a few other things currently that I'd like to finish first!), but it sounds fun, and perhaps better than the first one, which I read quickly, but joined my very short list of "books whose movies I liked better" along with The Black Stallion and, amazingly enough, Sense and Sensibility (the 1995 version), even though they changed a number of things from the novels.
She also told us a bit about her experience teaching at Leeds Grammar School (she didn't say which years exactly), where she was the only female permanent member of staff at the historically (and then) all-boys school. She also has a book either about or inspired by those same years...Actually, all in all, although I was not hugely fond of Chocolat, after hearing her speak, I am very interested in reading more of her work. Several audience members praised Five Quarters of the Orange as some of the best writing they'd ever read. That is enough to tempt me, certainly! : )
This morning I got a chance to rest a little. (In fact I made waffles while my favorite neighbor Ethel M. (more about her another day!) ruminated in the yard outside the kitchen window...) Then, this afternoon I went to see a play by a local playwright, Bob Berky, called The Fourth Nail. I heartily do not recommend it. On the one hand, I was happy to support the local theater and a writer, and the actors were all good (including Mr. Berky himself), but, on the other hand, the play was terrible. I was surprised, as Alexandra Fuller (herself a wonderful writer!) gave it a rave review in the weekly paper...(Yes, yes, I know. I live in a tiny town. We have a weekly paper. I have to drive ten miles to the Post Office on Wednesdays to get it. And yet, this tiny Wyoming town is filled to the trout gills with writers and artists and culture. Ask me about our art museum...Another post...) I guess I'll never trust "Bo's" opinion again... ; D
In the first minute or so, my thought was (I'm not sure what exactly this says about me, actually...) "I've written better plays than this!" My second thought was about the historical inaccuracies. You see, the play was not really about the Crusades (it was set in 1099), but nor was it a fully grown satire of our own time (as some reviewers had said). No, in the end it wasn't really about anything. It was a set of mostly unrealized ideas hinting at profundity, but never really coalescing or imparting any truth or wisdom. The play had a lot of promise: it featured an alchemist, a wise fool, a blind king, and two inept knightly con-men, and the first act had some humor and was interesting enough (except for the scenes featuring the alchemist and fool together), but the second half was flat, dull, and utterly meaningless, with an entirely unsatisfying ending, that the author clearly thought was strong. I kept thinking that such a premise in other hands would have been wonderful. I will also add that it pains me to pan something, because I love the theater and acting and writing, and I too have written many things, including a few that weren't nearly as wonderful as I thought they were at the time. But I think I was not alone. The applause at the end (by the audience of 15 for the Saturday matinee--very sad in and of itself, as I think it's really special that we have theater in this little town, in this big empty state mostly filled with ignorance and superstition) could only be described as polite.
As usual, I would love to stay and say more, but time is short, and I need to write a scene introducing the queen...Actually, she's just the mother of the future king, but I'm not going to give it away. I have five days worth of writing I missed and will never make up, though tomorrow is an empty day otherwise, and I plan to work through most of it. So, here's hoping I do!
-Susie
*Oddly enough, we were discussing the use of miles versus kilometers and Imperial versus metric measures while counting redds. My understanding is that, colloquially, some English people still use miles to measure distance. Of course, Ms. Harris has a French mother, and likely tailors her talks some for an American audience. Anyone have any insight on that?
I also could say many things about both Wuthering Heights and Yorkshire, but I will refrain for now. Interestingly, Ms. Harris spoke French at home, despite living in Yorkshire, and learned English in school, at age seven. She also dropped her Yorkshire accent somewhere along the way and now speaks with a very clear English accent, such as one often hears in the movies. Rather a pity, really. ; )
Also, trivia and a question...Matt Lewis (Neville in the Potter films) is from Leeds. Can anyone tell me what the deal is with the golden owls? (In Leeds. I know about the owls in Harry Potter!) : )
So, yesterday I spent the whole day wading in a creek counting cutthroat trout redds. There's a crossword puzzle word for you, along with lek and furcula. A redd is basically a trout nest--a depression in the rocks on the bottom of the stream wherein she lays her eggs. (Actually, the eggs are distributed in the "tail spill," a lump of rocks just behind the depression.) It was actually easier than it sounds. The day was overcast and chilly, but the water was crystal clear. There aren't really any other fish in our creeks besides the trout and not much disturbs the bottom. The redds are easy enough to find because the fish carefully clear away all the algae and sediment from the rocks, so the first thing you notice is a patch of clean grey and white rocks amidst the surrounding dirty brown. Glimpsed many fine birds, though I purposefully left my binoculars in the car (gasp! I know. How could I?), because I knew if I had them, I'd spend the day looking at birds and not in the water! Still--Cooper's hawk, swallows, cinnamon teals, red-winged blackbirds, snipes, and a Canada goose on her nest, watching us warily as we walked around her with her neck stretched out and down and her beak slightly open, silent and very still. And we counted about 60 redds. So, it was a fun, though tiring day.
But it wasn't over yet! After a shower and a brief nap, which was seemingly involuntary (I don't even remember lying down!), we went out to hear the author Joanne Harris (Chocolat, among many others). She was a very good speaker--funny and interesting. She seemed very tired by the end of the evening (and a number of quite stupid questions from some members of the audience), but was friendly and engaging. She said a few things that particularly interested me, the first was that she seems to work a bit like I do--no fixed schedule, though she writes whenever she can, and she also has several projects going at once. I particularly loved her theory of inspiration. Apparently, goblins come out at night and give you the ideas while you're sleeping. As she says, "It must be true. No one's ever disproven it!" She also described her birthplace as "twelve miles from Wuthering Heights," that is, near Leeds, the largest city in Yorkshire.*
She had a few things to say about "our Jo" as well. She said she'd met J.K. Rowling "several" times, and offered the following about Harry Potter: first, that it was wonderful for getting boys to read (much agreement from the audience), and second, that it was so popular for two reasons: (Hmmm...my sentence construction is starting to look a bit like Deathly Hallows) that is was simply a good story and not "a book about issues" (her example of an "issue" was a crackhouse in Glasgow), and also that "it doesn't take people too far out of their comfort zone." I agree wholeheartedly with the first point (although HP raises a number a issues, it doesn't really resolve them; they are mostly just set-dressing, unfortunately), and partly with the second. Yes, Harry Potter relies heavily on familiar fairy tale and (later) Biblical themes and conventions, but it also challenges what a children's book is and can be about, and pushes a little bit into the idea of Death not being Evil, which I appreciate a lot, certainly.
Ms. Harris was mostly talking about the sequel to Chocolat, The Girl With No Shadow. I haven't started it yet (as I'm working on a few other things currently that I'd like to finish first!), but it sounds fun, and perhaps better than the first one, which I read quickly, but joined my very short list of "books whose movies I liked better" along with The Black Stallion and, amazingly enough, Sense and Sensibility (the 1995 version), even though they changed a number of things from the novels.
She also told us a bit about her experience teaching at Leeds Grammar School (she didn't say which years exactly), where she was the only female permanent member of staff at the historically (and then) all-boys school. She also has a book either about or inspired by those same years...Actually, all in all, although I was not hugely fond of Chocolat, after hearing her speak, I am very interested in reading more of her work. Several audience members praised Five Quarters of the Orange as some of the best writing they'd ever read. That is enough to tempt me, certainly! : )
This morning I got a chance to rest a little. (In fact I made waffles while my favorite neighbor Ethel M. (more about her another day!) ruminated in the yard outside the kitchen window...) Then, this afternoon I went to see a play by a local playwright, Bob Berky, called The Fourth Nail. I heartily do not recommend it. On the one hand, I was happy to support the local theater and a writer, and the actors were all good (including Mr. Berky himself), but, on the other hand, the play was terrible. I was surprised, as Alexandra Fuller (herself a wonderful writer!) gave it a rave review in the weekly paper...(Yes, yes, I know. I live in a tiny town. We have a weekly paper. I have to drive ten miles to the Post Office on Wednesdays to get it. And yet, this tiny Wyoming town is filled to the trout gills with writers and artists and culture. Ask me about our art museum...Another post...) I guess I'll never trust "Bo's" opinion again... ; D
In the first minute or so, my thought was (I'm not sure what exactly this says about me, actually...) "I've written better plays than this!" My second thought was about the historical inaccuracies. You see, the play was not really about the Crusades (it was set in 1099), but nor was it a fully grown satire of our own time (as some reviewers had said). No, in the end it wasn't really about anything. It was a set of mostly unrealized ideas hinting at profundity, but never really coalescing or imparting any truth or wisdom. The play had a lot of promise: it featured an alchemist, a wise fool, a blind king, and two inept knightly con-men, and the first act had some humor and was interesting enough (except for the scenes featuring the alchemist and fool together), but the second half was flat, dull, and utterly meaningless, with an entirely unsatisfying ending, that the author clearly thought was strong. I kept thinking that such a premise in other hands would have been wonderful. I will also add that it pains me to pan something, because I love the theater and acting and writing, and I too have written many things, including a few that weren't nearly as wonderful as I thought they were at the time. But I think I was not alone. The applause at the end (by the audience of 15 for the Saturday matinee--very sad in and of itself, as I think it's really special that we have theater in this little town, in this big empty state mostly filled with ignorance and superstition) could only be described as polite.
As usual, I would love to stay and say more, but time is short, and I need to write a scene introducing the queen...Actually, she's just the mother of the future king, but I'm not going to give it away. I have five days worth of writing I missed and will never make up, though tomorrow is an empty day otherwise, and I plan to work through most of it. So, here's hoping I do!
-Susie
*Oddly enough, we were discussing the use of miles versus kilometers and Imperial versus metric measures while counting redds. My understanding is that, colloquially, some English people still use miles to measure distance. Of course, Ms. Harris has a French mother, and likely tailors her talks some for an American audience. Anyone have any insight on that?
I also could say many things about both Wuthering Heights and Yorkshire, but I will refrain for now. Interestingly, Ms. Harris spoke French at home, despite living in Yorkshire, and learned English in school, at age seven. She also dropped her Yorkshire accent somewhere along the way and now speaks with a very clear English accent, such as one often hears in the movies. Rather a pity, really. ; )
Also, trivia and a question...Matt Lewis (Neville in the Potter films) is from Leeds. Can anyone tell me what the deal is with the golden owls? (In Leeds. I know about the owls in Harry Potter!) : )
Thursday, May 1, 2008
A Miscellany
It's been a long time since I've posted! I got along just fine without blogging for years, and now I seem a little addicted...I have so much I want to talk about, but most of it will have to wait. I'll try not to let this get too long. First, some corrections: I've lived here for more than three years now; I'm entering my fourth year in this valley. I swear, I was always good at math! Since I left school, though, the years really seem to just run together. It's a little embarrassing. I still haven't gotten used to my new age. I'll blame that. ; D
So, this week's crossword (see this post for an explanation of why I do the Sunday New York Times Crossword on Wednesdays). Well, the whole thing was lost on me. I have always been a terrible speller (I'm sure it's because I don't read enough). I tried rewriting all the words several ways, and I couldn't even always tell what was the correct way to spell the word. I knew that "supercede" was wrong because I'd just used it in a blog post! So I guess doing this is useful after all, and I still often think the puzzle is exceedingly stupid. This one was very quick, though.
I spent the last four (was it only four?) days out of town and busy with houseguests and then slowly recovering. I've been trying to rearrange my schedule so I can get everything done I want to do each day in a timely manner. So far it has not been working, though this week should be much less busy than last week. I have not written today yet (though I absolutely will, darn it! It's very bad of me, I know...), and yesterday I was so tired and uninspired I only wrote 600 words, and those were not even directly related to my Current Project. I'm a bit superstitious about my work. I told our friends a little about the story, and they thought it sounded very intriguing and wanted to hear more...and I haven't written a word since I told them about it. Gaah! I will force myself back into writing this evening though (it's already after 3!), and next week should be more normal. (Ha! As if my life is ever normal!)
On a related note (what I've been up to), I got up at 4:45 a.m. on Saturday to go to the sage grouse lek. It had snowed several inches overnight making for a pleasant walk out into the sage (no roots to trip over--the snow was still unbelievably, unusually deep), but the temperature was around 9 degrees F and only about fifteen male grouse were out dancing. One female flew in late (nearly 7:00 a.m.), but didn't stay long. Then we say two females by the side of the road near the airport. It was a great wildlife day in all, with 25 moose, many deer, some elk and bison, as well as a snipe and a Northern shrike and many ducks, including what I thought might be a female red-breasted merganser. In the afternoon I napped for more than two hours (a very rare occurance for me--I've almost never been able to nap since I was three years old), then I had to rush to make some bread (a really delicious white yeast bread made with orange juice and zest and eaten with a mixture of butter and orange marmalade) before heading out to dinner. I had to finish the bread after dinner, actually (I let it go through its final rise in the refrigerator while we were out, which worked beautifully), then got up early again (7:00 a.m. this time) because:
The West entrance to Yellowstone National Park (at West Yellowstone, Montana) opened last week, I believe, but our convenient South entrance isn't scheduled to open until May 9 (assuming all the snow is gone!). So, we drove over Teton Pass into Idaho and up to West Yellowstone. On the way, we saw a pair of white-faced ibises (yea!), many snipes, yellow-headed blackbirds and more and arrived at the Park for lunch. We spent one night in Gardiner, MT and two half-days driving along the Northern tier road in the Madison, Gardner (not misspelled), Yellowstone, and Lamar River valleys. We saw only one grizzly bear on the first afternoon (eating an elk carcass). She had a radio collar and two ear tags, often a sign of past run-ins with human beings, unfortunately. We saw several coyotes, scattered elk, but depressingly few bison (don't get me started on that again. Sigh.), no wolves and no black bears. There was still a huge amount of snow in the Lamar Valley. Two years ago at this time, it was filled with animals, including a number of pronghorns. I was actually disappointed by the trip on the whole, animal-wise, though we saw some wonderful things, including the bear, which was the closest I've ever been to a grizzly in the Park.
Exciting birds included red-breasted mergansers in the Madison River. Actually, that's about it. We saw one distant immature golden eagle, some bald eagles singing and a willet at Blacktail Ponds, buffleheads (a sure sign of spring perhaps?), two species of goldeneyes (common and Barrow's), a pair of blue-winged teals, ospreys...The Uinta ground-squirrels are also awake at last and chirruping, and we saw a white-tailed deer on the banks of the Yellowstone River. I'd never seen one in the Park before, though they've been around for decades. Also numerous baby bison, which I'll talk about another day--two sad and long stories about that, actually.
Yesterday was altogether more satisfying bird-wise (and that's an understatement!). I've heard the kingfishers on our local backyard pond, but haven't seen them yet, the wood ducks are back, and on our pond have been four pelicans, a loon (!), a horned grebe (! And a first for me), a lone male canvasback, a pair or three individual red-breasted mergansers (I guess I didn't have to drive so far to see them after all...). Someone else has seen other grebes and cormorants, but I haven't yet. The loon was gorgeous. They are some of my very favorite birds and rarely seen out here, though I did worry that this one might be lonely all by herself. Maybe she (he?) has a mate waiting somewhere. I just love their tortoiseshell patterned black and white backs and their saber-like bills and their pearl necklaces. : )
Also, cinnamon teals are back on Flat Creek, and many green-winged teals and gadwalls. No blue-winged teals down here yet for me, but I did see a lone (no kidding!) solitary sandpiper in the mud by the side of the highway. They are common migrants or vagrants I believe. I've seen them a few times in the region only, and my birdbook is marked with two exclamation points next to the picture (I have a very elaborate series of symbols I use to mark species I've seen in my birdbook...Very cryptic...) ; ) and it was familiar enough to recognize almost immediately upon viewing it, without looking it up. (I checked the book later, of course, but they're pretty unmistakeable in the region)
Whew! And then, yesterday I listened to PotterCast, as I do every week and Melissa especially, but also John and Sue, brought up something that I've been thinking about a lot. It relates to my last post, and gets at something I've been trying to say. I know my posts are long and thoughtful and sometimes meloncholy, but I'm actually doing it on purpose. Part of my deciding to talk about the things I talk about has to do with my disgust for the current short attention spans of modern humans these days. My loathing of Newsweek (see the first link on this post) is directly related to this, and I never read popular magazines, if such they can be called. What can a thoughtful, intelligent, discerning adult read these days? Good luck trying to get a balanced and accurate account of the news today! I stopped watching the "news" on TV when I was a child, or perhaps young teen because I was already disgusted by it. And don't get me started on purveyors (That took a while to find! Dictionaries are only useful when you know the first four or five letters of a word for sure...) of so-called popular science. The culture of "infotainment" is pervasive and (I believe) destructive. I have seen first hand how influenced subconsciously I am by what I read, so reading things that are simply wrong, misinformed, or incomplete can indeed have a detrimental effect on one's understanding of a situation and the world in general.
So, that is why I write long, thoughtful posts on varied subjects. I have wide interests already, but everything is more interesting when it can be studied in depth. Not watching television and spending as much time as I can observing nature has lengthened my attention span considerably. I can sit and watch a flock of juncos for an hour, and in so doing, learn so much about the world I live in, and through that understanding, come to better understand myself. And shouldn't that be the goal? (I've also learned that linking between your posts can increase visitors to your blog, journal, or website. Can you tell?) : )
So much more to talk about: art, language, fortune cookies...but they will just all have to wait for another day. It's good to be home and blogging again!
-Susie
So, this week's crossword (see this post for an explanation of why I do the Sunday New York Times Crossword on Wednesdays). Well, the whole thing was lost on me. I have always been a terrible speller (I'm sure it's because I don't read enough). I tried rewriting all the words several ways, and I couldn't even always tell what was the correct way to spell the word. I knew that "supercede" was wrong because I'd just used it in a blog post! So I guess doing this is useful after all, and I still often think the puzzle is exceedingly stupid. This one was very quick, though.
I spent the last four (was it only four?) days out of town and busy with houseguests and then slowly recovering. I've been trying to rearrange my schedule so I can get everything done I want to do each day in a timely manner. So far it has not been working, though this week should be much less busy than last week. I have not written today yet (though I absolutely will, darn it! It's very bad of me, I know...), and yesterday I was so tired and uninspired I only wrote 600 words, and those were not even directly related to my Current Project. I'm a bit superstitious about my work. I told our friends a little about the story, and they thought it sounded very intriguing and wanted to hear more...and I haven't written a word since I told them about it. Gaah! I will force myself back into writing this evening though (it's already after 3!), and next week should be more normal. (Ha! As if my life is ever normal!)
On a related note (what I've been up to), I got up at 4:45 a.m. on Saturday to go to the sage grouse lek. It had snowed several inches overnight making for a pleasant walk out into the sage (no roots to trip over--the snow was still unbelievably, unusually deep), but the temperature was around 9 degrees F and only about fifteen male grouse were out dancing. One female flew in late (nearly 7:00 a.m.), but didn't stay long. Then we say two females by the side of the road near the airport. It was a great wildlife day in all, with 25 moose, many deer, some elk and bison, as well as a snipe and a Northern shrike and many ducks, including what I thought might be a female red-breasted merganser. In the afternoon I napped for more than two hours (a very rare occurance for me--I've almost never been able to nap since I was three years old), then I had to rush to make some bread (a really delicious white yeast bread made with orange juice and zest and eaten with a mixture of butter and orange marmalade) before heading out to dinner. I had to finish the bread after dinner, actually (I let it go through its final rise in the refrigerator while we were out, which worked beautifully), then got up early again (7:00 a.m. this time) because:
The West entrance to Yellowstone National Park (at West Yellowstone, Montana) opened last week, I believe, but our convenient South entrance isn't scheduled to open until May 9 (assuming all the snow is gone!). So, we drove over Teton Pass into Idaho and up to West Yellowstone. On the way, we saw a pair of white-faced ibises (yea!), many snipes, yellow-headed blackbirds and more and arrived at the Park for lunch. We spent one night in Gardiner, MT and two half-days driving along the Northern tier road in the Madison, Gardner (not misspelled), Yellowstone, and Lamar River valleys. We saw only one grizzly bear on the first afternoon (eating an elk carcass). She had a radio collar and two ear tags, often a sign of past run-ins with human beings, unfortunately. We saw several coyotes, scattered elk, but depressingly few bison (don't get me started on that again. Sigh.), no wolves and no black bears. There was still a huge amount of snow in the Lamar Valley. Two years ago at this time, it was filled with animals, including a number of pronghorns. I was actually disappointed by the trip on the whole, animal-wise, though we saw some wonderful things, including the bear, which was the closest I've ever been to a grizzly in the Park.
Exciting birds included red-breasted mergansers in the Madison River. Actually, that's about it. We saw one distant immature golden eagle, some bald eagles singing and a willet at Blacktail Ponds, buffleheads (a sure sign of spring perhaps?), two species of goldeneyes (common and Barrow's), a pair of blue-winged teals, ospreys...The Uinta ground-squirrels are also awake at last and chirruping, and we saw a white-tailed deer on the banks of the Yellowstone River. I'd never seen one in the Park before, though they've been around for decades. Also numerous baby bison, which I'll talk about another day--two sad and long stories about that, actually.
Yesterday was altogether more satisfying bird-wise (and that's an understatement!). I've heard the kingfishers on our local backyard pond, but haven't seen them yet, the wood ducks are back, and on our pond have been four pelicans, a loon (!), a horned grebe (! And a first for me), a lone male canvasback, a pair or three individual red-breasted mergansers (I guess I didn't have to drive so far to see them after all...). Someone else has seen other grebes and cormorants, but I haven't yet. The loon was gorgeous. They are some of my very favorite birds and rarely seen out here, though I did worry that this one might be lonely all by herself. Maybe she (he?) has a mate waiting somewhere. I just love their tortoiseshell patterned black and white backs and their saber-like bills and their pearl necklaces. : )
Also, cinnamon teals are back on Flat Creek, and many green-winged teals and gadwalls. No blue-winged teals down here yet for me, but I did see a lone (no kidding!) solitary sandpiper in the mud by the side of the highway. They are common migrants or vagrants I believe. I've seen them a few times in the region only, and my birdbook is marked with two exclamation points next to the picture (I have a very elaborate series of symbols I use to mark species I've seen in my birdbook...Very cryptic...) ; ) and it was familiar enough to recognize almost immediately upon viewing it, without looking it up. (I checked the book later, of course, but they're pretty unmistakeable in the region)
Whew! And then, yesterday I listened to PotterCast, as I do every week and Melissa especially, but also John and Sue, brought up something that I've been thinking about a lot. It relates to my last post, and gets at something I've been trying to say. I know my posts are long and thoughtful and sometimes meloncholy, but I'm actually doing it on purpose. Part of my deciding to talk about the things I talk about has to do with my disgust for the current short attention spans of modern humans these days. My loathing of Newsweek (see the first link on this post) is directly related to this, and I never read popular magazines, if such they can be called. What can a thoughtful, intelligent, discerning adult read these days? Good luck trying to get a balanced and accurate account of the news today! I stopped watching the "news" on TV when I was a child, or perhaps young teen because I was already disgusted by it. And don't get me started on purveyors (That took a while to find! Dictionaries are only useful when you know the first four or five letters of a word for sure...) of so-called popular science. The culture of "infotainment" is pervasive and (I believe) destructive. I have seen first hand how influenced subconsciously I am by what I read, so reading things that are simply wrong, misinformed, or incomplete can indeed have a detrimental effect on one's understanding of a situation and the world in general.
So, that is why I write long, thoughtful posts on varied subjects. I have wide interests already, but everything is more interesting when it can be studied in depth. Not watching television and spending as much time as I can observing nature has lengthened my attention span considerably. I can sit and watch a flock of juncos for an hour, and in so doing, learn so much about the world I live in, and through that understanding, come to better understand myself. And shouldn't that be the goal? (I've also learned that linking between your posts can increase visitors to your blog, journal, or website. Can you tell?) : )
So much more to talk about: art, language, fortune cookies...but they will just all have to wait for another day. It's good to be home and blogging again!
-Susie
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Birds of Spring
So, I'm finally going to talk about wildlife. Huzzah! But first, my word count so far today is 2,099. It was "housekeeping" kind of writing I'm afraid, though--I finally figured out where the novel is going and made an outline with detailed summaries of what each chapter will contain. I'm trying to convince myself that it counts as work, as it's an important part of the writing process. I may go back and fill in the rest of a chapter or two later. This should help the writing go faster, however, which must be a good thing, right?
Technically it is spring here. Last night it snowed and it's cold and wintry today, but the birds are coming back in ever larger numbers. During the winter, we have mostly black, white, and black and white birds on the hill here: ravens, magpies, Clark's nutcrackers, trumpeter swans, and both mountain and black-capped chickadees, as well as the occasional bald eagle or hairy--or, less often, downy--woodpecker. But yesterday a new color was added! Yes. We have brown birds now, too! : )
Two days ago, some guys were doing something on the house next door (still three tenths of a mile away). When I went for my walk I head them hammering something. I also heard the calls of a distressed woodpecker, answering their hammering with his territorial call. Yesterday I saw two male red-naped sapsuckers (one of which was likely the same aforementioned bird) fighting hotly over a prime nesting area. These are mostly black and white birds too, but compared to all the bare trees and snow I've seen for the last five months, they were a positive rainbow of beautiful tones--the bright red of their heads and throats and the soft creamy-yellow of their bellies. Their mates should be close behind them somewhere, arriving soon to tap into the bushes and trees around the yard and get ready to nest. The dark-eyed juncos are also starting to sing--a nondescript kind of trill.
When I finally had some time to myself yesterday, but was, as yet, unable to get on the computer and work on my Current Project, I sat in a chair and looked out the window, where I was immediately distracted by a flock of juncos pecking at the old dry grass seeds that the melting of the snow has revealed. I would describe myself as an avid birder, but, although I keep a "life list," I am not one of those birders who is obsessed with seeing only the newest species. I enjoy observing even the common and drab birds that I know best, so I can get to know them better. House sparrows, for example, have a highly complex social structure that even a casual observer can see something of, if she just takes a few minutes to watch.
Juncos spend a lot of their time on the ground, where they hop around foraging and scratching the dirt (like most buntings AKA emberizids AKA "sparrows" here in North America) with both feet at once. Being small and brownish-grey and long-tailed and having their white bellies hidden when they're on the ground, they look a lot like mice moving around. The dark-eyed junco has an almost endless array of plumage variation, so much so that it was once divided into four or five separate species. The variety that breeds here is called the pink-sided junco, though it is pretty close to the Oregon junco, which also passes through here in the spring and fall (and some of them winter here as well) to and from its breeding grounds in British Columbia, Idaho, Washington, and, of course, Oregon.
Juncos are friendly and fearless and quite common. Most varieties winter in the U.S. and they can be seen in every state and most of Canada for at least part of the year. This particular flock consisted of about thirty pink-sided. Theoretically, one can tell male and female juncos apart by plumage. Theoretically. Among pink-sideds, the males have slightly darker and greyer heads with a cleaner break between the grey nape and the brown back. And at close range (some hopped right under the window), I could indeed see that some were browner. Ahem. Yes, I couldn't swear that those were all female, though. Anyway, they fed for a very long time, occasionally and seeminly for no reason at all, viciously fighting with each other--lifting their wings as they faced off over a seed, or screeching and spatting with claws and beaks for a few seconds. Then they would go back to pecking as though nothing had happened. I think it would be wrong to see such behavior and conclude that birds have short memories or (heaven forbid!) that they are stupid. I think, in fact, having watched them before at less lean times of the year, that they are just really hungry. And it's not hard to see why with it the end of April and six to eight inches still on the ground in most places.
I wouldn't have stayed with the juncos as long as I did, I suppose, except there were two other birds with them. One was readily identifyable as a white-crowned sparrow, which is significantly larger than a junco and one of the most visible and distinctive sparrows we have. I was still surprised to see it, not only with a flock of juncos, but on our hill, as I usually associate white-crowned sparrows with water--I see them along ponds and streams in willows or cottonwoods. And there was another, very small brown bird there too. It was fifteen minutes before I was brave enough to run for my binoculars, convinced the whole flock would be gone by the time I returned. They were very hungry, however, and outside my window was some of the only snow-free ground in quite a distance, so they were all still there. The LBB turned out to be a Brewer's sparrow, which surprised me much more than the white-crowned, as I've only ever seen Brewer's sparrows in the sage brush and other open country (though I'm notoriously bad at identifying sparrows, preferring large charismatic birds like ostriches, etc.).
Oddly, the adult Brewer's sparrow is a distinctive and easily identifyable sparrow, not because of the markings it has, but because of the markings it doesn't have. It is a plain grey-brown bird, mostly unmarked except for faint stripes on their heads and back, which are universal to all buntings ("sparrows"--the naming thing is fascinating and deserves a post of its own later). This one had a clear white semi-circle under its eye and a very clean grey collar around the sides of its neck. According to The Sibley Guide to Birds, this means it's of the population that breeds in the Yukon and part of Alaska. I haven't really studied sparrows, (indeed, I'll admit right here I often dismiss them all as "little brown birds" and therefore unidentifiable), so it would be interesting to know more about this regional variation and what kind breed around here. As for relative size of this bird to the juncos--it was clearly smaller, but it was also all fluffed out (which brings up the wonder of feathers--they are not fixed you see, and a bird's appearance can change enormously just by how it's holding its feathers), perhaps to make it look bigger to all the louder and larger birds around it.
This post is already longer than I intended, so I'll just conclude by saying I watched with great interest the birds' reaction to various raptors that flew over head including (twice) a pair of red tailed hawks I'll definitely mention again, a Cooper's hawk and a small falcon (probably a kestrel, though I wasn't positive). Apparently, the white-crowned sparrow, at least, proved its worth to the flock, as its greater height seems to have allowed it to spot the Cooper's hawk first, and the flock's attentiveness seems to have discouraged the predator. They also ignored the red taileds very quickly after spotting them, as they posed no threat. And I ended the day by seeing an osprey, which, although it is black and white, is most definitely a bird of the Summer.
And this morning I woke up to fresh snow and the first Swainson's thrush of the year hopping along my walk looking for worms, as well as a little frozen corpse of a junco who probably flew into the window and died. So, it's bittersweet living so close to nature. I can enjoy watching the birds and being close to them and the warmth escaping from the house helps melt the snow around the walkway, but my human presence can be destructive too.
-Susie
Technically it is spring here. Last night it snowed and it's cold and wintry today, but the birds are coming back in ever larger numbers. During the winter, we have mostly black, white, and black and white birds on the hill here: ravens, magpies, Clark's nutcrackers, trumpeter swans, and both mountain and black-capped chickadees, as well as the occasional bald eagle or hairy--or, less often, downy--woodpecker. But yesterday a new color was added! Yes. We have brown birds now, too! : )
Two days ago, some guys were doing something on the house next door (still three tenths of a mile away). When I went for my walk I head them hammering something. I also heard the calls of a distressed woodpecker, answering their hammering with his territorial call. Yesterday I saw two male red-naped sapsuckers (one of which was likely the same aforementioned bird) fighting hotly over a prime nesting area. These are mostly black and white birds too, but compared to all the bare trees and snow I've seen for the last five months, they were a positive rainbow of beautiful tones--the bright red of their heads and throats and the soft creamy-yellow of their bellies. Their mates should be close behind them somewhere, arriving soon to tap into the bushes and trees around the yard and get ready to nest. The dark-eyed juncos are also starting to sing--a nondescript kind of trill.
When I finally had some time to myself yesterday, but was, as yet, unable to get on the computer and work on my Current Project, I sat in a chair and looked out the window, where I was immediately distracted by a flock of juncos pecking at the old dry grass seeds that the melting of the snow has revealed. I would describe myself as an avid birder, but, although I keep a "life list," I am not one of those birders who is obsessed with seeing only the newest species. I enjoy observing even the common and drab birds that I know best, so I can get to know them better. House sparrows, for example, have a highly complex social structure that even a casual observer can see something of, if she just takes a few minutes to watch.
Juncos spend a lot of their time on the ground, where they hop around foraging and scratching the dirt (like most buntings AKA emberizids AKA "sparrows" here in North America) with both feet at once. Being small and brownish-grey and long-tailed and having their white bellies hidden when they're on the ground, they look a lot like mice moving around. The dark-eyed junco has an almost endless array of plumage variation, so much so that it was once divided into four or five separate species. The variety that breeds here is called the pink-sided junco, though it is pretty close to the Oregon junco, which also passes through here in the spring and fall (and some of them winter here as well) to and from its breeding grounds in British Columbia, Idaho, Washington, and, of course, Oregon.
Juncos are friendly and fearless and quite common. Most varieties winter in the U.S. and they can be seen in every state and most of Canada for at least part of the year. This particular flock consisted of about thirty pink-sided. Theoretically, one can tell male and female juncos apart by plumage. Theoretically. Among pink-sideds, the males have slightly darker and greyer heads with a cleaner break between the grey nape and the brown back. And at close range (some hopped right under the window), I could indeed see that some were browner. Ahem. Yes, I couldn't swear that those were all female, though. Anyway, they fed for a very long time, occasionally and seeminly for no reason at all, viciously fighting with each other--lifting their wings as they faced off over a seed, or screeching and spatting with claws and beaks for a few seconds. Then they would go back to pecking as though nothing had happened. I think it would be wrong to see such behavior and conclude that birds have short memories or (heaven forbid!) that they are stupid. I think, in fact, having watched them before at less lean times of the year, that they are just really hungry. And it's not hard to see why with it the end of April and six to eight inches still on the ground in most places.
I wouldn't have stayed with the juncos as long as I did, I suppose, except there were two other birds with them. One was readily identifyable as a white-crowned sparrow, which is significantly larger than a junco and one of the most visible and distinctive sparrows we have. I was still surprised to see it, not only with a flock of juncos, but on our hill, as I usually associate white-crowned sparrows with water--I see them along ponds and streams in willows or cottonwoods. And there was another, very small brown bird there too. It was fifteen minutes before I was brave enough to run for my binoculars, convinced the whole flock would be gone by the time I returned. They were very hungry, however, and outside my window was some of the only snow-free ground in quite a distance, so they were all still there. The LBB turned out to be a Brewer's sparrow, which surprised me much more than the white-crowned, as I've only ever seen Brewer's sparrows in the sage brush and other open country (though I'm notoriously bad at identifying sparrows, preferring large charismatic birds like ostriches, etc.).
Oddly, the adult Brewer's sparrow is a distinctive and easily identifyable sparrow, not because of the markings it has, but because of the markings it doesn't have. It is a plain grey-brown bird, mostly unmarked except for faint stripes on their heads and back, which are universal to all buntings ("sparrows"--the naming thing is fascinating and deserves a post of its own later). This one had a clear white semi-circle under its eye and a very clean grey collar around the sides of its neck. According to The Sibley Guide to Birds, this means it's of the population that breeds in the Yukon and part of Alaska. I haven't really studied sparrows, (indeed, I'll admit right here I often dismiss them all as "little brown birds" and therefore unidentifiable), so it would be interesting to know more about this regional variation and what kind breed around here. As for relative size of this bird to the juncos--it was clearly smaller, but it was also all fluffed out (which brings up the wonder of feathers--they are not fixed you see, and a bird's appearance can change enormously just by how it's holding its feathers), perhaps to make it look bigger to all the louder and larger birds around it.
This post is already longer than I intended, so I'll just conclude by saying I watched with great interest the birds' reaction to various raptors that flew over head including (twice) a pair of red tailed hawks I'll definitely mention again, a Cooper's hawk and a small falcon (probably a kestrel, though I wasn't positive). Apparently, the white-crowned sparrow, at least, proved its worth to the flock, as its greater height seems to have allowed it to spot the Cooper's hawk first, and the flock's attentiveness seems to have discouraged the predator. They also ignored the red taileds very quickly after spotting them, as they posed no threat. And I ended the day by seeing an osprey, which, although it is black and white, is most definitely a bird of the Summer.
And this morning I woke up to fresh snow and the first Swainson's thrush of the year hopping along my walk looking for worms, as well as a little frozen corpse of a junco who probably flew into the window and died. So, it's bittersweet living so close to nature. I can enjoy watching the birds and being close to them and the warmth escaping from the house helps melt the snow around the walkway, but my human presence can be destructive too.
-Susie
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