Reichard Award Recipient

Day 110: Some of my friends have already heard the news: yesterday, I was honoured with the Sarah Reichard "Hike the Extra Mile" award for my volunteer service with the Invasive Plant Council. It had been announced in an earlier email, and I expected it to go no further than that public recognition. Consequently, I was rendered speechless when I opened my snail-mail yesterday and found a handsome Amazon gift card enclosed.

Quoting from the email, "In 2016, the PNW IPC honors three outstanding volunteers...Collectively, these three conservation warriors conducted 77 surveys, reported 254 new invasive plant records, hiked 264 miles of trail and volunteered 433 hours of their time searching for, reporting and removing harmful invasive plants from wilderness and other natural areas!"

Dr. Reichard was the vice president of the Invasive Plant Council and taught at the University of Washington. She passed away last year while leading a botanical tour in South Africa. Again quoting from the email, "She was a passionate scientist who paved the way and created opportunities for women in science and worked diligently to solve complex problems in the important interdisciplinary field of Conservation Biology."

I am proud to have received this honour in her name.

Frack!

Day 109: The origin of the word "frack" is unclear. Many people believe that it is a shortened form of "fracture," and that may well be the case. But which came first, the chicken or the egg? During the 1970s, a science-fiction TV serial called "Battlestar Galactica" debuted the word as a euphemism for...that other word which starts with F. Indeed, most of the characters portrayed on the show couldn't get through a sentence without using it, in the same manner that many people today liberally salt their vocabulary with its counterpart. I was a fan of the series, but when I forswore television to preserve my sanity, I missed its final episodes. That said, I was more likely to curse by saying "frack" when I was angry, or to call someone a "smeghead" (a term I'd picked up from the popular British sci-fi series, "Red Dwarf").

Cursing creatively is an art. Many vulgarities have been so over-used that certain words have lost their impact (case in point, the synonym for "frack"). Vulgar speech evolves; it is a living thing. In my parents' era, "frig" meant the exact same thing and carried the same force that our current f-word delivers. Nowadays, it's said without thought for the tender ears of children or little old ladies.

On the other hand, the dual definitions of "frack" supply extra weight. To illustrate my point, I've created a cartoon for your enjoyment. I can hardly be called an artist, and this adventure called for quite a mix of media. I drew the original sketches in pencil, traced them off in ink, photographed them, and then coloured them on the computer. It was a long process. I'm fracked.

Position Description: Scribe

Day 108: I'm scheduling this for publication on January 29 because I'm not sure I'll have internet. It's been dodgy for some time, affecting our whole area. This time, it seems to be localized, so it could well be that my modem has burned out while trying to access non-existent service.

So...the story here is that I have a new position description: scribe to Mount Rainier's Volunteer Program. I took on the responsibility myself, although I have not done any calligraphy for thirty years or more. I learned the art while participating in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism, not Student Conservation Association). The hand I chose to learn was Uncial, and of course to be strictly "period," I could not make adaptations when using it in SCA documents. That said, I developed my own style of illumination (the flourishes and artwork which embellish text), incorporating birds and flowers into my drawings. I created our baronial scroll, a 2' x 3' work which took weeks to complete. Sadly, it disappeared from our Seneschal's keeping, and the only record of it I have are a few sketches and colour slides showing sections of it in close-up.

The volunteer recognition certificates are another story. I had nothing showing the full Uncial alphabet, so I had to invent a few letters. By the time I had completed two dozen "scrolls," I was satisfied with a blend of Uncial and Celtic Roundhand, a closely-related style. I am happy to say that my skill with the pen does not seem to have diminished too badly, and I'm sure by the time I've recognized another several hundred volunteers, I'll be quite confident in its use.

Sphaerophorus Taxonomy

Day 107: As if I didn't have enough on my plate already, this beautiful little lichen is a taxonomic nightmare. Formerly known as Sphaerophorus globosus and listed as such as late as two weeks ago in LIAS ("A Global Information System for Lichenized and Non-Lichenized Ascomycetes"), it was only shown in one reputable reference as Sphaerophorus venerabilis. As of this week, its new nomenclature has been updated in LIAS. You might wonder why I don't just shrug and move on. Well, I had *just* finished updating the taxonomy for lichen species catalogued in Mount Rainier National Park...roughly 500 species...and had turned the paperwork over to Plant Ecologist Arnie Peterson about ten days ago.

The first hitch in the works was that within two days of being given the updated list, he sent me a note of correction on a different species (one of my favourites). "'Pilophoron' is the accepted genus," he wrote. "'Pilophorus' has gone out of date. I'm going to watch when your head explodes." I replied, "Pilophoronus. There. That's settled." And then I went down the hall where I could bang my head on the wall in private.

So, between Sphaerophorus VENERABILIS and PILOPHORON, if you should hear a loud explosion from the west coast, you can bet that Arnie is sitting on the sidelines chuckling. As rapidly as science brings us new discoveries from the natural world, taxonomists gather over beers to think up new ways to plague those of us charged with disseminating the information.

Lichen Basics

Day 106: This is the type of dry reading you're likely to see on official NPS pages from here on out, but at least it's science.

*****

Those of us who live in the Pacific Northwest are fortunate to have a wide variety of lichen species in our forests. Although lichens appear in almost every geographic region of North America, the leafier types are more abundant on the northwest and northeast coasts. Many of them are mistakenly called "mosses," but in fact they are complex symbiotic organisms. One of the most exciting revelations in the field of lichenology occurred this year when a third component was identified in the classic "fungus/algae" pairing: yeast. Let's look more closely at some common PNW lichens and learn a little of the specialized terminology which describes them.

There are three basic types of lichen: foliose, fruticose and crustose. Foliose ("FOH-lee-ose") lichens are "leafy" (think "foliage"). Platismatia (upper left) is an excellent example. Fruticose ("FROO-ti-cose") lichens are bushy or shrubby, or have a three-dimensional structure which often includes round stalks topped by cups or knobs. The photo in the upper right shows an example of Cladonia, a classic fruticose family.

Sometimes, it is difficult to assign a lichen to a specific category. The lower left image shows a Hypogymnia. The Hypogymnias are classified as "foliose-fruticose." The last type of lichen is called crustose ("CRUST-ose"), and as you might guess, it forms a crust which adheres tightly to trees and rocks. Crustose lichens often exhibit small fruiting bodies such as those which appear on Ochrolechia (lower right).

Pseudohydnum Winter Reprise

Day 105: With a gag order in place to prevent me from talking about anything to do with climate change on our official Park pages, I reviewed my scheduled posts last night to be sure I hadn't said anything "seditious" in my botanical discussions...no mention of warmer summer temperatures or of lichens growing only where the air is unpolluted, no references to animals changing their ranges in order to adapt to diminishing food sources. As a naturalist, I find it very difficult to keep those things out of any communication since they are so close to my heart. It's going to be tough to keep my weekly feature going when I'm limited to engaging people with plain and undeniable statements: "This is a lichen. We have a lot of them in the Pacific Northwest." Stop right there. I mustn't say, "...because the on-shore flow keeps the air in our forests clean."

I've been mulling over what I can and can't do under the new regime. I decided that introducing some lichen basics would be safe, so to that end, I went out for a walk this morning to find examples of crustose, foliose and fruticose growth habits. I found them all, and got a bonus in person of the largest Pseudohydnum gelatinosum I've ever seen, a full three inches tall and two inches across. Usually, they're just little translucent jelly-blobs the size of your thumbnail. They can't be mistaken for anything else. They are the only white, translucent stalked fungus with "teeth" instead of gills. They're great. I mean, really. Usually tiny, but great.

Wait...who's knocking on my door? Is that the censor? Oh, dear. I said "tiny," didn't I?

#realhaggismatters

Day 104: (Bonus post, just for giggles. Maybe I should have left the Glen Livet in the cupboard.)

Genetic Predisposition

Day 104: Mount Rainier National Park, Sunrise Community Kitchen, circa 1933. The young woman in the foreground is my mother, the babe-in-arms my uncle-Gus-the-Lake-James-Ranger. It was Gus who set me on the course of my life when I was but nine years old, having obtained permission from his superintendent for me to stay with him in his duty station for ten days. My father had died in the spring, and Gus (ever my idol) was doing his part to help me adjust. In those ten days, I determined two things: that I wanted to climb the Mountain and that I wanted to grow up to work in the Park. My first stint at Carbon River as a volunteer preceded my first successful ascent by a year or two, but I went on to summit five more times (a total of six), and my readers know to look for me at Longmire today.

Aside from having a Park Service bloodline, I feel a strong bond with the broader NPS "family," and I know many of them are likewise moved by a sense of kinship, as well as being united in a common cause. When one of us is attacked or oppressed, it affects us all. Recent events have shown how we will rise to meet the occasion, "rogue rangers" defending our own in their private time. There aren't many organizations which generate that depth of community connection. Parkies together!

Bizarro World

Day 103: I love surrealism...unless, of course, I happen to be living it, which at the moment I most certainly feel like I am. Twilight-Zone events are taking place all around me, I've reached the Outer Limits and am tiptoeing at the edge of the abyss. I'm awake nights and asleep days. I've gone through half a dozen light bulbs in the space of 48 hours, a phenomenon which has proven out time and again over the years as being directly related to my mood. I feel as if the planets have all gone retrograde, spinning contrary to their normal course around the sun; as if I had been transported to Bizarro World where everything is backwards or upside-down.

Should it have surprised me to find a chicken-legged Humpty Dumpty on a ledge above the projector screen in the conference room yesterday? All things considered, perhaps not, but at least it made me laugh.

Snow Walk With Friends

Day 102: I went to work yesterday expecting to participate in a four-hour "webinar" to evaluate and learn to use the new Volunteer(dot)gov website soon to be rolled out. An hour in, they still hadn't eliminated the clicks, screeches, pings, dings, clacks, clatters on the line, and when an electronic flock of seagulls made their appearance simultaneously with more pressing office business on our end, we gave it up as a lost cause. I went back to my regular duties and just as I was finishing up, two friends dropped by and invited me out for a walk with them in the snow. I leapt at the chance. We made the rounds of Longmire Campground and although I didn't find any canopy lichens deposited by our recent winds, it was quite enjoyable.

Kevin and I left a little early, with me thinking that I'd get home in time for a quick dinner before heading up to Seattle for Morris dance practice. There was a catch, though. I needed to check my email first to see if the practice was still on, the other team members still rather tired from the Women's March on Saturday. I fired up the computer and...no internet.

"No internet" is a common complaint in my area. "Crappy internet" is even more common. Slow at the best of times, nonexistent at the worst, our internet would be rejected out of hand by occupants of most third-world countries. It had been out just a few days earlier, and when it was restored, we were told that a farmer had run a backhoe through the line. However, when another friend asked what had caused the outage, she was told that a tree had fallen on the substation. "Alternate facts" seem to rule in our ISP as well as in higher government. As for this outage, we were advised that, "We do not have a projected date for when your service will be restored." Are we charged for down-time? You bet! But it is my understanding that a group of locals are consulting with an attorney to initiate a class-action suit against the company whose other business practices are as dodgy as their service.

For now, I'm back, but that's subject to change without notice. Unfortunately, that one ISP is the only game in town.

Seattle Women's March

Day 101: My readers must forgive a divergence from my customary posts. I have stood apart from politics for fifty years, content to let the mill of government grind out what it will, dealing with its consequences as they sifted down to me on a personal level. We have had good presidents and bad. They have come and gone in turn, and nothing too damaging has been left in their wakes. Good or bad, we have weathered them. None has been unendurable. None has been vile...until now.

 

Yesterday, I marched alongside some 130,000 like-minded people in Seattle in protest against a man who I believe is unfit to be the commander-in-chief of this country, unfit to walk on the same side of the street with people of decency and moral character. I will not enumerate his offenses here; they are widely known and do not bear repeating. I will say in qualification that the vulgarity of his addresses to women have prompted a reaction in the same vein, profanity meeting profanity. I do not excuse that response, but I understand it. Some of the posters and signs I depict here are rude and crude. They come from a broad cross-section of humanity, and not all of us couch our sentiments in polite, cool terms.

I will ask my readers to remember that this was primarily a march for women's rights. For the most part, my lens was trained on the broader scope: human rights and the environment. It is my hope that these images will speak more profoundly than my mere words can do.

The Photographer's Bane

Day 100: I have spent a large portion of my photographic energies on trying to capture a "field guide" shot of a Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus). I tease my east-coast friends about getting excited over Bald Eagles because here they are common, but those same east-coasters have Chickadees at their feeders daily, almost hand-tame, and I'd gladly trade half a dozen Eagles for just one tiny 'dee who would hold still long enough for a portrait. This, dear readers, is as close as it gets for me. You can see the field markings, but the pose is far from classic. Poor little guy must have dropped the bud!

Black-capped Chickadees frequently hang out with Ruby-crowned or Golden-crowned Kinglets (or maybe it's the other way around). The Kinglets are usually what catches my attention, "popcorning" among alder and cottonwood branches faster than my eye can follow. Trying to zoom in on them is a hopeless task. They are usually at a distance which makes it hard for me to identify a branch, let alone focus on it. Likewise, the Chickadees pop off just as soon as I spot their perches, and the whole congenial flock, Kinglets and Chickadees alike, seldom populate a site longer than five minutes. That said, I still hope to get that classic shot some day.

Americana Over The Top

Day 99: Classic Americana down by the riverside...rusted-out car bodies, shotgun shells and brass cartridges, decaying paper targets, beer and "power drink" cans, cardboard and other paper litter, and undoubtedly a collection of less savoury items concealed by snow. Two miles in and with only a small daypack on my shoulders, there wasn't much I could do to improve the situation. In any event, the good-ol'-boy shooting parties at this location are at least a weekly occurrence, the detritus of great America in a state of growth far in excess of its potential to be removed. It was here that I saw the Chickadees and Kinglets; here, where two waters meet over breeding salmon. A juvenile Bald Eagle perched in a tree on the south side of the mainstem, a dramatic contrast to the shotgun shells stuck on the ends of north-side branches where they turned a grove of small alders into a redneck Christmas display. This Nisqually River raced by, waiting to be swollen with rain so that it might carry the mounds of plastic bags and bottles out to sea. I cried here, upon the sullied bosom of the Earth: cried for what we've done and what we've undone, both to the good and to the bad. My thoughts for the future, once sprinkled with a few small stars of hope, fell into shade and shadow.

Grieving for Nature, I turned homeward, but as I passed through the screen of brush at the back of this lamentable scenario, a furtive movement drew my eye to the ground. There, searching among fallen leaves for dinner, was my friend and guide the Pacific Wren. My dark reverie was dispelled by the cheer with which he went about his business. It's a funny thing: sometimes you don't see the lesson until days after the class. Thank you, Troglodytes. We'll get through this together.

In Nature's Hands

Day 98: A lesson from a lichen:

I am in your hands, Mother.
You brought me into this world
And you have kept me thus far in your protection.
You have fed me and sheltered me;
You have taught me and guided me;
My heart and eyes have opened because of you.
I am not more or less than what you made me,
And no greater or lesser than any other of your many parts.
The care with which you hold a raindrop
Reminds me to pass my remaining days
In kindness and consideration of all around me,
And not to forget that we,
Human, rock, bird, tree and all,
Are equally your children.

Big Blonde Sparrows

Day 98: My east-coast friends get very excited when they spot a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). I keep telling them, "I see 'em almost every time I go to town. Out here, they're like sparrows...big blonde sparrows." These photos show three out of the sixteen I observed in the space of twenty minutes. Two were juveniles, one near the confluence of the Nisqually River and Ohop Creek, and the other alongside Alder Lake. The others were in Eatonville, drawn by a "fish dump" of salmon carcases (a habitat-restoration practice) in the Mashel River, nine at Smallwood Park. Iggles, schmiggles...what's the big deal? I'll trade you east-coasters a half dozen for just ONE Chickadee who will hold still long enough for me to get a picture!

Pacific Wren Hide-and-Seek

Day 97: The Latin name Troglodytes troglodytes says a lot about the social life of enchanting Pacific (Winter) Wren. While this mouse-sized bird doesn't actually live in a cave, it forages under leaf litter and darts from view as effectively as if it had slipped down a mole hole. I think this must have been a young bird. It showed no fear of me and allowed me to get within inches of it or its hiding place. That didn't make photographing it easy, though! It was very active, skittering here and there, disappearing under cottonwood leaves and emerging again where I least expected it. I followed it along the edge of the trail for about twenty feet over the space of ten minutes, watching it snap up insects and spiders. We parted company when it went into deep shadow beneath a cedar. Several others were playing hide-and-seek in the bushes, a behaviour more typical of the species. Always a favourite of mine, Pacific Wren sings a cascading, lengthy song, a melody far larger than its diminutive size.

Caching Through The Snow

Day 94: "Caching through the snow / That's how I spent my day / Oh, what fun it is to find / A brand-new place to play!"

I have to admit that I'd never been all the way to the end of the trail (gated road) despite how long I've lived here and the fact that I've worked with the Nisqually Land Trust at a site about a quarter mile in. The old road goes on for almost two miles, not losing much elevation until the last quarter mile when it descends to the confluence of Ohop Creek and the Nisqually River. The timber was harvested from this acreage years ago and a network of closed roads remains, and now most of the land is under the umbrella of Washington State Parks. The "Nisqually-Mashel Park" is still under development. Permission was granted for someone to place a geocache within the park boundaries, and a mad rush of first-to-find fiends sallied forth on December 31 to find it. On that date, I was snowshoeing in the capital-P Park (Mount Rainier) and enjoying the solitude. I've lost the drive to be first off the block. I knew this one would still be there when I got around to it.

The cache was not the only thing I found during this adventure. There was some classic "great" Americana manifesting as rusted-out car bodies, empty beer cans, trash, shell casings and targets, but at least I saw nothing to indicate illegal fishing. Maybe two miles is too far for a snagger to carry a 20-pound salmon. Who knows? For company, I had an assortment of dear friends: Pacific Wren, a young Bald Eagle, an unidentified woodpecker which I never saw clearly, Kinglets of some sort and of course the elusive Black-Capped Chickadees who are my photographic bane. The spot is certainly worth another visit, and I wouldn't have discovered it if geocaching hadn't taken me there.

The Joy Of Music

Day 94: I am happy to report that after a couple of weeks of practice, my fingers have remembered their years of training rather better than I had expected. My sight-reading ability is certainly not as good as it once was, but I suspect that will also return as I play new music more often.

For those of you who don't know my history, I was trained as a keyboardist although I never performed publicly on piano or harpsichord. I studied for many years under a variety of instructors and more often than not, played for hours each day. At the keyboard, the passage of time went unnoticed. I would lose myself in Bach, Haydn or Mozart, emerging from their baroque enchantments only to find that it was dinnertime or bedtime and my chores had gone undone. My husband kept the harpsichord tuned, and often cooked his own meals because he loved to hear me play. With perfect pitch, he could complete the task in an hour or less, and then made daily adjustments. It was an all-day job for me, so when we separated, the harpsichord was tuned far less often, and my daily regimen of practice quickly fell by the wayside. At Christmastime, I'd plunk out carols on the piano, but seldom spent more than 15 minutes at the keys. I finally sold the piano to make space in my living room and tuned the harpsichord, but I felt I couldn't dedicate the time to bring my performance level up to standard when I'd have to re-tune it at least once a week.

As you may recall from an earlier post, I recently bought an electronic keyboard. It took me a while to figure out "voices" and the "dual" function, but now it is a simple matter to switch from a custom setting I devised to resemble the sound of the harpsichord to a clarinet solo. I can shift from the baroque brightness Bach to soulful boogie-woogie jazz with the punch of a couple of buttons. The versatility of the instrument has inspired me to play every day...yes, even sometimes past bedtime.

Very Cold Fun

Day 93: Several years ago, when I first saw images of broken frozen soap bubbles on the internet, I decided that on the next bitterly cold day, I'd try to create them. Now "bitterly cold days" don't come often in western Washington, and when one finally did arrive, I failed miserably at my appointed task. I wrote off the lack of success to our marine climate, but the issue was actually in the formula I was using to make my bubble liquid. Thanks to my friends Joe and Sharon (Team Biota) who supplied the secret, I took advantage of the current chilly temps to try again.

First of all, I'd like to explain that this is not a quick process, so put on your long johns and wool socks, and don't forget your hat. It took about twenty minutes for the "super-bubbles" to freeze, and only a few of them survived that long. The first few I tried to break simply deflated and collapsed in on themselves. Patience will reward you with success. Go in the house and warm up while you're waiting. Give your bubbles at least 10 minutes before you start trying to break them. The image in the lower left shows a popped but still slightly limp half-shell.

So what is the secret ingredient? Corn syrup. The sugar polymerizes and yields a bubble with extended longevity. I used a straw to blow 1-1.5" bubbles. It was 25° when I conducted the experiment. Colder temps would give a faster freeze time.

Here's the magic recipe, reduced to a much more reasonable eighth from the original supplied by Sharon and Joe:

3/8 cup of water
1/8 cup of dishwashing liquid (I used Dawn)
1 Tbsp. white corn syrup (Karo)

Imaged By The Sun

Day 92: It's been at least twenty years since I made this sun-print from a branch of a very special Little Tree in a very special place. It has sat on my mantle ever since, so long ago that the black matte I used to framed it has faded, but not the print itself. Images made in this fashion are referred to as "cyanotypes," and kits are readily available from a variety of sources, although if you're inclined toward chemistry, you could certainly make your own. The process for creating a cyan print from store-bought paper is quite simple: lay the object you wish to image on the treated paper, expose it to bright sunlight for several minutes, and then rinse the paper in plain water. For a darker hue, add a couple of drops of lemon juice. Lay the paper flat, and once it is completely dry, then press it under a stack of books or other similar weight. Cyan-printing is a fun way to create a durable memory!

The Waldo Tree

Day 91: Find Waldo. And while you're looking for him, remember that you have the advantage of being zoomed in on the much broader scene a Red-Tailed Hawk would be seeing, and you're not a predator browsing for dinner. Faster than a stooping Red-Tail, little Waldo can dart into the protection of those tangled branches, branches which the bigger hawk can't penetrate with the same ease.

It's hard to believe that the contorted filbert started its residency here as an 18-inch twig. It is now ten feet high and equally as wide, and affords cover for two or three dozen birds at one time. No matter how much seed you put out, birds will not come to your yard in numbers unless they're also provided with habitat. This tree takes the prize! Several times, I've tried to propagate it from cuttings, and last year thought I might have succeeded finally, but a dry, hot spell shattered my hopes. As much as the birds love the tree, I would be happy to plant half a dozen more!

Love-Hate Relationship

Day 90: I can't decide whether I love to hate this jigsaw puzzle, or hate to love it. I will admit that it is a favourite, although I don't do it nearly as often as others I like for the same reasons. I enjoy difficult jigsaws, and this one certainly fits the profile. The problem is that it's...PINK. It may look like it has a good range of colours when you look at the box, but the bottom line is that all but a very few of those 1000 pieces are PINK when you pour them out on the table. And we all know my opinion of PINK. It even disgusts me to write the word.

I bought it from Burpee Seed Co. years ago. It came with a packet of seeds bearing the exact same picture. I dutifully sowed the seed in the "barren wasteland" between my house and garage, and quietly rejoiced when it failed to germinate. Don't get me wrong. I like windflowers...as long as they're some other colour than PINK.

It will take me a few days to put the puzzle together. I find it difficult to work on under artificial light. In sunlight, I perceive the subtlety of shades; however, occasionally when I walk out of the room in the evening and return with a fresh eye along with my coffee, I may manage to fit in a PINK piece or two. Why couldn't Burpee have chosen nasturtiums?

Catching The Red-Eye

Day 89: "Catching the red-eye" isn't easy! Spotted (Rufous-Sided) Towhee is a ground-feeder, and a hoppy scratcher who is in constant motion. He plants his toes in soil or grass and jump-slides backwards, causing seed and bugs to fly into the air where he can see them. His tail is also active, flicking every few seconds. His active nature and habit of preferring to feed in the shelter of brush makes this robin-sized bird a difficult photographic subject indeed!

Our western version (Pipilo maculatus) shows more white spots on the wings than Eastern Towhee (P. erythrophthalmus), hence the common name. The voice is distinctly different with our western species calling its name, "too-EEE, too-EEE!" rather than the "Drink-your-teeaa! familiar to birders in the eastern US. That said, human pronunciations of "Towhee" vary even more widely: "TOW-ee" (like "cow"), TOE-ee (like "toe") or "TOO-ee" (the way I learned it.) Some people pronounce the H; others put the em-PHA-sis on the final syl-LA-ble.

Young Towhees' eyes may remain brown for some time after their feathers take on adult colouration. Adult female Towhees may demonstrate a black-crowned dark grey head. Young birds are brown and speckled, and resemble female Black-Headed Grosbeaks superficially, but observation of the feeding habit will clear up any possible mystery.

No Shingles Here

Day 88: Houses have shingles, therefore this bird is purple.

Okay, I imagine some of you are having a hard time with that statement, but it is perfectly reasonable when you have all the data. This is a Purple Finch (Carpodacus purpureus). It has a close cousin in House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus) and can be difficult to distinguish from it where the two species overlap in range. The key is in observing the bird's flanks and breast. House Finch has much sharper markings; the flanks in particular are patterned with distinct dark streaks, i.e., the "shingles" on the House. If you remember that one key phrase "Houses have shingles," you should have no trouble telling them apart in the field, even if the mnemonic confuses your non-birding friends.

Stellar Steller's Jay

Day 87: One of the most consistent year-'round visitors to the feeders is Steller's Jay. Their harsh voices and aggressive behaviour annoy many people, but when the food supply is abundant, they leave off arguing over seed and dine alongside the smaller birds in relative peace. Personally, I do not find their regular call irritating; rather, it is part of the daily conversations which go on outside my window. But in addition to the rasping rattle, Steller's is an imitator. He can put up an exact duplicate of the "keeeeer" cry of a Red-tailed Hawk, and sometimes employs it to clear the queue of finches and sparrows. Like other corvids, Steller's is intelligent and crafty, bold and sometimes brazen, but above all else, this magnificent bird is beautiful, and brings vibrant colour to the dull winter garden.

Winter Song

Day 86: The cold snap has been trying for my little feathered friends, so I've been putting out extra seed. Juncoes are the most common visitors to the feeders now, though I have them year-'round. Steller's Jays are almost as numerous, but there are others. Today, the committee included two representatives of Melospiza melodia, Song Sparrow (above) as well as a host of Spotted (Rufous-sided) Towhees and one lone Purple Finch. Everyone enjoys the tangled protection of the contorted filbert in between forays to the seed supply, the finches and sparrows staying in the boughs while the towhees scurry and hop around the base, foraging for what their neighbours drop. For my part, I kept to the house, taking pictures through a window open onto mid-teen temperatures, half-expecting a curious bird to seek a warmer sanctuary.

Dresden Plate Blackwork

Day 85: Occasionally, there are times when nothing seems to work according to plan with respect to my daily posts, and for reasons I am at a loss to explain. It might be that I "slept crooked" or "got up on the wrong side of the bed" even though to do so literally would flatten my nose against a bookcase. My photographic "eye" will be off, compositions unbalanced; my physical eye likewise, focus an unattainable object. On those days, I often arrive at evening in a critical state: "What am I going to do for a blog shot?" In desperation, I cast about for anything within the confines of the house which (a) I haven't photographed in a while and (b) has the makings of a story in its depiction, whether related to the subject or not. More the woe on my part if my literary skills also turn turtle, as the saying goes.

Blackwork thus becomes topic du jour. The piece currently in progress is based on the classic Dresden Plate quilt pattern. In this particular execution, every fourth segment is done in a "shaded" style, stitchery more dense toward the center of the plate, fading out to the basic stitch elements toward the outer edge. In designing blackwork stitches, the artist starts with a basic form which allows for repetition within a given space. If a shaded look is desired, additional stitches are added. Note the sections at one o'clock and five o'clock.

Winter weather has kept me from working on this piece for the last two weeks. Cold weather turns my fingertips to sandpaper, and often as not, I pull the thread out of the needle before it can pass through the canvas. Using hand lotion is out of the question because it would carry to the cotton. Gloves (even thin nitrile) are not an option. I'm crocheting with worsted instead. Winter is almost the only time I work with heavy fibers.

Water Wonders

Day 84: In her description of hoar frost in the 1914 edition of "Water Wonders Every Child Should Know," Jean M. Thompson says of a very similar image, "The butterflies have settled to rest." Mrs. Thompson couldn't have known that her book would be one of my life-long treasures, or that it would inspire my future photography. William Bentley's exquisite microphotography was well ahead of its time, and Mrs. Thompson's delicious explanations of the various phenomena fascinated me as a small child. I spent many a winter day capturing snowflakes on a glass microscope slide following her instructions rather too casually, only to have them melt before I could view them through the eyepiece. Oh, how I longed to see water in its myriad crystalline forms!

As a mountaineer, I witnessed ice in many bizarre forms and shapes; whittled by wind, brittle in decay, sharply angular deep in the protection of crevasses. I always thought of "Water Wonders" when I stumbled across some new geometry, but in pursuit of a summit conquest, I acknowledged its beauty only with a nod as I hurried through its dangers. Lingering was not an option, nor was carrying the additional weight of close-up lenses and gear.

A year or so ago, I invested in a set of macro filters (not lenses!) for my bridge camera. I had difficulty with them at first, not realizing that I could zoom in closer if I stepped farther back from my subject. Once I made that conceptual breakthrough, I seldom went out without at least the 4x magnification in my kit. Now that winter is upon us (with a vengeance, if I may say so...9° last night!), I am able to create water-wonder photos which I hope would make Mrs. Thompson proud.

Now This Is An Icicle

Day 83: Now THIS is worthy of the name "icicle," and no, you don't want to know what I did to get this shot, maybe doubly so because I had just been in a safety meeting in the conference room outside which it was hanging. No, it didn't extend to the ground. It terminated at the porch roof where its diameter wasn't much smaller than at this point. I had nothing handy to give a sense of scale other than some portion of my anatomy and I needed one hand to operate the camera and the other for stability. If you view the webcam at Longmire, you'll be able to tell that I was just a few windowpanes to the north. We only keep the icicles from obstructing the view directly in front of the webcam. More snow coming this week!

The Mountain

Day 81: Even from Seattle and other points north, Mount Rainier dominates the western Washington skyline, or to be more accurate, I should say that from points north, the peak shows its full majesty. Up close where I live, the lower portion is generally obscured by foreground ridges. It isn't until you get to Paradise or Sunrise that it really comes into perspective, often drawing a breathless "Wow!" from visitors. Long-time residents speak of "The Mountain" with capital letters. You seldom hear us say "Mount Rainier" unless we're talking to tourists.

At 14,410' feet, any climbing route on the Mountain can be called a "world-class" challenge. The Camp Muir route is the easiest, and generally requires two long days from Paradise to summit and back. Longer and a bit more challenging, the Emmons Glacier route (east side) is also popular with alpinists. In my heyday, I made six successful summit bids on five routes, doubling up on the plod through Muir. Of my climbs (none technical), an ascent via Kautz Glacier was the most demanding. My husband and I carried full expedition gear to the top and overnighted in the crater.

To look at me now, you wouldn't think I'd been the tough little nugget that I was in those days. In addition to climbing, I was on the Mountain as often as not, hiking to remote locations off-trail, camping out for weeks at a time alone. That spirit of adventure is still alive within me, but alas, the knees and hips disagree when my brain suggests a 20-mile dayhike "for old times' sake." That said, I'm not quite ready to roll over yet, so don't be surprised if some sunny summer afternoon, you run into me at Indian Henry's, Grand Park or up on Panhandle Gap. I don't turn around until I'm "halfway," however far that may be. The second half is the trek home.

The Bat-Bag Project

Day 81: When our Park biologist put out a call for volunteers to make 600 bags in which to temporarily hold bats, I conferred with our former campground host and she agreed to provide the materials for 100 bags if I would construct them. Now, 507 bags later, I can say I am officially done with my portion of the project. Those remaining 93 are going to have to come from somewhere else. (The photo shows about a third of the total.)

Why subject the poor bats to being bagged? The biologist will be taking blood samples to test for White-Nose Syndrome, a fungal disease which is devastating bat populations across the country. Although White-Nose exhibits obvious outward symptoms, other diseases manifest in much the same way so that it is impossible to say for sure that a bat is infected just by looking at it, hence the requirement of more elaborate tests. Capturing bats is best done when they are torpid (a state of semi-hibernation), but even when groggy, they respond to intrusion by leaping into flight. The plan is to mist-net them en masse, and then each individual bat will be tucked into a bag and hung up somewhere handy to await testing and subsequent release. The bags cannot be reused without washing between specimens due to risk of cross-contamination, thus the need for so many bags.

What went into the project? Well, here are the final statistics:
156 yards of 36" muslin (100% cotton)
296 yards of grosgrain ribbon for ties
22 250-400 yard spools of thread
125 hours of volunteer labour at the sewing machine

The bags have been washed and are ready for their first use, but I'm thinking that if even the slightest trace of my scent lingers in them, every bat in the Park is going to mark me as a guano target.

Snowshoe To Secret Falls

Day 80: It doesn't happen often enough that I can call it a tradition, but when conditions are right, I like to close out the year with a snowshoe hike. Although I had a haggis dinner planned (complete with neeps and tatties), I finally couldn't resist the pull of sunshine (albeit cold) and bare road. I pulled together a quick winter daypack, threw my snowshoes and poles in the back of the car and was on the trail by 11:30.

Westside Road is gated in winter and makes a lovely snowshoe walk with several turnaround-point options which leave you feeling as if you've achieved a goal. Sometimes, I'll just go as far as the Graphis Scripta Grove, a stand of Red Alder about a mile in, the only place in the Park where I've found the tiny lichen which gave the site its nickname. Other times when I'm feeling ambitious, I'll hit Dry Creek or Fish Creek, but at three miles from the car, the trip back feels like it takes forever. On this occasion, I figured I'd just tag Graphis Scripta and be home in time to cook the haggis, but I got a pleasant surprise.

The route is closed to motorized travel, but skiers and snowshoers both use it for winter recreation, as do boot-footed explorers who invariably discover that postholing isn't fun after the first half mile. Consequently, the track is usually chewed up and lumpy, skiers cutting deep, narrow swaths and snowshoers stumbling along, tripping on the raised edges of the ski ruts. Yesterday, however, it seemed that the skiers had stuck to one "lane" and snowshoers to another; in other words, travel was an utter breeze! I was at Graphis Scripta in no time at all and exulting in my good fortune, decided to continue on to Secret Falls.

That's not it's real name. In fact, it's too small to even have a name. A small cascade tumbles over rocks no more than 50 feet from the bed of Westside Road, but is deeply set in a niche which makes it invisible to anyone on the road. In summer, it can be heard, and thus a small social trail leads to it; in winter, it hides from anyone who does not know where to step into the forest. It is always festooned with icicles in winter, but photography is difficult because the site is so shaded. I kicked myself for not having thought to put the tripod in my pack, but then, I hadn't planned to hike any farther than the alder grove. Fortunately, the snow wasn't overly crusty, so I improvised by jamming the camera into the snow covering a fallen log, allowing me to get in the shot to give some size perspective to the icicles. My visit done, I was tempted to go further, but the thought of haggis pulled me homeward. It was delicious, if a little later to come to table than anticipated.