Earth Explorations

NY Times caption :  A steady stream of mountain climbers lined up to stand at the summit of Mount Everest, on Wednesday. (5/22/2019) Edited to add: Photo Credit Nirmal Pirja of Project Possible. This photo has been heavily shared in traditional and social media  with most of the articles discussing the impacts-including higher death toll-from the increased popularity of and access to climbing Everest. I'm not here to add to that particular discussion but with a blog title like Earth Explorations I feel like I would be remiss if I failed to address this picture. In the About section of this blog, I make the following statement: Being an explorer is mostly about having an approach to life that is based on curiosity about the unknown. That's the core requirement. The other things like travel to exotic places are nice but not necessary. And it's really not necessary to climb a mountain or traverse a polar region. That's being an adventurer which is different than b...

Central South Dakota is a hotbed of bird migration and May is peak season. My bird photography skills (which I practiced all winter) are still meh. It's hard for me to get good photos of birds flittering about which means all the pictures of warblers look like this one. See the tail feathers off to the center right of the photo? Maddening. I have been able to capture a few photos of birds that are ground foragers. They tend to be a little easier to photograph because they are on the ground (no craning my neck) and they also take longer pauses between flits or hops looking for insects. I'm very pleased with this photo. Thank you, White Crowned Sparrow. Your black and white crown feathers are so fetching.

About a month ago several people whom I know from different areas of my life, without collusion or coordination as far as I know, told me that I needed to read Braiding Sweetgrass. My track record with books others tell me I must read is a little spotty. I don't always like them which makes for awkward conversation. Them: "How did you like that book that was terribly meaningful to me?" Me: "Oh, uhm... it wasn't bad." Our library had an e-version of Braiding Sweetgrass  so I put myself on a wait list. I was hesitant to spend money on a book I was almost certain I wouldn't like since it would be too woo-woo and possibly cringey. Well. Every once in a while a book comes along at the exactly the right moment and influences your thinking to a profound degree.  Braiding Sweetgrass is for me one such book, taking me further along a road I began when I read Song of Trees by David George Haskell and before that Other Minds by Peter Godfrey Smith. Th...

I've been at this blogging thing a while. Every once in a while, I go back to an old blog on a different platform to revisit my posts and say hello to past Me. I'm always a little surprised at what I find. You do forget details. For example, I'd forgotten that I took this photo with my phone, a low end Samsung. Not a bad photo. It's not a great photo either but it makes the case that you don't need even a middling good camera like the one I have now, the Lumix, to take pictures that help tell the story of an experience. The experience was detailed in this long form piece, A Cold Night, A Long Hike, A Good Story.  This photo was taken at the end of my unintentionally long hike at the Castle Trail head. Good times.

Robins have been slow to make themselves known this year. I blame the snow and the cold. They started to get active a couple of times earlier in the month and whoom! a storm would move in. I can't blame them for being hesitant. But lengthening daylight and more seasonal temperatures are prevailing, causing them to spread out and start occupying territories even if they aren't in full voice yet. My robin watching network on FB has been reporting robin activity for a week and a few days ago I saw one for myself as I left for work. After work today, Lu and I went out for a walk about the property (aka my front and back yard) to try my hand at robin photos. I actually had to leave the property (i.e. walk halfway down the block) to get a  photo even though I eventually did see a male in the trees on my front lawn. ƒ/4 1/400 ISO100 106.6mm I did not filter or edit this photo. It could probably use some cropping though I like the way the tree branches frame the bird with t...

I had just finished watching  Into the Okavango  when it happened. My mind was filled with hippos, elephants, red ball suns and paddling when out of the corner of my eye I saw two birds fly towards the dining room glass door. One I thought might be Eurasian Collared Dove as it was big and light under the wing. The other bird was dark. Oh no, I thought. The thunk was barely audible. I hopped up, hoping that if a bird were injured it would be the Collared Dove. There was a bird injured. It wasn't the Collared Dove. In fact there was no Collared Dove on the scene. The bird I thought was a dove was actually a juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk and it had firmly pinned a Starling to our snowy deck. The Starling was in rough shape but was trying to fight back, pecking at the hawk every time the hawk lowered its head to bite. I did the only thing that there was to be done. I ran and got my camera. I knew that getting a good picture would be a challenge. As mentioned previously, ...

The weather has been wintry of late. Not surprising since this is February and of course winter. But temps have been well below normal and it's been gray. Truthfully, getting out has been a challenge. I do find that having been to the Arctic makes the cold more bearable. I turn my face north and think about polar bears and whales and Arctic fox. That and good snow pants and thick socks (I had a non-freezing cold injury on my feet when I was a teen so in my middle age I find I have to be extra careful about these things) help get me through. I also enjoy my little forays when I can. I did go to the Farm Island bird feeder recently where I finally got a photo of the red bellied woodpecker. It's belly isn't brilliantly red, at least this female's belly in February isn't. If you zoom into the photo where she's facing the camera you will see the faintest blush of orangey red on her breast, a paler version of the color around her beak. I feel particularly...