Earth Explorations

On Thanksgiving Day my husband and I made a point to spend some time picking up trash. I focused on this median strip in a parking lot near the motel where we stayed. My husband did a close by area nearby. (Map below) Those white dabs are plastic bags and film. There was much more I pulled out of there that is not visible in this photo. Do you see the tree all the way to the right in the photo? See the vines? Much to my surprise, it is a Riverbank Grape. Riverbank Grape or Vitis riparia is a native vine to the eastern and central US. It's all over the wooded areas in Pierre so I was able to ID it quickly. I was not aware it was so common in upstate New York where I grew up. I of course added it to  iNaturalist.org I've never eaten Riverbank Grape even though the literature says it is edible for humans although not particularly tasty. Riverbank grape is a food, however, for small birds and mammals which in turn are food for larger birds and mammals. And, indeed, I saw

Props to REI for taking the next step and mainstreaming an anti-consumerist initiative by calling us all to give back to the land on Black Friday . And yes, I recognize the inherent commodification, them being a retail outlet and all, but I'm not an economic purist. Long time readers of my Facebook posts will know that Braiding Sweetgrass  has been an important book to me. I've spend a lot of time this past summer and fall reflecting on its many themes, one of which is reciprocity with the natural world, i.e. giving back to the Earth and all its systems because the Earth gives so much to us. Reciprocity is a particularly salient idea at this season of Thanksgiving. Before I go any further, I need to state the narrative around Thanksgiving—Pilgrims, Indians, feasts—needs to be rethought since this historical feast was clearly the exception in settler/Indigenous relationships rather than the rule. That mainstream America knows more about this exception than other Indigneou

My storytelling tools of choice are words and photos. In the spirit of doing something I haven't tried before without concern if I'm any good at it, I branched out and made a video that is ostensibly about the field of test of my Nissan Rogue build out for camping. But in a meta kind of way the video is also about doing something and not worrying about if you are doing it right. My van life skills and my video skills will not be making me money, ever. But I enjoy trying them and I hope that in sharing them others might try the #RogueLife too. Rogue Life is about going rouge on the expectations—mostly the ones we have for ourselves—about how good we should be at something in order for that thing to have "real" value. We don't have to be good at something and others don't have to like, love, retweet, or heart what we do to justify our doing it. If in doing that thing you learned, you laughed, you stretched, you muddled, that thing has value. Enough for someone

An entire month without a post! That doesn't mean I've not been exploring, only that I've not been writing about it. I traveled some in October, first to DC and then to California for various work related meetings. I also traveled in state to Eagle Butte on the Cheyenne River reservation. When I travel for work, I rarely bring my higher end camera because I don't multi-task work and non-work things well. For good or for ill I get entirely absorbed with work and keeping track of a camera let using it requires more brain space than I have. Thus, I found myself back to where I was in terms of my exploration, using the tools that many people have to tell the story of moments captured while going about my life. No big, grand adventures involved. A couple of weeks ago I was driving back from Eagle Butte on a brilliant fall day passing by a recently hayed field. The light, the clouds, the expanse of the field called to me. I pulled off the road, whipped out my phone camera

f /2.8 1/1000 71.9mm ISO100 Dragonfly Super zoomed in view. You can see the "smile" My photo safari for September was a traipse around Mickelson Pond. Naturally, being a pond, there are things like dragonflies about.  I am slowly continuing my camera studies learning its features in drips and drops. In this photo I used my manual focus. I know it would be a better photo if the dragonfly were facing the other way so you could see its head more clearly especially as I think when you zoom in, the dragonfly looks like it is smiling. But dragonflies don't take direction well— Could you face the other way, darling? There's a shadow on your features— or really at all so you take the photo you have which is not always the one you want. If you are lucky they sometimes turn out to be the same thing which is a lot like life in general. iNaturalist is telling me this is probably a variegated meadowhawk. I wonder if they all have slightly smiley faces?

While reading the Lost City of Z by David Grann  (note: I haven't seen the movie yet) I came across this quote from an unnamed member of the Royal Geographical Society. Explorers are not, perhaps, the most promising people with whom to build a society 1 . Indeed, some might say that explorers become explorers precisely because they have a streak of unsociability and need to remove themselves at regular intervals as far as possible from their fellow men. I understand this. I may or may not have a streak of unsociability. But I do like to get away every now and then to wander around and look at things. The extremes and privations that Percy Fawcett (historical protagonist of The Lost City of Z ) and his kind suffered appeal to me not at all. But I know that itch to get away from the most comfortable of creature comforts just to see what's there. Seeing what lies in the lesser trammeled parts of the world is my major motivation behind my jaunts, mostly to the Badlands. But I

One would think that summer time is the best time to be out and about exploring. And one would be right. My summer starting on June 6 or thereabouts included trips to DC, the Badlands (three times!), Jackson WY and Yellowstone National Park, Kyle SD, the South East passage of Alaska, and Omaha. All but one were work related though they were all pleasure trips as well. I took pictures whenever time and setting allowed. I even added a few observations to iNaturalist from my travels. I am back home and will be for a while yet. I don't know when or if I will travel like that again. Fortunately, being an explorer doesn't rely on traveling as  much as it does on observing. Today I took my camera out and about to see what I could see. And I saw quite a bit. The list includes - A bumblebee with red stripes. I'm thinking it's a Hunt's Bumblebee. (Update: Hunt's Bumblee ID confirmed by an iNaturalist curator). - Pelicans - Norther Flicker - A cicada molt - A c

I recently posted about how explorers and adventurers both seek after awe but that explorers don't have to rely solely on the "blockbuster" kinds of experiences to get to it. Exhibit A of a "small" experience that yielded big awe was finding this wildflower while hiking around Badlands National Park. This is the Fritillaria atropurpurea  more commonly known as the  leopard lily. A now retired botanist told me they are hard to find. The guidebook Plants of the Black Hills and Bear Lodge Mountains which includes many prairie plants despite its title states "Leopard lily also occurs infrequently in the prairie surrounding the (Black) Hills area but nowhere is it common in the region." Coming across an infrequent and uncommon plant feels like a gift. Literally on my knees and prostrate before this fading plant to take photos, I felt gratitude that I got to see this small thing that most people in the world will never see. And when I consider that the

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, snow

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

Mild weather, needing erosion pictures for a class I'm teaching, and Polar Vortex induced cabin fever sent me to the Badlands yesterday. That and a vague worry about the how the park, particularly the bison, fared during the shutdown. To set your mind at ease, the park looked in fine condition. The campground was not vandalized in anyway that I could see. The bison, the few that I saw, looked good. Plump. Relaxed. Lounging in the sun on a warm winter day. I had hoped to get a lot of close ups of the bison as this was my first spin in the park with my new camera but other than this pair basking in the sun by the side of the road the bison were all far afield, visible only as tiny bison dots through my binoculars. Perhaps a super high end digital single lens reflex camera, the kind with a two foot lens, might have gotten a good picture but I was pretty sure this was beyond what my little camera could handle. No matter. There were plenty of things to photograph. Like

That is me, the woman on the left in a blue shirt. I am a 2019 National Geographic Education Fellow. This blog really isn't about my work with National Geographic but when you put yourself out there as an explorer even of the every day variety and you end up working with National Geographic some explanation is in order. My work with National Geographic is to build out their citizen science resources for teachers.  Being a citizen scientist myself I think this is important, essential work to getting to a Planet in Balance. I won't be going any place exotic like the Okavango (unless National Geographic thinks they need an education fellow to go to help with... I don't know what I could help with but I'm game to go). My fellowship work may or may not show up in this blog and if it does it may be direct i.e. talking about it specifically or indirect talking about an experience because of that work. This blog will still be about my observations and the work

If it's on the internet, it lives forever. I had half forgotten about an online nature journal I kept about four years ago which was something of a precursor to this one. I eventually replaced it with iNaturalist, never to return to that work. I won't reactivate it but I do think it belongs as part of the archive for this blog. This is one of my favorite photos from that blog taken with an old phone. This was taken on the causeway from Pierre to La Framboise Island.

I am enjoying my new camera. I am practicing the same skills I was when I last posted which means there are features on my camera I still don't know how to use. No matter. For the moment I am enjoying learning how to take pictures of birds at the feeder maintained at a nearby state park by volunteers from the Audubon Society. When I am ready to learn more about the camera, I will move on. Today is National Bird Day so I will share a few bird photos. I find taking halfway decent photos of birds unexpectedly gratifying, especially when I share them on iNaturalist. The photos I'm sharing below aren't my best photos but the ones that I am learning from. What I've learned so far: I've learned that snow is hard to get the right light. The birds in the photos I took on a snowy day come out a little dark. See the American tree sparrow photo one below. I've learned that autofocus may or may not always pick the right thing to focus on. I've had more than one p