Autumnal equinox news briefs: I was on the phone in the front room of our house yesterday evening, facing east, as the setting sun dropped beneath the clouds after a short burst of rain. Rainbow. And the conversation, with the cousin of an old friend who died earlier this year, was rich. The Rio Grande …
Continue reading ‘A rainbow, a river, and the first cranes of fall’ »
I was talking last week with one of my collaborators about the challenge of working. All the things that so fully occupied my time and brain seem so inconsequential right now. I envy friends filling the quiet with productive work. Me? I ride my bike. In the Time Before (was it just two months ago?) …
I’ve the privilege of giving the commencement talk for the University of New Mexico Biology Department’s graduation ceremony tomorrow, and I’m nervous as hell. It’s such an honor to be asked, and feels like such a hopeless task – hard to match words to the measure of the importance of the day. (“A commencement speaker …
Lissa and I caught the tail end of fall colors on a drive in the mountains east of Albuquerque today. I wonder why these oak leaves are waiting until the last minute? Phenology.
Tom Stienstra at SFGate recently wrote that California can expect an early, wet winter. How do we know this? There’s a saying, “Birds never lie.” If so, the best weather forecaster in the West, the migratory sandhill crane, is predicting an early winter with plenty of rain and snow. Over the years, the timing of …
Continue reading ‘Sandhill cranes as seasonal forecasters – is this just bullshit?’ »
I put out the hummingbird feeders Saturday, then felt stupid for putting them out early. In 2009 (the first year I kept track) the first sighting was April 16. In 2010 April 16. In ’11, April 17. For 2012, it’s April 9. Just a quick stop and then disappeared.
From the Sunday paper (sub/ad req.*), my attempt to make sense of the issues I was fumbling around about yesterday: The factors that set up trouble in the Southwest’s forests are complex – a warming climate and forest management practices over the 20th century that allowed a terrifying buildup of fuel. There was simply too …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: the big dry, newspaper edition’ »
From the morning paper, a wander in the bosque to look for signs of drought (sub/ad req.): There is a resilience, it turns out, to these desert ecosystems. They’re used to this happening every so often, and they know what to do in response. Some leaf out less, or leaf out later. Some depend on …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Lessons from a Drought’ »
In my second spring of actually writing down the birds I see, I’ve encountered a hole in my data. Dark-eyed juncos have been a steady and heavy presence all winter, first showing up in mid-October. But I was a slacker last March, so I don’t have data on when they leave. Through the winter, I …
I noticed the lilacs starting to leaf out in our backyard this afternoon. We moved the weather station last week, so I’m not sure what 65F (18C) means, but that’s what the thermometer says. (Anthony Watts would no doubt disapprove of its current location in the corner by the back wall, but my old cotton …