News — uncategorized

A customer from Bainbridge Island, Washington, told me that 4 baby orcas were recently born near there. This good news as the population of orcas thee had not been doing so well.

Yesterday, a great blue heron flew over me as I biked. Then two hawks swooped over a runner ahead of me. Recently, a hawk flew along with me, just above my head, on my bike for several seconds. Then it alighted on a pole just in front of me. While it sat there, another hawk flew to a treetop about 70 feet away and landed. This second hawk kept calling and whistling at the first hawk for about 5 minutes. This reminded me of when a tern had stayed right above my head while I was paddling a kayak. A friend said that while he was bicycling north towards Lyons at 5 am, a nighthawk flew along with him right above his head . Once a friend and I found a goose tangled in fishing line next to shore. I got a knife, put my shirt over its head, and pulled it in to cut off the line. After that, I kept noticing geese everywhere. On a kayak lesson, one goose kept us company as we went down the river, all day. Maybe is was for food, as the class would stop at the same park at midday to eat. Maybe it is a coincidence. But I felt there might be a connection. Maybe the birds are curious. Jack Turner in his book, The Abstract Wild, says the white pelicans whistle and sing, gyriing a mile above the Grand Teton- for joy. Doug Peacock writes of (and shows in his documentary film) how a young grizzly bear plays with pieces of ice floating in a spring-time pool. The bear pushes the ice blocks under the water, watches them pop up, then pushes them down again. Kenneth White, in his poetry book, The Most Difficult Area, says that he found a rare rosy gull on the beach in Scotland. The only other time it had been seen in Great Britain was on the day of his birth. He wrote that it seemed strange to think there was a connection, yet he would feel foolish if he didn't believe there was a some connection.

In the last few days swallows returned to nests under the bridge on the bike path. A friend at Mammoth Mountain CA, heard the long eerie call of the common loon and the drumming of a Williamson sapsucker on April 12th. A cousin in Chippewa Falls, WI heard a loon call 2 weeks ago, before it continued north. Plum, apple, cherry, and lilacs all are blooming and spreading their sweet, full aromas. Irises are abloom. Blackbirds and meadow larks have been back for several weeks. But there was still good snow last week up by the continental divide for crosscountry skiing. Ospreys mate and nest by Longmont. Click here to watch them. My grandfather, who lived by a lake in Wisconsin, wrote the dates on the wall when the ice would form in the fall and when it would break up in the spring. In Wisconsin, we would listen in the spring when the whippoorwill called as it stopped in the wetland on its way north. Here in Boulder, I get excited when the poorwills return to the foothills. Also, the crossbills are neat as they pass thru. Phenology is observing and recording the changes in nature. Birds and animals migrate and mate, plants bloom There are groups you can share you observations with.

New palm oil plantations threaten orangutans, elephants, rhinos, and cause global warming. Write a letter to demand change here. Read about it here. See which products to avoid here.

In camping out, the students remind me of the cardboard shantytown that students built and lived in 26 years ago to pressure the CU adminstrators to divest from companies doing business with apartheid South Africa. Here is an article on the protest. We printed the divest t-shirts for the CU students. And 26 years ago, Jimmy Walker perched atop the extension ladder that he had roped to the cardboard shantytown, so that if the cardboard structure were removed, then he would plummet.

Protestors arrested at BP today. Last night, I saw a great documentary, The Great Invisible, about the oil, shrimp, and oyster workers harmed by BP oil. People are out of work, hungry, and not receiving support from BP. Yet some neighbors are gathering and distributing food to hungry families. Such a contrast between the needy Gulf residents and the powerful oil companies. I recall Tony Hayward, the BP president, complaining about the spill making him miss a yacht race- what a contrast versus the people out of work, and the fish, turtles, whales and dolphins dead. The FB movie site has scary updates on the spill.