T is for Tree

T is for Tree, by Mary Stebbins Taitt for ABC Wednesdays

Click image to view larger.

Click here to see T is for Toe (another kind of nature!)

Dune Grasses in a War of Ignornance

Dune Grasses play an important ecological role, stabilizing beaches and dunes and helping to prevent erosion. However, beaches and dunes are so appealing to people that they trample these important plants into oblivion, thus allowing the very beaches and dunes they love to blow away and erode. (Click image to view larger without downloading.)

S is for Squirrel

I was invited to do a meme listing things I like from the letters of
the alphabet and decided to do book for my grandchildren. Here is
one of its possible pages. Click image to view larger.

I like squirrels more than many people in part becasue I love animals
and in part because I used to be a rehabilitator and this is one of
the squirrels I raised.

Witch Hazel Flowers

Witch Hazel is our only local shrub that flowers in the fall, and a
lovely sight it is indeed when all the leaves are gone from the trees
and winter is coming to see all those bright sunny flowers. Yes, I
was planning to subsume this blog into another, but I don't have time
right now.

Screech Owl

We were very excited last year to see a screech owl in our neighbor's tree.  Last night, we saw one in our own tree--saw it fly to a hole, go inside, come out and fly away.  It would be very exciting if it would nest there.

Red Maple

Sometimes it seems as if every single autumn leaf is a work of art. Of course, some are prettier than others. The three central leaves here are red maples, Acer rubrum. NOT the cultivar of Norway maple ("Crimson King etc") that many people call red maple, but real red maples. They are pioneer species, often hybridize with silver maples. Their sap can be boiled down for maple syrup, but it takes twice as much as with sugar maple. Red maples flower very early in the spring with tiny red flowers. They often grow in swamps and bogs and turn color very early--brilliant scarlet.

Cricket Time

It's dark and warm and the crickets and singing their sweet summer cadence, rising and falling and jingling like summer jingle bells. I'm out walking. When I was walking earlier, the cicadas were singing, a loud raucous din. It was a diurnal sound to this softer nocturnal one. I wanted to stay outside and listen for the change from one to the other. One would think that since I'm 61 years old, I would have heard that transition, but if I have, I cannot recall it at the moment.

Do they overlap each other? Does one stop and the other begin?

I wanted to listen, but I did not. I had things to do inside, and in the air-conditioned house, the cricket and cicada sounds do not come in.

Sidewalk Saturday: Leaves

Burr Oak, Red Oak, Silver Maple and Sycamore. 

Robins!

Robins don't al always migrate. Some spend the winter. But there are suddenly a lot in evidence that weren't obvious a short while ago. It's February, it's winter, it's cold! They are having to work hard for food and water.

They can't eat worms, so they are eating crab apples, and grabbing a drink from a hole in the ice. I don't want any harm to come to the poalr bears and penguins, the arctic foxes and ptarmigans, but I wouldn't mind a bit of warmth! Think worms for the robins? 

Flower Photo Friday, unseasonal Flowers

In Detroit, where I now live, there is usually snow on the ground in January, everything is frozen, and there are no flowers in evidence. But this year, the temperatures so far have been unseasonably warm and we have flowers in blossom.

Pansies are perrenials and opportunists--they will flower whenever they can. Flowering Kale is cold hardy--but not usually in January. Dandelions are spring flowers--and either they are confused or we're having a very early spring.

see more.

Sidewalk "Fossils:" Squirrel tracks

It could almost be sand, but it's not. It's a sidewalk which contains the footprints of a squirrel. Front feet upper left, back feet lower right.

This is part of an ongoing series I am doing on sidewalk fossils, archeology, anthropology and art. I don't have a title for it, so let me know if you have any good ideas.