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The Arbornaut | Book Recommendation
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
The Arbornaut, an adventurous autobiography by biologist Meg Lowman, is exactly what her subtitle suggests: A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees Above Us. The short version of this recommendation is that everyone will find something to love in the book.
Inquisitive—but a little lonely—child. Plucky young woman. Budding scientist. A woman alone among domineering male scholars and the beer-drinking fellow students. The first person to study forestry who didn’t think in terms of board-feet or harvestable timber per acre, but did think about what might be going on in a tree higher than six feet above the ground. How to get safely into the canopy and move around. What was eating those leaves, and what does it do to the tree? Why are leaves in different parts of the canopy very different from one another. The enormous number of unknown insect species living in the forest canopy. Canopy walks, deforestation, sacred trees, fungal and insect pests, bio-blitzes, fire, tree thirst, global warming. She did it all, and much of it—using rock-climbing (or cave-descending) equipment to get into and around the forest canopy, and the creation of canopy trails—she invented and designed.
An interesting quote about coastal redwoods, one of her favorite trees:
And one last factoid discovered by arbornauts relates to the complex crowns of redwoods: the trees sprout new leaders (shoots at the branch tips) in the upper canopy after wind or storms have damaged the existing trunks. Such response to repeated weather conditions results in complicated masses of separate leaders, both living and dead, and massive amounts of detritus in the tree crotches where entire mini communities establish. One individual tree called Ilúvatar, named after a character from J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, contains 220 different trunks branching in the crown, representing regrowth from fire or wind and comprising over 37,000 cubic yards of wood. Measured by Steve Sillett and colleagues, this tree is considered the most complex living organism on the planet, but only by climbing into its upper reaches were such structural wonders discovered.
The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees Above Us
Meg, Lowman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 2021. 337 pages
The publisher’s blurb:
“An eye-opening and enchanting book by one of our major scientist-explorers.” —Diane Ackerman, author of The Zookeeper’s Wife
Nicknamed the “Real-Life Lorax” by National Geographic, the biologist, botanist, and conservationist Meg Lowman—aka “CanopyMeg”—takes us on an adventure into the “eighth continent” of the world’s treetops, along her journey as a tree scientist, and into climate action
Welcome to the eighth continent!
As a graduate student exploring the rain forests of Australia, Meg Lowman realized that she couldn’t monitor her beloved leaves using any of the usual methods. So she put together a climbing kit: she sewed a harness from an old seat belt, gathered hundreds of feet of rope, and found a tool belt for her pencils and rulers. Up she went, into the trees.
Forty years later, Lowman remains one of the world’s foremost arbornauts, known as the “real-life Lorax.” She planned one of the first treetop walkways and helps create more of these bridges through the eighth continent all over the world.
With a voice as infectious in its enthusiasm as it is practical in its optimism, The Arbornaut chronicles Lowman’s irresistible story. From climbing solo hundreds of feet into the air in Australia’s rainforests to measuring tree growth in the northeastern United States, from searching the redwoods of the Pacific coast for new life to studying leaf eaters in Scotland’s Highlands, from conducting a BioBlitz in Malaysia to conservation planning in India and collaborating with priests to save Ethiopia’s last forests, Lowman launches us into the life and work of a field scientist, ecologist, and conservationist. She offers hope, specific plans, and recommendations for action; despite devastation across the world, through trees, we can still make an immediate and lasting impact against climate change.
A blend of memoir and fieldwork account, The Arbornaut gives us the chance to live among scientists and travel the world—even in a hot-air balloon! It is the engrossing, uplifting story of a nerdy tree climber—the only girl at the science fair—who becomes a giant inspiration, a groundbreaking, ground-defying field biologist, and a hero for trees everywhere.
Snowy Plovers cleaning up | LA Times
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
No, they didn’t make a killing in Vegas, they got oiled in the Orange County oil slick and friendly humans came to help. Los Angeles Times reporter Robin Estrin gives a very nice description of the process, as well as of other pertinent events. If you’ve never helped in this sort of rescue operation, or you are not yourself small and feathered and spend all your days and nights on the seashore, feeding and sleeping and running about, it’s interesting to know what is involved.
A Comeback disrupted
Snowy Plovers’ numbers have gone up, but spill is a new threat
Los Angeles Times | Robin Estrin | 9 Oct 2021 | 5 minute read
Excerpted from the article:
Once the plovers are stabilized, a trained professional will douse them in a special cleaning solution designed to break down the oil matting their feathers.
“Dawn, the dish detergent that we would typically use, is not quite enough to get this product off the animals,” said Sam Christie, a strike team leader with the Oiled Wildlife Care Network.
From there, the birds will be placed in a tub filled with warm water and a low concentration of dishwashing detergent. Agitating the solution allows it to penetrate the space beneath and through the bird’s feathers. Next, a Water Pik device is used to clean the bird’s sensitive areas — near the eyes, nose and mouth.
“As the tubs of water get oiled, we’ll move to the next tub,” Ziccardi said in an interview Monday. “Heavily, heavily oiled birds can take 15 to 20 tubs of this soapy water.”
After that, the soapy birds will be thoroughly rinsed with specialized nozzles using water pressure anywhere from 20 to 50 pounds per square inch.
The plovers will eventually be placed under a drier, where they can preen and align their feathers. Experts will then open their beaks and massage a soft rubber tube down their esophagus for a feeding. Once stabilized, they’ll move to outdoor pools where they will remain until they are healthy enough to return to a natural, oil-free environment.
The Oiled Wildlife Care Network has a 50% to 75% success rate in returning oiled animals back into a clean environment, Ziccardi said….
In case you have not heard of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network, here’s a few links.
Their blog, headquartered at University of California at Davis.
https://owcn.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/
OWCN Contact Page
https://owcn.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/about/contact
Pipeline P00547 Incident Wildlife Report | How You Can Help
If local residents to the spill site see oiled wildlife, please call 1-877-UCD-OWCN (823-6926) and report immediately. DO NOT PICK UP OILED WILDLIFE.
OWCN Blog: https://owcnblog.wordpress.com/
Their blog posting from 9 Oct 2021
Pipeline P00517 Incident: Reflections from the ICP
A short excerpt from an informative article:
The wildlife response for the Pipeline P00547 Incident (name just flows off the tongue, doesn’t it?) is going very well to date. We currently have more than 50 responders on site – doing extensive recovery (from Long Beach Harbor down to Oceanside), field stabilization at the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, and primary care at the Los Angeles Oiled Bird Care and Education Center (home to International Bird Rescue). Overall, as of yesterday, we have had more than 80 overall responders from 14 of our 44 Member Organizations involved in the effort. Absolutely amazing, and makes me so proud of all we have collectively developed to respond quickly and in a coordinated fashion anywhere oil may be oiled!
As of yesterday, we have collected 26 live birds and 17 dead – a much lower number than we feared based on the initial volume estimates. There are a number of possible reasons for this: time of year resulting in fewer animals at risk, lower actual released oil than was initially thought, etc. What is ABSOLUTELY certain, however, is that it isn’t due to a lack of search effort! More…
Migratory songbirds flying high
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
Most birders have read that migrating Bar-headed Geese fly over the Himalayas on their migratory way from India to Siberia, and then again on the return flight. They’ve even been seen from the top of Mt. Everest, overhead, presumably honking away as geese tend to do while in migratory flight. But they’re not the only high-flyers. Follow the links below to learn about others.
Migratory songbirds climb to extreme altitudes during daytime
Lund University | ScienceDaily | 7 May 2021 | 5 min read
From the article:
Great reed warblers normally migrate by night during its month-long migration from northern Europe to Sub-Saharan Africa. However, researchers have now discovered that during the few occasions when it continues to fly during daytime, it flies at extremely high altitudes (up to 6300 meters). One possible explanation for this unexpected and consistent behaviour could be that the birds want to avoid overheating. The study is published in Science.
Migratory birds found to be flying much higher than expected – new research
The Conversation | Sissel Sjöberg | 13 Sep 2021 | 8 minute read
From the article:
During crossings of the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert, the great reed warblers sometimes prolong their night flights either for a few hours into the following day, or for the full day and next night, lasting up to 35 hours.
Great snipes, meanwhile, are waders weighing about 200g and breed in the mountains of northern Sweden. An international team of researchers led by Åke Lindström at Lund have been tracking these birds for the last decade. Studies have revealed that great snipes have developed a migratory strategy where most of the 6,000km journey to their wintering ranges in sub-Saharan Africa is performed in one long non-stop flight, lasting 60-90 hours.
The Far Side | 6-Oct-2020
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
Go to The Far Side today – Weds. 6 Oct 2020 – and you’ll see something that will make you smile.
October stargazing events | Natural History
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
Joe Rao writes a monthly column in Natural History Magazine, and I’ve mined it for information for many years. He characterizes October as “the best month for stargazing,” so I’m passing on some of his comments to you. If you’re lucky you have a dark sky in your area, and can see more than the couple-of-dozen stars available to us here in in light-saturated Los Angeles. A few additional comments from me are in [brackets].
Quiz time: If you’re standing at the South Pole (as in the picture above), how many “days” (start of sunrise start to next start of sunrise) will you have during the course of a calendar year? Answer at end.
Mercury: It’s always difficult to see this fast-moving, close-to-the-sun messenger of the gods. [Many earthlings have never seen it.] It’s highly elliptical orbit is only 88 days long, and the planet is 50% farther from the sun at aphelion [43.5 million miles] than at perhelion [28.5 million miles]. [Orbital mechanics dictates that it spends a lot less time close to the sun than farther away. From our viewpoint, it’s never more than 28° from the sun (56 times the width of full moon).]
9 Oct: Mercury passes inferior conjunction between the sun and earth, and passes into the morning sky. By the 17th it will be of 1st-magnitude brightness and will rise just south of east more than an hour before the sun.
25 October: Mercury reaches greatest western elongation and is magnitude -0.6 this morning. Although only 18° from the sun [36 times width of full moon], for several days surrounding this date the planet will rise before the beginning of morning twilight, making this the year’s most favorable morning apparition for observers in mid-northern latitudes. Brightening to -0.8, Mercury will pass 4° to the left of sparkly Spica on 2 November.
[Note on star magnitudes: The scale is reverse logarithmic: the brighter an object is, the lower its magnitude number. For example, a star of magnitude 2.0 is 2.512 times brighter than a star of magnitude 3.0, 6.31 times brighter than a star of magnitude 4.0, and 100 times brighter than one of magnitude 7.0. Wikipedia]
Saturn is the bright yellow “star” in the south during early evening. It lies on the western side of the dim, boat-shaped Capricornus, which is composed of 3rd and 4th-magnitude stars that Saturn, along with brilliant Jupiter to the east, overshadow. Saturn ceases its westward or “retrograde” motion (the direction all outer planets appear to move for a few months around opposition) and resumes its eastward travel against the stars. [Check your handy epicycle charts for details on retrograde motion.]
The moon is new on 6 Oct. at 4:05 a.m. PDT, at first quarter on 12 Oct 8:25 p.m. PDT, full “Hunter’s” moon on 20 Oct 7:56 a.m. PDT, and last quarter on 28 Oct 1:05 p.m. PDT.
Mars is in solar conjunction and invisible all month.
Venus is resplendent at magnitude -4.6, arrives at its greatest eastern elongation, or greatest angular distance east of the Sun (47°). But it is so far south on the celestial sphere that it remains fairly low, just 12° above the southwest horizon 45 minutes after sunset.
Quiz answer: One “day” sunrise to sunrise, per calendar year. The sun begins rising at the South Pole around 21 Sept (Autumnal equinox), begins setting around 21 March (Vernal equinox), then rises again at the next Autumnal equinox. It takes a few weeks to fully rise or set.
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