Our final field trip for winter tree ID visited Glen Carlyn and Bluemont Parks along Four Mile Run (someone should put together a course on nothing but the natural history of the Four Mile Run watershed) and Theodore Roosevelt Island. Bluemont offers the county champion Chestnut Oak (Quercus montana); the slopes leading down from Harrison Street into Glen Carlyn feature Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia); and Roosevelt Island has Baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) on the marshy District side along with some magnificent American Elms (Ulmus americana) on the Virginia side. We took a lunch break at Teddy’s memorial. Elizabeth pointed out a trick for finding Black Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica): many of the trunks of mature trees have a sway about ten feet up, as if the tree is standing hip-cocked.

I picked up Leta and we hustled up to Little Bennett Regional Park in Clarksburg for a crepuscular show of American Woodcocks (Scolopax minor), on an outing led by Stephanie Mason. Beeent.

Sunday morning opened the work season at Huntley Meadows Park. Dave Lawlor and crew had already mounted three new boxes, including #80 here, so our job of filling and freshening with wood chips went fairly quickly. Melina and Larry found a Hooded Merganser nest already started; Alan and I evicted a squirrel from underused box #9.

We rarely see a pristine box, so I took snaps before and after the bedding went in.

Finally, an easy drive to Sky Meadows State Park to make some more IDs for my project. Mug shots of my two uncertain calls here: Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) on the left and Gray Birch (Betula populifolia) on the right.

(Via Bookslut.)

In the European classical tradition, the piano, with its twelve precise divisions of the octave—inflexible, immovable—has dictated musical thinking for several centuries. Once developed, the piano quickly became a machine of almost tyrannical influence throughout the Western world. Its division of the octave into twelve intervals, each mathematically equidistant from its neighbors, forces one to regard pitches as discrete entities, like nations with strictly policed [borders]. A piano-generated melody goes from point to point with no expressive sliding in between. This is not a fault—Bach and Mozart built their entire work on the notion—rather, it is a stylistic choice. Since the advent of the black-and-white keyboard… Western instrumental music has had to state itself according to the twelve discrete, individual pitches of the scale, resulting in a more limited universe of emotional expression.

I have this notion that “gingerly” shouldn’t be used as an adverb, as in, “She hugged the child gingerly,” because there’s no corresponding adjective “ginger” — you wouldn’t say, “She gave the child a ginger hug.” I’ll concede that “gingerly” has been used as an adverb for 400 years, and nobody’s ever complained about it before. But so much the better: Every time I see the word used as an adverb, I can take a quiet satisfaction in knowing that I’m marching to a more logical drummer than the half-billion other speakers of English who haven’t yet cottoned to the problem.

Now let me explain how to pronounce the names of the years of this past decade…

…GDP is known to be flawed as an indicator. For example, a developing country can accelerate its GDP growth by over-logging its forests, even though this could destroy a sustainable resource and carbon sink that would be far more valuable over time. A similar problem rears its head for the construction of environmentally destructive dams, power plants and industries. The focus on GDP growth can make it hard for local politicians to take pollution and other long-term threats seriously.

• The Eelwax Jesus 3-D Pop Music Show, book and lyrics by Max Baker, music by Lee Sellars (world premiere)
• Inana by Michele Lowe
• Lidless by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig
• Breadcrumbs by Jennifer Haley (world premiere)
• White People by J.T. Rogers

He sighed heavily, and as if in sympathy the smoldering log also sighed. And immediately Okonkwo’s eyes were opened and he saw the whole matter clearly. Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. He sighed again, deeply.