Clifton Institute bioblitz May 2025

I participated in another bioblitz organized by the Clifton Institute, this time at Sunnyside Farm & Conservancy in Rappahannock County. I visited the farm last year for a dragonfly count for the Institute. With several insect experts in the group, I was able to file 57 observations, including

  • a Giant Bark Aphid (Longistigma caryae) resting on Dr. Hardtacks’ back bumper;
  • a Twice-stabbed Stink Bug (Cosmopepla lintneriana), always a popular common name;
  • a pair of conjoined Azure Bluets (Enallagma aspersum), a new damselfly for me;
  • a passable recording of Prairie Warbler (Setophaga discolor) against the background noise of breezes and naturalist chatter; I used my tablet and the Merlin app, rather than my dedicated audio recorder, trading off a better directional mic for on-the-fly ID suggestions;
  • a non-native cress that I didn’t know, Land Cress (Barbarea verna);
  • a very lucky shot of Common Baskettail (Epitheca cynosura) on the wing.

measuring the tare weightlogging the dataEarly in the afternoon, we took a break from chasing plants to observe technicians working with an American Kestrel (Falco sparverius), one of the study subjects in the Institute’s long-running research project into this species’ ecology on farmland and restored prairie.

Temporary

Subtweets from WaniKani? 仮 Temporary

ｲ Leader + 反 Anti

Meaning Mnemonic

Your leader is very anti-everything, making it all temporary. You get a new shirt, “I’m anti shirts!” she yells, and out it goes.

She tires of things so quickly, you hardly have time to get used to them before they’re gone.

Reading Mnemonic

The leader’s most temporary possession is her car (か). Or… cars, because they’re all very temporary. She buys one, drives it around, and then suddenly she’s anti red car. She needs a blue one!

Picture all of the temporary cars she’s tried filling up an entire junkyard. They’re all a little different, but in the end they were all just temporary fads.

How many houses

§18 Don’t let it bother you that languages (2) and (8) consist only of orders. If you want to say that they are therefore incomplete, ask yourself whether our own language is complete—whether it was so before the symbolism of chemistry and the notation of the infinitesimal calculus were incorporated in to it; for these are, so to speak, suburbs of our language. (And how many houses or streets does it take before a town begins to be a town?) Our language can be regarded as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, of houses with extensions from various periods, and all this surrounded by a multitude of new suburbs with straight and regular streets and uniform houses.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,
trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker, and Joachim Schulte

At the park: 152

My report for April to the team:

Whew! I am caught up with my paperwork for the moment. Data and photos posted to Cornell, thank you. Six new clutches were started in April and are now incubating, 5 Wood Duck and 1 Hooded Merganser. On the downside, we clearly have two nests that have been abandoned and that we will clean out on our next work day. Nothing has hatched out yet, but I expect boxes #1 and #3 to be hatched by next time, as well as possibly box #6.

So, we’ve seen nesting activity in 11 of the 16 boxes, which is fairly typical. Plus that early arriving, fast shrinking Hooded Merganser brood that would have used a natural cavity.

Work days in May will be 11 May and 25 May (Memorial Day weekend). 11 May will go rather quick, because we have several boxes incubating that we will skip….

Arigatō gozaimasu!

Plug the memory hole: 2

One more piece, this time from Julian Lucas for The New Yorker, about volunteer efforts to lifeboat federal government databases.

Oh, and that farcical white paper seeking to justify 47’s “reciprocal tariffs” is still out there, now as a PDF, and still smelling of AI slop. If that paper were submitted by a student in a high school course, I might give it a passing grade. Undergrad, nope.

Some links: 107

Green Ridge State Forest butterflies

Rick Borchelt led a field trip to Allegany County, Maryland, targeting early-flying elfins and azures. It was a great opportunity to see some new butterflies—Brown Elfin (Callophrys augustinus), Northern Azure (Celastrina lucia), and Silvery Blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus)—as well as to meet some shale barren-specialist plants. I learned why I’m confused by Summer Azures (C. neglecta): they have two broods in this part of the country, the first of them flying earlier than Spring Azure (C. ladon). And we picked up some moths along the way, including azure-lookalike Bluish Spring Moth (Lomographa semiclarata) and Double-lined Gray (Cleora sublunaria) (several at the Oak Barrel Cafe).

Fun plants included Shale-barren Ragwort (Packera antennariafolia), Shale-barren Pussytoes (Antennaria virginica), and Moss-pink (Phlox subulata).

Waiting for Godot

This Irish/American production of Beckett’s cornerstone work splits the difference in pronunciation, some characters saying GAWD-oh and some saying go-DOUGH. Joseph McGucken layers a slice of vaudeville on to his Vladmir. As Estragon, Barry McEvoy summons a touching sequence of grunts and sighs to end each sequence of “We’re waiting for Godot./Ah!”

  • Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett, directed by Robert McNamara, Scene Theatre, Washington

Perhaps influenced by my recent reading, I was struck by the reverberations of Wittgenstein’s “builders” (“Slab!”, “Block!”) with Pozzo’s commands to Lucky (“On! Back!”).

New Mexico circuit: 8

It’s high time to wrap up the New Mexico trip reports.

Two trips to Randall Davey Audubon Center, just outside Santa Fe, turned up flocks of Common Ravens loudly kettling in the updrafts from the ridge, often in pairs. At times the birds swooped so low that I could hear wingbeats. Pretty cool.

I followed the loop trail just to where the ponderosa pines started to come in, at about 7425 feet. So I only got one observation, from a distance, and only good enough to ID to subsection. (I still remember the strawberry-scented pinebark from a visit to Rocky Mountain National Park a couple decades ago.)

Nice photos of Mountain Chickadee (Poecile gambeli) and Pygmy Nuthatch (Sitta pygmaea). More Rubber Rabbitbrush; I can understand why there was an effort to tap the plant for rubber—it’s all over the place.

Persistence pays: on my second visit I located Juniper Titmouse (Baeolophus ridgwayi) (honoring Robert Ridgway), another lifer for the trip.

better than the birdingDripping Springs Natural Area, in the mountains east of Las Cruces, is a BLM property. When the birds don’t cooperate, take pictures of the landscape, eh? This is a view of the Organ Mountains from La Cueva picnic area.

I spotted a second butterfly species for the trip (it was February, so I was impressed): a trio of Sleepy Oranges (Abaeis nicippe) on Woolly Locoweed (Astragalus mollissimus). And a few snaps of Fishhook Barrel Cactus (Ferocactus wislizeni).

Thank you to all the local iNat folks concurring with and correcting my IDs! I ratcheted my lifetime ratio of species to observations back up to 1:2. (Just in time for EDRR season.)

Seven new birds for my list, bringing my ABA Area total to 440. Plus one for next time: at White Sands, a Sagebrush Sparrow (Artemisiospiza nevadensis) with photographs good enough for an observation, but I can’t say that I saw the bird well enough to count it for my list. My list, my hike, my rules.

Tax relief may never come/But it don’t worry me

At least 47 hasn’t promoted Incitatus to consul. Yet.

Leader from this week’s Economist: President Trump’s mindless tariffs will cause economic havoc (gift link).

There is no reason why his extra tariffs should eliminate the [current account] deficit. Insisting on balanced trade with every trading partner individually is bonkers—like suggesting that Texas would be richer if it insisted on balanced trade with each of the other 49 states,* or asking a company to ensure that each of its suppliers is also a customer.

*and the District—Ed.

New Mexico circuit: 6

Continuing to bounce around the state, let’s go to White Sands National Park next.

not snowI did the short walk on the Playa Trail, and then across the road I did the longer Dune Life Nature Trail (pic). I spotted a Southern Checkered White (Pontia protodice) (I was so surprised to find a butterfly in February that my first thought was that it must be a moth) and what turned out to be Sagebrush Sparrow (Artemisiospiza nevadensis). The sparrow would have been a lifer, but I can’t really say that I saw enough of it to make my own identification. So we’ll get it next time.

Much sand in my boots (sorry, cleaning staff!).

Also in the central-to-south part of the state is Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.

I was too late in the season to find the cranes. The loop road is generously wide, a good thing with cars stopping at random to look at critters. 70 degrees and sun, but some cooling breezes off the impoundments. I found my first ever real live for-sure Coyote (Canis latrans). The birding highlight was seeing a small group of geese out of the water, drifting into the grass. Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens) AND Ross’s Goose (Chen rossii) side by side! C. rossii is REALLY much smaller.

At the park: 151

An update on our nest boxes:

Another short report. Two new clutches; still only the one (box #4) incubating, but it’s possible that boxes #6, #1, and #67 will be incubating by next Sunday.

I will bring some kit to refresh the painted number on box #1.

We have a discrepancy in report for the species in box #1. Hopefully we can sort that out next Sunday….

In April, we’ll go to a fortnightly cycle. When we meet this coming Sunday, we’ll decide which Sundays to work in April. giving consideration to holidays and other events.

Thanks thanks!