At the park: 68

Today’s report for nesting activity, abridged and annotated:

greened upbox 60A much greener park than 5 weeks ago, and most of our boxes have hatched! We have 8 (at least partially) successful nests, and one failed drop/dump nest in box #4. Box #13 was in the process of hatching when we got there; the Wood Duck hen flushed and showed a somewhat unexpected distraction display. We closed up the box quickly and backed off; we will get a shell count next time. Box #84 may also be in the process of hatching. Box #60, hatched out, at right.

In the vicinity of box #62, we had unaided eye views of a male Prothonotary Warbler (Protonotoria citrea), vocalizing “sweet-sweet” and checking out some natural holes in a snag. Of course, this the spot where we’d maintained warbler boxes for a few years–until this season.

box 62We’ll have another work day in June, to count #13 and #84 and two more boxes that haven’t yet hatched. Box #62, still unhatched, at left.

Water gauge reading: 1.64

homage to NewmanThis beaver-cropped Sweetgum tree reminds me of Barnett Newman’s Broken Obelisk. A lot.

Left Fork, Paint Branch

Our field trip for Jai Cole’s Freshwater Ecosystems class visited the Left Fork of the Paint Branch, on the site of the former Maydale Nature Center. The site is part of the Upper Paint Branch Special Protection Area, and the stream was the target of recently completed restoration work. We focused on the restoration work, and also performed a classroom exercise-level habitat assessment.

reconstructedThe centerpiece of the restoration is this 100-meter reach. You’re looking upstream and roughly northwest, standing on a bridge that provides access to the area. Out of frame to the right is a small parking lot. The point of the project was to replace a series of notched logs that channelled the stream as it drops from a weir (the flat water just visible in the background) (which maintains water supply for a pair of ponds on the property) and flows under the bridge; the problem with the logs was they they weren’t designed to allow fish passage. (Brown Trout is a naturalized breeder in the watershed.) The project replaced the logs with a series of arcing rock structures (called “cross-veins” in the local engineering parlance), each with a gentler drop and a plunge pool downstream. The pools give fish swimming upstream enough elbow room to get up speed to jump and surmount the rock barrier. Notice how the top of each arc of stones drops a few inches at the center: that’s where we want the most water to flow. A vertical plane through a watercourse passes through the point of maximum flow and the deepest part of the channel, which is called the thalweg, and in this case we want the thalweg to remain where it is.

weir and cross-veinFrom elsewhere on the stream, here’s a closeup (albeit with a lot of glare) of an arced cross-vein on the right and a straight-line weir on the left. Water flow is right to left, and the weir maintains the pool downstream of the cross-vein. Again, notice that, at this level of flow, the stones of the cross-vein near each bank are high and dry, and the stones in the center have the most flow over them.

What do you see?

Very nice 20-minute video detailing the restoration of a vandalized Mark Rothko, one of the Seagrams murals, now in the collection of the Tate Modern. Of interest to fans of John Logan’s Red—a study canvas prepared by the artist is found in storage, conservationists prepare a test canvas with those big sweepy brushes, some quick views of the murals as a series—tech gearheads (500-power 3-D microscopy), and devotees of the painter’s work.

ᔥ things magazine

Stony Man to Jewel Hollow

pale purpleStephanie Mason led another nature hike yesterday, this time at an elevation considerably higher than three weeks ago. We covered about 5 miles along the Appalachian Trail and side trails, from Stony Man to Jewel Hollow.

ooh shinyWe got some nice looks at high-elevation tree specialists for our region, like Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea), Red Spruce (Picea rubens), and the glossy-barked Yellow Birch (Betula alleghaniensis). Perhaps owing to the higher elevations around Stony Man (4011 feet), the Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) trees in this patch look pretty healthy and untouched by the adelgids.

Closer to the ground, spring ephemerals were abundant—Wild Pink, Moss Phlox, cinquefoil, bluets, many violets, Wood Anemone, waterleaf, Star Chickweed. I picked up one butterfly for my list, Falcate Orangetip (Anthocharis midea). Among the birds, the best was a bird from my “renewal” list of lifers that I haven’t seen in a long time: Veery (Catharus fuscescens). Good, multiple looks at Chestnut-sided Warbler (and we could point them out to a party of passing hikers) and American Redstart.

We climbed about 300 feet, then dropped down and ended about 300 feet below our starting point. We hit Stony Man early enough in the day (before noon) that the traffic was not too bad.

Textbook pastebin

When I’m recording a textbook at Learning Ally, I often find it necessary to scribble a sentence fragment from the top or bottom of a page onto a scratchpad, so that I can read the complete sentence smoothly without a noisy rustle of turning pages. I recently worked on Theodore J. Lowi et al., American Government: Power and Purpose (2012), 12/e. In an exercise in political science found art (or spammy nonsense, you may decide), I collected all my scribbles from various page turns in the book, and here they are:

held on to their seats—nearly 80% of Democrats and more than 98% of Republicans.
of bills considered by Congress each year are defeated long before they reach the president.
He cannot aggregate the votes in his
negotiations, proposals, and counterproposals that were taking place.
There is ample evidence that Wilson’s
of information.
foreign policy initiatives.
On January 24, 2002, the 28 judges
Furthermore, in the Judiciary Act of 1789, Congress conferred on the Supreme Court the power
claims on that principle during their terms in office.
legislatures.
Voters were unhappy about the state’s economy and dissatisfied with Davis’s
Voters, as we discussed in the
A grassroots campaign can
American farmers were frustrated with federal agricultural policies
The challenge is how to regulate the participation of groups without
of legislators’, judges’, and executives’ deliberations.
the nation’s economy.
their taxable income any money they can justify as an investment or a “business expense.”
As we noted in Chap-
culture.
providing the states with incentives to carry out federal mandates or shifting the program’s administration to a federal bureaucracy.
favor those already in positions of power and through prejudices that tend to develop against any group that has long been on the lower rungs of society.
the Soviet Union.
hundreds of millions on trade policy, we spend relatively little on environmental, human rights, and peacekeeping efforts.

2 solos

Two powerful solo shows played in the area over the past weekend, both of them responses to violence: in one case, large-scale mayhem that many of us would consider heroic; in the other, a small-group killing, inexplicable, that has deep emotional resonance.

Denis O’Hare is The Poet, a time-shifting tramp in a trenchcoat and porkpie hat (rather than one of Samuel Beckett’s bowlers), tumbled down the centuries to sing the story of Homer’s Iliad. The Poet’s song/riff is a blend of the original Greek, a verse translation, a bit of audience interaction and prompting, and a free adaptation into vernacular English. His memory failing, nevertheless the Poet can summon music and his Muses (skillful Brian Ellingsen on double bass and Milltone tongue piano) and can turn a clever phrase: “Athena tequila” is especially fun.

The piece focuses on the best-known incidents of Homer’s poem: the love between Achilles and Patroclus, Achilles’ great sulk, and the brutal killings of Patroclus and Hector. The Poet’s sentiments perhaps lie with the people of Troy, for although O’Hare’s voice is neutral when he embodies one of the Trojans, he adopts a loutish English dialect for the Greeks that owes something to Sicily or South Philly. The crux of this 100-minute monologue is a stupendous catalogue of wars known to Western history, for a thousand years an unbroken chain ending (for now) in Syria.

Speaking to us out of time as he does, when the Poet names the great cities destroyed by war, from Troy down to Dresden and Hiroshima, he briefly pauses, then moves on. Could it be that, Cassandra-like, he can see the next great devastation of the future, and knows (better than the Greek prophetess did) that it is pointless to share his vision with us?

Nanna Ingvarsson’s task is no less challenging, as she personifies more than half a dozen people (many of them composites) connected to the 2006 mass murder-suicide at the West Nickel Mines School, a former Amish one-room schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. From an innocent schoolgirl of six or seven, to a sassy supermarket clerk, to the tormented killer himself, Ingvarsson runs through a series of emotional and physical changes; Jessica Dickey’s script is a patchwork quilt of interlayered monologues (with a small debt to the Tectonic Theater Project’s own Laramie Project). The actor does well to focus on a specific, simple gesture for each speaker (a twirled bonnet string, a closed-off pair of folded arms) so that we keep our bearings as characters pop in and out.

The piece works best as a primer on the Amish perspective on the shootings. Rather than seek an explanation, a “why” of the violence, the community’s immediate response is one of of compassion, most notably toward the widow of the gunman. We hear the inspiring story of martyred Anabaptist Dirk Willemsz, who escaped from religious imprisonment across thin ice, only to turn back to rescue his pursuer who had broken through into the icy water. Is it possible that such a simple gesture of peace can forestall destruction?

  • An Iliad, by Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson, based on Homer’s Iliad, translated by Robert Fagles, a Homer’s Coat project, directed by Lisa Peterson, Clarice Smith Center Kay Theatre, College Park, Md.
  • The Amish Project, by Jessica Dickey, directed by Holly Twyford, produced by Factory 449, Anacostia Arts Center, Washington

Silver Line progress report: 36

Martin Di Caro briefs us on the outstanding reliability problems to be resolved before Phase 1 of the Silver Line can be opened. Safety is not at issue; rather, the signaling, communication, and control system glitches can lead to trains automatically stopping, requiring the operator to ask operations for an OK to proceed.

Rail safety experts say the Silver Line’s problems, while frustrating for the public, are not unusual in the world of railroad engineering.

“It happens any time new technology is employed with old technology, and it requires the testing of the system on paper and in design,” said Steve Sullivan, a managing director at R.L. Banks and Associates, an Arlington-based rail design and operations consulting firm, referring to the linking of the Silver to Orange Lines.

Spring at Calvert Cliffs

mioceneFrogging by ear tips, derived from yesterday’s walk to Calvert Cliffs on the Western Shore of Chesapeake Bay with Stephanie Mason: Gray Tree Frog (Hyla versicolor and H. chrysoscelis) sounds something like the ratchet on a retractable dog leash, while the irregular clicking sound of Cricket Frog (Acris sp.) resembles those annoying magnetic balls that my colleague Dylan likes to play with.

Once again, we saw elvers shimmying their way up Grays Creek. Eels (the young are elvers) are catadromous, that is they migrate downstream from fresh to salt water to breed then die, unlike the better known anadromous migrants (like salmon) that swim upstream to freshwater spawning grounds.

Also in the watercourse, we saw many Water Boatmen (Corixidae) sculling about.

Stephanie calls the 5-inch-long Fence Lizard (Sceloporus undulatus) our local iguana, since it is in the same superfamily as the big guys of the southwest.

baby leavesTrees were late leafing out (this is one of my favorite local species, Carpinus caroliniana, just opening up), so the birding was good. We heard or saw nearly three dozen species, and found two nests being built by Blue-gray Gnatcatchers (Polioptila caeruluea). The gnatcatchers showed some variety in vocalizations; one colloquy between two birds sounded like a couple of mockingbirds after too much espresso. My good bird was a fairly common species that I just don’t see very often, Yellow-throated Warbler (Dendroica dominica).

Towards an end to the killing

A leader from The Economist, noting the close vote in New Hampshire on renouncing capital punishment, and some surprisingly stern words arguing for its hasty demise.

…in a secular democracy a law of such gravity must have some compelling rational justification, which the death penalty does not.

* * *
…New Mexico, Oregon, Illinois, Connecticut, Maryland, Colorado and Washington stopped or suspended it. New Hampshire will try again. State by state, abolitionists will prevail. America is a nation founded on the principle that governments should not be trusted with too much power; that should include the power to strap people to a gurney and poison them.

Two Trains Running

Timothy Douglas’s cast brings home a strong, balanced production of August Wilson’s play set in 1969 Pittsburgh. Tony Cisek’s generously-proportioned set design, a rundown restaurant where the overhead fixtures haven’t been cleaned in a long time, gives the characters the opportunity to step forward to tell a story or to recede into the background as needed. There’s a rich texture to the lives of these people, as they go about their days, refilling salt shakers, playing solitaire dominoes to pass the time, or just eating a much-needed meal of beans and corn muffins.

Shannon Dorsey’s gimlet-eyed Risa rejects the appeals of the men around her, even as she knows she will end up tied to the charismatic Sterling (Ricardo Frederick Evans), a would-be revolutionary destined to serve petty sentences for petty crimes. Frank Britton gives comic relief Hambone a gravel voice and a ruined dignity. A great scene in a corner booth between the cranky old man Holloway (lanky Michael Anthony Williams with an expressive wingspan) and the louche numbers runner Wolf (stocky, stylin’ KenYatta Rogers in a red hat) crackles with energy.

  • Two Trains Running, by August Wilson, directed by Timothy Douglas, Round House Theatre, Bethesda, Md.

Some links: 70

A roundup of conservation and natural history links:

  • A team at Towson University has launched a microsite and apps (for Android and iOS) for tracking the spread of the highly invasive Wavy-leaf Basketgrass (Oplismenus hirtellus ssp. undulatifolius).
  • Janet Fang summarizes a paper by Railsback and Johnson: simulations of coffee plantation activity indicate that 5% land coverage in trees maximizes coffee yields. The overstory of trees reduces the amount of space for coffee shrubs, but it invites birds, who forage on destructive borer beetles.
  • Nancy L. Brill describes the survey that a team of entomologists made of invertebrate life in 50 ordinary Raleigh, N.C. homes. The typical house was host to 100 different species of arthropod.

    Several families were found in more than 90 percent of homes: gall midges (Cecidomyiidae), ants (Formicidae) and carpet beetles (Dermestidae), along with cobweb spiders (Theridiidae), dark-winged fungus gnats (Sciaridae), cellar spiders (Pholcidae), scuttle flies (Phoridae) and book lice (Liposcelididae). Most houses also had dust mites (Pyroglyphidae).

    Pics and interpretation at Arthropods of Our Homes.

  • Tovar Cerulli argues that hunters and non-hunters have more in common than they might think.

    When clashes occur, it is all too easy to fall back on reductive notions about liberal, elite environmentalists and conservative, redneck hunters—the “greens” versus “the hook-and-bullet crowd.” With partisans on both sides invoking stereotypes and the media portraying hunters and environmentalists as opponents, it is tempting to imagine stark lines between the two.

    But such divisions are too simplistic.

  • An American Bird Conservancy post makes the connection between coffee farming… and hummingbirds!
  • The Birding Wire picked up my profile (for Friends of the Migratory Bird [Duck] Stamp) of Quivira National Wildlife Refuge.
  • A leader in Nature highlights a paper by Joshua J. Tewksbury et al., which calls for a revival in the practice of natural history. (I have the Tewksbury paper bookmarked but haven’t read it yet.)

    As natural history has been de-emphasized, molecular biology, genetics, experimental biology and ecological modelling have flourished. But here is the problem: many of those fields ultimately rely on data and specimens from natural history….

    No biology student should get a diploma without at least a single course in identifying organisms and learning basic techniques for observing and recording data about them.

↬ Leta