Just beginning to bloom, and very late in this severe drought year

Tags:   Canon SX40 or SX50 DailyNature-TNC13 DailyNature-TNC14 North America NA Ethan Winning E. A. Winning

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Four years ago (and again right now) a Green Heron had five chicks. This was one after about 12 days in the nest. After 10 days, he was able to catch dragonflies out of the air! I still can't.

Tags:   Canon SX40 or SX50 DailyNature-TNC13 DailyNature-TNC14 North America NA Ethan Winning E. A. Winning

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This and the following three shots were taken during the years I monitored the Western Bluebird nests. While the bluebird nest is a cup of grass, it's the tiny House Wren that gets the prize. The male "builds" three or four nests for the female to inspect. They're usually a mess like this one with sticks twice the length of the wren. When she picks one, she rearranges the sticks, settles in, and lays her 6-8 eggs. It must be cozy because there are plenty of wrens at Old Borges Ranch trail. A question has always been how the male gets these sticks into the one inch hole and how there's enough room for furnishings.

Series of Four from nest to adult

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I've had five panic attacks over the past 60 years, each usually caused by claustrophobia which I've had since I was a kid. Four weeks ago today, I was feeling a little tightness in my chest, and immediately recalled "What to do in a panic attack."

1. Breathe out through your nose ten times. Breathe deeply.

2. Breathe in and out through your mouth 10 times. Breathe deeply.

3. Focus on something in the room where you are, something that will take your mind off whatever triggered the attack.

See You Tube. I can breathe in and out, but what to focus on is usually a problem ... until this year. Outside our bedroom window is a 35 foot + Japanese maple tree which, during the drought, we though we'd certainly lose. No leaves, Bark coming off the trunk. And so we had an arborist cut it back drastically. In my line of sight, he cut a large branch from the trunk of the maple, and this is what he left.

I looked at it for some time, saw this face of an Easter Island Maple Bird, and amused myself for 15 minutes during which time a White-breasted Nuthatch came by and started excavating the "eye," then leaving a present in the upper right of the eye, flew away. (He's not a regular visitor along with a woodpecker, and neither of them have enhanced or detracted from my "point of interest.")

The four step (I don't remember #4) anti-panic attack process works like a charm. All you have to do is breathe, plant a maple, and wait 35 years...

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Many years ago, Redwood Trees in Sequoia NP and parts of Kings Canyon NP were hit by a blight of Bark Beetles. There was real fear that the redwoods would be weakened to the point of toppling them. Fortunately, the damage was limited to two years, but had it continued for four or five years, a true blight would have occurred and there was a good chance that while forests would be destroyed, and then it stopped before the trees grew weak, the sap slowed, and there was real fire danger. We did see fires in and around Bakersfield, fresno, and several national parks, butt hey rebounded. Meanwhile, there was also as danger that the bark beetle itself would weaken the forests and we could easily has one of California's thousands and thousands of acres destroyed.I don't know how many of the fires are set by campfires, arson, lightning, or other causes, but we've had hundreds of thousands of acres of redwood forests lost of just plain carelessness. The largest recorded so far was 271,000 acres Thomas Fire outside of Santa Barbara in 2017 at a cost of $3 billion. The thought of loss of wildlife is unimaginable; the thought of arson and man-made fires from chains dragging behind trucks is just beyond belief.

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