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[attempting-environmentalism]

Lake walk notes 2024.5.26

Animals

8 dogs!!

1 slug

1 male cardinal

3 unidentified black birds

4 other unidentified birds

1 crow

5 sparrows

1 Robin

Many geese and goslings. But they were all in one spot so I just counted my picture of them and it seems to be 33 total

1 squirrel

1 dragon fly

1 yellow butterfly

2 yellowish orange bugs flying around each other. They looked too small to be butterflies but too big to be dragon flies

1 flying, stinging-looking bug with dangly legs. Wasp? Hornet? Flying beetle?

1 dead beetle with horn-like jaws. Mandibles? Pincers?

Many medium and small sized fish. No big fish

1 bug that flew like a dragon fly but was fatter and longer than even the fattest bumble bee I've ever seen. It looked like a short, flying turd

3 turtles

Many ants. Various sizes but all brown or black

Other

The marsh-like area near the workout equipment didn't have a body of water on it! Just damp ground! I don't think I've ever seen it like that before

[attempting-environmentalism]

Have been too Emotions to count lately but on a walk since last we spoke I saw a cool bird and an old man nearby said it was a green heron! I got a clip of it flying away but it's not super visible in the video

Also, while driving last week, I saw a live gopher and a large, dead deer

[attempting-environmentalism]

lake kittamaqundi.......... my beloved whom I belove with my whole beheart

[attempting-environmentalism]

the smallest artist i listen to? probably the bird outside my window

[attempting-environmentalism]

2024.4.18

I wonder what they plan on using this base thing for

Alt: a view across lake kittamaqundi from near the school signs. The buildings and trees on the opposite side are mirrored in the water. In the foreground, there is a patch of mulch with a long strip of cement towards the water, and two shorter strips of cement behind it. End.

[attempting-environmentalism]

2024.4.18

Animals

2 dogs. One went on the swings 😍😍🥰❤️😭❤️🥰😍

12 robins

12 unidentified birds

3 sparrows

1 live slug. 1 crushed to death slug

1 live worm. Many dead worms. I stopped counting after 20. It rained on and off all day yesterday, with the bursts of rain sometimes being full on downpours

5 male cardinals

0 geese and 0 ducks, oddly

2 squirrels

2 bunnies. But these could have been the same one twice because it was in the exact same area

2 things that put something up from the water, making ripples, then went back under the water. Either turtles or fish. I was wearing the wrong glasses to be able to tell

Many gnats

2 big ants

Plants

The planted flowers have all wilted faster than I expected them to. Only some daffodils remain, but other daffodils have already wilted too. I can't tell if it's because it was so suddenly, unseasonably hot last week; because the CA doesn't take proper care of them; or because the climate up here really is that much different than the stuff I'm used to in VA that they usually wilt on this timeline. Possibly some combination of the three

[attempting-environmentalism]

2024.4.15

I was at a business center ~10 mins away and saw a gopher! I think. It was by a body of water so at first I thought I saw a beaver.

[attempting-environmentalism]

2024.4.14

Animals

19 dogs!!!!!!!

23 birds: 5 Canada geese, 1 male cardinal, 1 female duck with 1 male duck, 3 sparrows, 2 all-black birds that looked even smaller than a normal sparrow, 2 robins, 1 mourning dove, 4 unidentified birds flying overhead that looked duck-like in terms of shape (too far to know about size) but I feel like it's usually geese flying like that, 3 unidentified birds all smaller than ducks

1 centipede or millipede

1 wasp looking bug of some sort

1 dragonfly

Several ants of multiple sizes and scores of gnats

Several dried out dead worms

Plants

Those not-bluebells are wilted af. Dead for the year, I'd say

It's been like this for a while but I just realized the white cherry blossom trees seem to have all lost their petals

The pink flower trees are thriving though. Full bloom everywhere

[attempting-environmentalism]

2024.4.12

Only did a half hour today

Animals

Lots and lots of gnats. Visible in swarms but not necessarily tangible

4 gulls. One had a very vibrantly orange beak.

2 geese

2 robins

1 cardinal, but it was backlit, so I couldn't tell if it was a male or a female 

1 sparrow

1 unidentified bird smaller than a duck

6 dogs

9 live worms, and one dead worm 

One very small snake that I am fairly certain was dead

It wasn't exactly raining, but it has just been raining and the air was still damp. So I heard a lot more birds than I saw

 plants

There are trees blooming in many colors. Salmon, pink, purple, white, light green.

The flowers that look like bells, but they aren't, the ones planted by the Kennedy Gardens sign, have already started to wilt. This is a much shorter lifespan than I'm used to seeing them have in Virginia  

[attempting-environmentalism]

2024.4.8

Didn't go on a walk this morning but did go out for a few minutes to see the solar eclipse!

In addition to the eclipse, I saw the following animals:

2 mourning doves

2 female cardinals

2 male ducks pestering 1 female duck

5 big-ass ants

Several big-ass bees

Dozens of other flying bugs

1 Robin

2 squirrels

5 sparrows. And I've confirmed that the "black and white sparrows" are just "sparrows viewed from the bottom" or sparrows with more black and white coloring. So I'll stop separating them in my counts.

[attempting-environmentalism]

We just had 3 days of rain, a lot of it, sometimes with thunderstorms and ending in little white ice balls falling. Today we had an earthquake (which somehow I didn't feel even though it was pretty close to me). 3 days from now there will be a solar eclipse although not total here. And last night there was some kind of planetary alignment. If this were a fantasy story I would say they were being heavy-handed.

[attempting-environmentalism]

2024.4.7

I was still too sad to count things today. But I did see one pale yellow butterfly. Haven't seen any butterflies since last summer so that was nice

[attempting-environmentalism]

2024.4.6

I was too sad to count things today but I did see a heron. Even though I went out like 6 or so hours later than usual. That was the latest in the day I've ever seeen a heron and the warmest weather I've ever seen one

[attempting-environmentalism]

2024.3.31

I went out at 3:30pm on a weekend so there were a lot more people (thus a lot more dogs) than usual.

Animals

14 dogs

2 robins

1 sparrow

People were already using both swings so I couldn't ride them :(

[attempting-environmentalism]

I am completely and utterly normal about rivers, creeks, lakes, forests, ponds, hills, mountains, and other natural landscapes (lying)

[attempting-environmentalism]

[ID: 3 pictures of a bird in nature. It's body is yellow; wings, back, and top/back of tail are green, face and front of neck is black, and beak is red. In the first picture it is on a twiggy branch with small, budding, green flowers. In the second pictures it's on the ground with mulch and plants around it. End ID ]

Ok I think this might be the bird I saw on 2024.1.27 (or thenabouts) that I couldn't identify. Not entirely sure cuz I can't remember if the red spot on its face was beak or feathers, but it was definitely mostly yellow and green and very cardinal shaped. Otherwise I would've guessed it was someone's pet parrot gone loose. But cool to know!

According to Bird Watching USA, there are estimated to be only about 1000-2000 xanthistic cardinals globally! Only around 0.000022% of cardinals have the mutation that causes them to be unable to get the red plumage from their diet.

The article I linked said the enzyme needed to do this is "cateroniod" but I'm fairly certain they meant carotenoid enzyme, because I have never heard of a cateronoid and all further search results from it just link back to that one article. Here's a Cornell report about how the carotenoid digestion process works in cardinals and an NIH report about how carotenoid issues can make rice yellow. Neither of these mention the prevalence of this condition in cardinals though. As far as I could tell, at least.

So maybe the bird I saw was some other species of bird but with xanthochromism and something red on its face. By Occam's razor, I'm going with this, though. I can't think of what other kind of xanthistic bird would have red on its face.

Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) male, Xanthistic, family Cardinalidae, order Passeriformes, eastern TN, USA

Xanthism (or Xanthochromism) is when an animal is mostly yellow, instead of its normal coloration.

Male Northern Cardinals are usually red.

photograph by Catherine Reddick

[attempting-environmentalism]

2024.3.27

I went on a walk around my office instead of around lake kittamaqundi, and did so at 6:30pm whereas I usually aim to start my walks around 7:45-8am. My office is only an 11 minute drive from my apartment so I will record it. 22 robins, 2 small crow birds, 1 Canadian goose. Which is odd because usually they're not so alone like that