Monday, July 29, 2013
The globally endangered cyanolichen, Boreal Felt Lichen (Erioderma pedicellatum).
Cyanolichens like the boreal felt lichen are barometers of air quality and ecosystem health. Boreal Felt Lichen is shown growing on a patch of reddish liverwort (Frullania asagrayana) with which it is usually associated.
Two colleagues pointing at a lichen (Salted shell lichen which see below) and the reddish liverwort, Frullania (F. asagrayana) that are both excellent indicators of the presence of boreal felt lichen.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
This barn is a biodiversity hotspot! Two cliff swallows were nesting under eaves trough at center (see photo below), two pairs of tree swallows (one on each end of building), 1 pair of chimney swifts and about 4-5 pairs of barn swallows inside. Many broods of starlings were also raised, but nested earlier than the other birds.
Two cliff swallow nests
The swifts nested in the shed behind the red door last year.
Last year's nest in the lower shed.
Swifts enter and exit through the small window near the roof peak. The active nest is to the right of the window inside.
Three, maybe four well fed young that only a mother could love.
Young swifts in their nest were high up inside the barn about 25-30 ft up on an end wall.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
|Broken upstairs windows.|
|Metal roofing blown off makes an airy entry.|
|Absence of siding over boarded sheathing on one end of the building.|
|Newly fledged barn swallows.|
|Tree swallow nest box.|
|Newly fledged cliff swallow.|
|Despite our search, this building had no swallows or swifts we could find, but likely supported a large number of summering bats before their population collapse from white-nose syndrome.|
|We use a battery operated 'deer jacker lamp' to illuminate the inside of dark abandoned barns and buildings.|
|Horse shoe hinge...|
Monday, July 8, 2013
“By virtue of Creation, and still more incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
(Illuminations XXV: Marine)
Chariots of copper and silver –
Prows of silver and steel –
Ploughing the foam –
Rooting up stumps of the thorns.
The currents of the heath,
And the vast ruts of the ebb-tide,
Flow away in circles towards the east,
Towards the pillars of the forest,
Towards the posts of the jetty,
Whose angle is battered by whirlwinds of light.
Arthur Rimbaud - Published 1886 (translation A.S. Kline, 2008)