Happy 12 Day Birthday

See the little guys in the post below? Here's a photo I took today. All fluff and feathers, cuddled up for the night. Don't they grow up in a hurry?

Cope's Gray Treefrog

A big sound for a little frog who clings to the screen door. My office is alive with them calling from the fish pond to others in flower pot saucers on the deck to the door and back again. Another one must be near the bathroom window. The sounds from outside are wonderful! From time to time a Fowler's Toad and some other amphibians join in.

This fellow is a Cope's Gray Treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis). Hyla is Greek and means "belonging to the woods." The species name, chrysoscelis, comes from the Greek words chryso which means gold and kelis which means "a spot," referring to the orange-yellowish spotting on the inner thigh. The frog's average length is 1.3 to 2 inches.

On Bike to Work Day ... Be the Change

I'm usually happy to get an e-mail from Sheryl Eisenberg with one of her This Green Life essays. There were a couple of points in Oil Spill Got You Down? that I thought were worth repeating.

The essay started with a roll call of past gloom and doom: In 1968, when I learned about the population bomb in biology class, I was overwhelmed. The planet was heading for disaster and there was nothing I could do to stop it. In the 70s, it was nuclear weapons; in the 80s, the ozone hole. This spring, it's the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Then, uh oh: But these days I know something I didn't know then. There is always something I/you/we can do. What? Make a contribution to National Resources Defense? Send letters to your congressman? Volunteer? Been there, done that. My mantra these days is "Life is long and, in the words of Bill Bryson, the world is really, really big." Some might say "This too shall pass." I guess you might say that I'm done with getting too activist.

But that was not the turn this essay would take. It was rather more personal and I liked that. It was especially nice on "Bike to Work Day." The message: be the change.

In Sheryl's words, " ... we must change our mindset.

We are running on borrowed energy. Oil is just one part of the problem—and oil spills just one of the risks. The trouble is our whole fossil fuel driven way of life. There is not a big enough store of fossil fuels on earth to sustain it, and if there were, it would only make matters worse. Prices would go down and use would go up. The environmental costs of extraction would rise and the climate would be wrecked that much sooner and more completely, perhaps irretrievably so.

We who care need to follow Gandhi's dictum ... Here's how.

Step 1: Drive less ... Americans burn up gas so freely because it hardly seems to cost them anything. The price at the pump is deceptively low and the true price—environmental destruction—is hard to recognize.

But for this brief moment in time, thanks to the oil spill, we can connect the dots. Use the opportunity to change the way—and amount—you drive. Plan your trips. Carpool. Walk. Bike. Give public transportation a chance.

Step 2: Care and repair. Cars and appliances, along with virtually everything else in our consumer culture, are considered more or less disposable nowadays. Since we expect to replace them, we don't keep them in good working order. Thus, they continue to operate, but grow less and less efficient, eating up energy unnecessarily when they run.

So take your car for regular tune-ups, keep the tires inflated, change your air conditioner filters, lubricate the moving parts of motors and do all those other pesky maintenance tasks recommended in the manuals.

Step 3: Get energy-efficient equipment. The difference between conventional products and energy-efficient ones can be quite staggering. For instance, an incandescent bulb uses four times as much energy to produce a given quantity of light as a compact fluorescent bulb—and 10 times as much as an LED. Yes, the energy-efficient alternatives cost more to buy, but they also cost less to operate. Besides, becoming the change you want to see in the world includes paying more for a cleaner, safer future. So, shop for Energy Star appliances and factor fuel economy into your choice of car.

Step 4: Go local—and not just with food. It's simple: goods need to be transported to market. The shorter the distance, the less energy required. Therefore, look for products made close to home.

Step 5: Change your habits. Today's norm is to live wastefully, but you don' t have to go along. To save energy:

• Turn off lights when not in use.
• Wash full loads of dishes and laundry.
• Air dry both.
• Change your clothes before the thermostat.
• Unplug chargers and always-on appliances.
• Reuse and recycle.
• Eat less meat.

Step 6: Buy less stuff. It takes energy to produce goods. Think twice before you throw it away on things you do not need.

Here, here. And I agree with her summation we should not let this moment pass without some step toward change.

Traveling the World in My Own Back Yard

Many of my friends, especially my birding friends, are world travelers. I was fortunate to travel a lot "on the company" during 25 years as a marketing manager. I often saw more of the inside of the hotel than I wanted to, but I always took time to see a bit of the sights and I always read about the history and culture of the place. I took whale-watching tours in San Diego and rushed through the Metropolitan Museum or MOMA on trips to New York City. I took Circle Line tours, saw Broadway shows, or just hit the streets, walking to a scenic spot or cultural attraction listed in the city guides. So I don't have that travel bug that sends many packing for Elder Hostels and cruise lines. In fact, sometimes I'm so happy to sit on my deck and watch the birds, knowing that there is so much in my own back yard that I still long to know, that I don't want to go anywhere else at all.

But my birding friends are always traveling and I think that I should want to travel to Ecuador and Australia too. What's wrong with me? Is it wrong to lack interest in travel? Am I not intellectually curious enough?

While on a bus trip to geology sites in York County, enjoying a bit of local travel, I took the opportunity to sit next to my friend Joanne, who is a world traveler of the sort that, if I did travel, I would want be like. I told her that my husband and I didn't care to travel to exotic places and asked her what she got out of travel and what we were missing.

"You can see in all of that on National Geographic shows," she said in her lovely New Zealand accent. "That's not why we travel." Joanne and her husband have a parent each from England or America and the South Pacific. Alex worked for the State Department. They were born to travel and they have seen the world. They are immersion travelers. They want to hike, camp, talk to indigenous people. "It clears your head and gets you out of your comfort zone. It makes you think about the way other people live and about the world." On our local trip, Joanne is as immersed as when she travels abroad. She takes notes to review later. She's continually learning. I digested a lot of wisdom from Joanne that day. She and her husband know how to travel well. Not well as in fancy hotels, but well as in really knowing where they have been and what they have seen.

I decided that perhaps it's okay that I don't want to take a package tour to Prague or a cruise to Alaska. It's not that I'm so pedestrian that I don't want to go, I just don't have to go. I would find these sorts of trips a lot like traveling on business, rushing about to the scenic spots and cultural markers. I would rather travel like Joanne and Alex, but I am, perhaps, lacking in the knowledge and fearlessness (not to mention the money) that would make living in a hut in Africa truly enjoyable. I'd like to do that sort of thing, I think, but I'm feeling middle aged and less than willing to go for it. Travel is not free and not something we can prioritize.


My traveling for now is to the Shenandoah National Park or to Grafton Ponds or to my back yard. I can immerse myself there. I can learn the anatomy and physiology of the parts and systems that make up the place. I can work hard at taking a photograph using manual settings. I can clear my head by watching that house wren build a nest in my bluebird box. There is so much to know that I don't already know about the places, plants, and animals nearby. I have a strong need to know them well before I need to see Patagonia. Maybe I'll go someday, but I can travel in my own back yard and be refreshed and fulfilled for now.

The National Parks in the western U.S.: I think I'd like to try them first.

Welcome to the World

Bluebird nestlings hatched today in Bluebird Box 12 at New Quarter Park! Take a look at my slideshow, right, to see lots of other photographs of eggs and nestlings in the 13 boxes at New Quarter Park. Members of the Historic Rivers Chapter, Virginia Master Naturalists, adopted the boxes and are recording nest data for the Institute for Integrative Bird Behavior Studies at the College of William and Mary. The bluebirds will lay up to three clutches per nest this spring and summer.