Wednesday, November 19th 2014, at 2 p.m. at the Whittier Narrows Nature Center (1000 Durfee Ave. South El Monte, Ca 91733 ~ Phone 626 575 5523)  the Nature Center's Docents docents will have a meeting with the representatives of the parties who manage the Natural Area, the water in the aquifer, the sanitation district,  the Regional Water Control Board, the Army Corps of Engineers,  the Greater Los Angeles Mosquito and Vector Control, and Mark Stanley of the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy over the plan to build a 100+ car parking lot and an artificial wetlands where the Aedes sp., has been found, which is a public health issue for the communities of the County especially near the Natural Area.  The Public is welcome to attend.

What if our future was as transparent as our present?

 What if we could predict problems before they happened and then, worked together to forestal

 disaster? 

diatom cover

diatom cover, a photo by tardigrade on Flickr.

Parasites on Chloropidae

I have seen mites on mostly beetles that have fairly long lives - between 6 to 12 months. But I have never seen so many mites on such a small fly!

Xylophagidae at the Whittier Narrows Natural Area

Phoridae at Whittier Narrows Natural Area

This collection of scuttle flies is from one Malaise trap on May 16, 2011 (3 days). It is only a quarter of the collection, too.

Therevidae in the Whittier Narrows Natural Area

I have been putting out Malaise and sticky traps and some of my special, "Bird Poop" traps to find out .... 'What brings the Least Bell's Vireo to the Narrows every year?"

This species is so big (2cm) I had to 'scab' together two microscope photos.... Here is more on the Family!


I will update. This is my second year out in the field!

This does my heart good!

Need to laugh!

So, I watched a few videos.... I hope they make you laugh, too.

What I see...

I never thought anything about it. My early life with my grandparents, who were artists, and my mother who painted beautiful water colors, I believed everyone thought like I did. That was how I saw the world. Ideas and thoughts were always in pictures. I saw the image in my head, and I understood how to build, paint, draw and to a limited degree, talk about it. My vocabulary increased by listening to my grandmother, but words were in chunks of images wrapped up in place and time. Now, after reading about Autism and about how many who have this condition, think in pictures, could that have been a component of my life? Perhaps. Why not! I didn't read very well (that would be an overstatement) when I graduated from High School. But I read my first book after I had taught myself how to play my grandparents' piano - I visualized the staff as up and down in space, the keys as numbers (not letters A - G) and memorized music by its "shape." Music and reading were connected, somehow. What has this to do with what I am about to talk about? Well, I am welcoming you to my brain.... for just a moment. I am disturbed by the current events....

So, as the crappy world around us goes further into the stinking abyss, and Republican and their Tea Party lapdogs stand up to titillate their constituency (their corporate funding machines) to elect them to high lucrative positions. I have to say, I am not impressed, either, by the Democrats. But, it has been the rest of the world who has mentioned the monstrosities of our politics and policies, our corporate effluent machines, and the laws that only incarcerate

those without funds....

I imagine... what if one of the Repugs became our president... ? This image was made from a mock image of the Korean Leader

but I think they have some things in common.

The Republican talking points to eliminate "entitlement" programs that workers invested in throughout their working lives but with the same taxes on those working people, that money would go to Corporations (executives) ... is a horror....

They want to eliminate Medicare when Medical Insurance companies run our medical system into the ground. This would be devastating!

They speak of letting people die from easily cured diseases and mock those who serve in the horrible wars our system creates.

This is a monstrous travesty! I wish I had the words to really say what I feel! ... and our country is building drones to ... what? fight wars where???

Here, I say!

But who would lead the wars into our urban communities? Who would drop the bombs on our children coming home from school?

Not this guy....

I don't think any of the Republican, Tea Party people (with the helping hand of the Democrats) would LEAD the charge but they sure do sound familiar.... I see someone with lots of money... maybe a group of people with lots of money...

But this is how I see the contenders for the top position of our country, which perhaps is only a symbol of power. The contenders have to act and speak their parts.

And speaking of bees....

In May last year and this year, I had to remove the bees in my mother's house.... Two hives were over 20 years old. One was in the glass house (which my grandfather built for my grandmother to start cuttings but then decided it would be a great place for a work shop filled with slicing, cutting, drilling giant metal machines). The bees in the glass house needed to be removed first. The other huge hive was in the garage and that was the last one to be removed. Several happy beekeepers went home with bees, comb and honey. Another smaller one developed in some furniture from the main house. The man in the bee suit said that he had found a new queen and the old one had probably flown away in a swarm. He was correct. About a few months before the entire garden was filled with mad flying bees. Oh. I am so tired.

The people who removed the bees were the Backwards Beekeepers. The people who video taped, and commented behind the glass doors were new-bees (haha...) learning how to extract a hive carefully and take care of the animals. They got to take home the hive and try to keep them going. Taking home a twenty year hive is pretty unusual these days.

Then there were the bees in the furniture that were set out to clean up inside the house. The beeping you hear is the alarm system that needed fixing.

Then of course, there were the bees that lived in the garage for more then 20 years. The roof caved in afterwards. You can see the roof on other side had already discovered gravity.

Bombus-A-Thon

Whittier Narrows will be holding an event to find the Bumble Bee in the Natural Area, find the closet trail marker or GPS the place where the Bumble Bee was sighted, and then to take a picture of it, if possible. After the nice walk and exploration, take the information back to the Nature Center where, at the end of the event all data will be sent to the Xerces Society.

Some background...

Discovery Center Board gets Signatures Against Building in Natural area

Buffy Sainte-Marie

My sentiments exactly!

FOUND STUFF!

Or more like... oops! Rummaging through all of my mother's grandmother's and grandfather's stuff.... which means that I am looking at their great-great-great stuff. What is remarkable is that I had an opportunity to ask questions of three generations who was THAT? and why... but rarely did that conversation materialize. There are daguerreotypes of Civil War members on both sides. Or at least I am guessing.... Who were they?

THEN, I found a newspaper clipping of someone my grandmother used to talk about, Maytor McKinley. They were good friends. My grandmother made friends from on high to the little person on the corner with shards for shoes. If you left my grandmother somewhere to do something you would find her in a conversation most likely, with the least of us having a wonderful time.

Maytor H. McKinley was very rich. He owned a huge mortuary. The painting that I found that I thought was Pat Brown was McKinley. I did find Pat Brown's photos, though not of my grandfather's oil portrait of him. Sinatra supported Pat Brown and my grandfather was Sinatra's personal photographer for almost 10 years, so, of course there would be shots of Pat Brown.

Paul Conrad, 1970

But I found what was on the back of the clipping interesting, too. It is of a Conrad political cartoon of Reagan shouting with the ' hippies' "SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT DOWN!" How amazing. So the hipsters wanted the gov to shut down because of all of the corruption and Reagan wanted it shut down so that the rich could do what ever they wanted.... Isn't it amazing how two groups so different can have the same goal for different reasons? Which is more productive?

Flying to Oklahoma

It's really not the flying that's bad - it's the business of flying, or the flying business, that messes with the enjoyment and the convenience and even the safety of flying.

So, I bought my ticket and then bought a two way ride on the airport shuttle via the internet. The shuttle was to come about 2 hours before take off. And as the time when the shuttle should have come, passed, I decided to call the company to find out where they were. The lady answered and asked my name and then, rattled off my address confirming I had paid for my trip to the airport.

I asked when the shuttle would arrive, she said that it was about a mile from my door and then walked away for 15 minutes. Then, I hung up and the called again but the man that answered, said I did not have a confirmed pick up... I said I did and to please find my name. He did, and said the driver said I was a no show and drove away. There went 27 dollars. After some time with a rush of high blood pressure, I found that the confirmation had my address wrong - instead of 71 they had a 17.... He said to get a taxi .... so, I did. That was an extra 60 dollars to get to the nearby airport. When I got there, the flight was delayed by two hours because of weather. This was a connecter route. Oklahoma has very few direct flights. SO I sat there.

Finally, the plane came in, and then, some folks got off and they started to load the cargo bay with luggage. They called us up and we dutifully stood in line while they called over the PA for folks to volunteer to not get on the flight. A few folks did, but if I did, I would miss my connector to Oklahoma and would be stranded in Denver.... where all the weather was.

When I finally got on board someone behind me said they needed folks to get off because ... wait for it... THE PLANE WAS TOO HEAVY!!! The decision... fuel vs passengers... usually is done while making the plane and then before booking the plane.... This is what airlines must do all of the time, but this four seat across bird was maybe half full. What in hell was wrong? Then as we pulled away from the building, the stewardess said that the air conditioner was broken but not to worry.... "at 2500 feet it's really cool up there!" WHAT!?? Just as we pointed our noses toward the runway under the intense heat of 100+ outside, the pilot said the tower said all of Denver was closed and we would not be allowed up for at least another 1/2 to and hour. I got my things, and walked up to the cockpit and said, "I need to get off." When I looked behind me a number of other passengers were doing the same thing.

The United Airlines gal at the counter gave me a ticket for a one way shot to OK if I could get to LAX from where I was, BUR. I walked to the Economy Rent a car and that would have cost 50 bucks. So, I crossed the street to the shuttle and they got me someone who would take me to LAX for.... 26 dollars.

I got to LAX and on the plane to Oklahoma, but the seats were TINY! and TWISTED! You could not site straight because the seat by the window was leaning in toward the cabin because it was not attached horizontally. It hurt my back just to sit.

While I was writhing, I saw the weather pass by. Lots of lightening.

I prefer the train. It's much more civilized.

Ahhhhh! The plastic Bag Journey!

Back at Petropavlovsk from Uzon

Russ is back at the town of Petropavlosk downloading pictures of his trip and sampling. He has not been able to shower for two days because the hot water is broken. So, he says, he has the table at the coffee shop all to himself.

Go to his photo stream and blog to read and see where he went and what he did...

http://vort.org

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rneches/

Water comes and goes in a wetland in California

Putting out traps for an insect study at Mugu can be a challenge if the area is inundated with the tides. One site this year I will only set sticky traps while the other sites I set drop traps (85% water, 14 +% ethanol, a couple of squeezes of Dawn dish soap). Diptera is the group that is found in most abundance. Hemitera in some places is second, but Hymenoptera is usually the second most abundant insect Family with Chalcids, Halictidae sometimes Apidae making the second group very challenging to identify. I have been looking at the insects of Mugu since 2001 and somehow I collect something that stumps and surprises me - which is wonderful!

Every time I walk out in the marsh I feel great peace. The birds, like this little Plover which was running around the clumps of algae in the collecting pools, mostly try to ignore me if I am not too close. As the algae dies and dries it turns white. All of the little horn snails, Cerithidea, and the crabs make clicking noises in the mud. The soft breezes and the distant waves are sweet.

As the water evaporates in low tide, the smallest particles at the top of the mud bank dry faster then the heavier sediment, and start shrink and crack. The water in the mud below is exposed to the air and starts to dry too puling away and cracking along the same lines. There are fungal rings that grow as the water recedes - though not in this picture - like the flower rings in vernal or ephemeral pools.

When I walk in these area I sink sometimes up to my knees. But the little birds, like the plover above, leave tracks on top. But if you look at the bottom picture, a stilt left its footprints and its middle long toe continued to crack beyond the impression. For just a second, when I saw the tracks, 'reptile' jumped to my mind... until I looked closer.... Mugu does not have reptiles THAT big....

Back at Mugu!

Cicindela gabbi! So, pretty! It has taken up residence in the Central Basin of the Estuary of Mugu. There were many larvae burrows so next year the place will be jumpin'... that is unless the plovers feast on them!

There is something magical about the wetland. The birds, so many of them, call to each other and at each other. Some places I get yelled at because I am too close to nests or feeding grounds. As the sun sets the seed pods glow with the back light.

Fungus in concert with algae produce incredible colors. The blacks are really black and the green puts your eyes in a twitch!

It's almost like going to the moon - no, Mars.