Pileated woodpecker pair at Sapsucker Woods
Christmas present for birders from the feeders at Sapsucker Woods (Cornell). The pileated woodpecker to your right (middle feeder on the post) is the male.
Category Archives: Blog
Eternal flame waterfall at Chestnut Ridge
This is at Chestnut Ridge, a county park near where I grew up in western New York. I didn’t know about it until a few years ago. Sadly, the one time I was back there in 2015, my energy drained on the trail before I could get to the waterfall, so I’ve never seen it. I’m not sure my dad knew about it. He would have loved it, I think. Video is by John Kucko, who specializes in WNY/Finger Lakes photography and video.
Lessons and Carols, 2022
This is the first time since 2019 that Lessons and Carols, a Christmas Eve tradition at Rockefeller Chapel, has been held in person. I remember in 2020 and 2021, it was streamed. This year it was both in person and streamed. I attended, but within a few days had developed my first bout with COVID-19. I held out almost three years.
Rockefeller is always an experience. The snow was a great touch.
I love that the children don’t have to make or buy costumes to be farmyard animals. These days they can wear pajamas. My favorite was the Holstein cow (possibly an anachronism).
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December sea smoke on Lake Michigan at -8°F
I’m not sure whether I’ve seen sea smoke in December before, but it is close to January. With bonus of Jack Frost on the window.
Sea smoke is essentially just fog above water, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dave Samuhel. The occurrence of sea smoke is similar to the steam that appears over a boiling pot of water or a hot bath.
“It happens when the air mass is so cold it makes the water steam like a pot on a stove would,” Samuhel said. Sea smoke is also sometimes referred to as arctic sea smoke, frost smoke, steam fog or sea fog.
In order for sea smoke to occur, the air has to be very cold and the water has to be comparatively warm. As a light wind of cold air sweeps in, it cools the warm air immediately above the water, which makes the air dip below the dew point. The air is only able to hold so much moisture before it condenses into fog, or sea smoke.
Winter Wonderland at Messenger Woods Nature Preserve
December 4, 2022
While it didn’t snow, this Forest Preserve District of Will County event had a lot to recommend it:
- Campfires with fixings for smores, plus hot chocolate and doughnuts
- Bubble machine and music
- A dancing Bumble
- Games, including giant Jenga
- Crafts
- Tchotchkes
- Crafts
- Photo “booth” with the Bumble
- Enthusiastic Forest Preserve employees and volunteers
And probably more I’m not thinking of. Afterwards, J. and I went to La Crepe Bistro in Homer Glen, then stopped near Swallow Cliff Woods, where the structure befuddled me. I suppose it’s a blind of some kind.
Hyde Park, Chicago — drone footage
Even better, from a drone. There are likely a lot of these out there.
Hyde Park, Chicago drive
I’ve meant to get a GoPro and do something like this from my bike (when I could ride), but this will have to do for now. Not unlike many in Hyde Park, the driver doesn’t recognize stop signs.
Hamburg, New York, is no. 1 for snowfall
From a Facebook post, snow totals from the recent storm in western New York, aka the Niagara Frontier. Hamburg is my hometown.
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Daniel and Lucia discuss how Edwin Muir wasn’t much of an architect, then Daniel boasts he designed Gull Cottage. Oh, the Gull Cottage in which if you fall asleep on the sofa you can kick the gas on and accidentally kill yourself — THAT Gull Cottage? Brilliant design, that.
(Sadly, this is why I’m not haunted by impossibly charming sea captains.)
The world’s smallest parcel of land one inch square owned by . . .
The “owned by” includes Dwight Eisenhower (bottom of left-hand column). In a quick search, I didn’t find any background on this plaque in Chesterton, Indiana, which itself is more than one inch square — and worse for the wear.
