This year’s Great Backyard Birdcount–79 species (plus Muscovy Duck and Graylag Goose). For some reason, I plus my father as a party have the highest number of species of any observers for three counties for the count and one of the highest for another (probably has something to do with “lack of public land” and “nobody looking” for the three where we’re the highest).
Partially leucistic Wild Turkey (probably with some domestic ancestry)
Oh Man, that’s for tropical wimps. You haven’t experienced a cold bird count until you’ve been out all day at -43 C (-45 F). And that’s without the windchill factored in. Welcome to Saskatoon!
There were neighboring missionaries from Saskatoon on our compound in West Africa–I honestly don’t know how they stood being in 100 degree heat by 9 am, but they were tough farmers! We still have friends up there who farm rapeseed, etc. They talked about Saskatoon berries
Michigan’s quite mild, given the Great Lakes prevailing winds–I remember Wisconsin with negative 40 degrees, and that’s not as low as you all. Reportedly, people like to grow grapes, etc, in this area, because of the climate being similar to the California coast. Every time I feel cold here (I like to sweat rather than freeze), I look up Yellowknife’s weather (usually a high of negative 20 F), and suddenly 5 degrees F feels relatively toasty (we seldom drop that low lately, anyway).
I currently have a Nikon Coolpix P1000, which has a 4.3 - 539 mm telephoto lens (35 mm equivalent 24-3000 mm). It’s technically a point-and-shoot camera, but it’s a giant point-and-shoot camera.
That works out to 20mph and 40mph. We don’t even consider the low one to be wind; that’s just ordinary winter breeze. Our howling wind was about 45mph (20 m/s), gusting to 60mph (27 m/s).
I remember when in grad school how the temperature was forecast to hit -40° F on the weekend. One of the guys called up the school of nursing down the highway a ways and we arranged a -40° party (since -40° is the same in both scales). We had a roaring fire in one of the cottages by the lake, ice skating, and igloo building (it’s awesome how drifted snow can be cut into blocks). One of the teens in faculty housing near the lake came out with a couple of friends and a hockey puck so we cleared an approximately-regulation area farther down the lake and had hockey games (What could go wrong? We have nurses here!).
Anything over 15 mph (including in gusts) at ground level is unusual around here, so gusting to 40 mph was rather unexpected before looking at the forecast for that day.
These are from my hike today in NW Florida. It was a nice 73°f when I started and stopped to 63°f but was still nice. I’m back to hiking 10 miles a day 5-7 days a week. This habit will basically continue until the frozen hell returns and the sun dies at 5 lol.
It’s lame but I always enjoy posting the heavy sand pics to places still really cold where they are talking about the snow and cold, and show them here it’s already hitting the 70s and people are at the beach and in a few weeks hordes of bikinis and dudes in just shorts show up because it’s warm enough to suntan on the beach lol.
I should be doing that with Knox, but the rain lately has been coming down more sideways than straight down, and then every time I pass a building or a cluster of trees the wind whips the drops around from a different direction.
At least he’s getting exercise when I go planting trees – he gets to run around as he pleases.
It made it to the upper 60s once this year already here, which is bizarre for this area. Whilst not just shorts, I generally wear shorts (when I don’t have a lab or birdcount or similar that day), so long as I won’t be outside for multiple hours and it’s above 20 F.
Been hiking a lot. Just mostly making videos. Big hike tomorrow. A 22 mile hike. Going through it once all the way. Then over the next few months I’ll go back several times to focus on select spots for hours of exploring.
Got some moss here – part of a little tuft growing on a log I brought in as firewood. I now feel kind of bad that it’s going to dry up and die in the basement.
I find a strange beauty in tree rootballs. I’d love to be able to get my hands on sixty or so for my conservation work, but my motive would definitely be mixed!
Several people who know me think I’m strange because I always peel off any bark that has moss. Of course I have a use for it in my conservation work, but they still find it strange.
