Ducks -- May 26, 2015

Northern Pintail (to the top right) -- a new sighting for us -- and a pair of mallards at Cuddy Park.

A little digression -- we haven't had much trouble with mosquitoes this year, so there's been little chance to share Ned Rozell's great article about them. He reports that Derek Sikes, the curator of insects at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has calculated that there are about 17 1/2 trillion mosquitoes here every summer, with a combined weight of 96,000,000 pounds. During the summer, counting all of the tourists -- with whom we are happy to share the biters -- all of the humans weigh 442,000,000 pounds. That's plenty of food for the mosquitoes, and they have the caribou, moose, and many other mammals to pester as well. Jim points out that only approximately half of  those 96,000,000 are likely to be females (and the literature supports that hypothesis), so we really only have 8 3/4 trillion mosquitoes to worry about.



Grass spider, found in Alaska.

Mr. Rozell suggests that we can cultivate spiders to help keep the population down, but only a couple of tropical spiders prefer mosquitoes. Alaskan spiders might eat them if the mosquitoes happen to fly into a web, but they are not nearly as effective predators as are birds and fish.

The geese and ducks we were watching today, for example, are fond of mosquitoes, which might explain why there were so few mosquitoes at Cuddy Park.

The Canada geese waited until we were within arms' length before they started to move away.

Mom mallard and some of her babies.

Time for a one-footed break -- the water fowl probably don't spend as much time asleep as Quaxo, but they do take frequent naps.

The kids were enjoying the sunshine too.

Give a guy a stick and a stone, and he'll play golf in case you ever wondered about the origin of the game).

We don't know what it's going to be, but it makes a nifty photo (on 36th, between Old Seward and Denali Street).

Violas, or Johnny-Jump-Ups.

Leave for a week and summer comes -- May 22, 2015

First wild rose of 2015.

For real -- lilacs are in bud, poppies are blooming, and lawns (well, not ours) are thickly green. All of this happened during the week that we were in Fairbanks and Seattle.

I love the fragrant MayDay trees, also known as European bird cherry or chokecherry. Sadly, they are poisonous to moose. Even more sadly, moose may sample them in the winter when little else is available. If they eat more than a few mouthfuls, the decomposing vegetation in their stomachs releases cyanide and the moose moves on to moose heaven (which is populated with rhododendrons, hostas, and dozens of other plants that we love that the moose thrives on).

Fortunately, moose mostly don't like them which is one reason that they have become invasive. Birds feed on the berries in the winter, and the seeds pass through their digestive tracts untouched. When the bird droppings hit the ground, another tree pops up. That's one of the main reasons why so many of the trees are growing in the woods around the city, only to be ruthlessly rooted out by volunteer citizens trying to halt the infestation.

Another favorite is the China Rose. The bushes won't grow in our yard (not enough sun), so I hunt down other people's to admire.

A sign of summer -- kids playing basketball in the street. In our neighborhood, several families have portable basketball hoops like this one. They strike me as dangerous -- but I haven't yet heard of a kid getting hit by a car while doing this. Note also, the shadow of the tree on the street -- no longer do we have winter's lacy patterns of branches.

A couple of weeks ago all the lawns were brown -- this one could be in Ireland, it's so green.

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional planting out time for Anchorage gardeners, the days when the ground is warm enough to allow plants to grow in good health. We saw the city gardeners out in force today planting the beds of annuals that startle the tourists and please the locals. In Rogers Park, signs of how people will be spending their weekends abound. It's interesting too, to walk past yards where the owners spent lots of time and money a few years ago to put in landscaping, raised garden beds, and perennials, and see that only weeds are growing this year.

Other signs of summer -- yard projects, and  . . .

. . . new construction. We can't quite figure out what's going on here. Last year, the owners put on new siding (the flat green stuff), and fancy stone work. Now they've dug a deep trench and put up forms that appear to be ready for pouring concrete. Are they building a fortress wall? Putting in a moat? Extending the house to the street? We will keep you posted.

Street corners all over town are being re-done. Luckily the process seems to be going fairly quickly. We assume that they are trying to finish before the tourists begin to pour in a month from now.

I didn't get a great photo of this guy -- he is riding on a single wheel. It's sort of a low-to-the ground unicycle Segway concept. Jim suggests that it's easy to carry onto a bus, or into a building -- but it seems unsuited for hills of any sort.

Every crack in the street has its dandelion growing.

Jim's favorite is the ring of chickweed growing around the pipe in our driveway.

At Cuddy Park behind the library, the geese and ducks that have stayed around are spending their days sleeping and grooming, grooming and sleeping, and when things seem dull, flying at each other squawking for no apparent reason. That livens things up for a bit; then they all go back to sleep.

I don't think that he tossed the kid in, although that looks like what he might be planning.

Aspen leaves in their spring orange-y green.

Bergenia in bloom.

April 27, 2015 -- Morning moose

Morning moose in a neighbor's yard. It  had been eating her Bergenia by the front steps, when she tapped on the window and let it know that it wasn't welcome. We think this is a yearling; booted out by mom who is probably pregnant and about to deliver this year's calf.

More signs of spring -- road work. For some reason, they have decided to tear up all of the curb insets for disabled people and cyclists that were installed a year or two ago, and re-do them. Corners all over downtown are surrounded with orange netting and safety cones while the work proceeds.

Concrete trucks, to assist in all of the construction going on.

Another sign of spring -- the evergreens shedding their cones.

In our neighborhood, the sidewalks often extend past only a couple of houses, but they are still useful as chalkboards.

First of the birch catkins, against a stormy sky -- a few drops of rain today, nothing for  the record books.

A neighbor eager to get busy with gardening. Usually Anchorageites wait until Memorial Day weekend to plant things in the ground -- it's too cold for before that. This being only April 27, the gardeners have a full month to wait.

Snow melting from the mountains.

Walking along the Old Seward Highway today to pick up our car from the mechanics' place on International Airport Road. It's still dusty and brown for the most part, with little to enliven the views. "Alaska's Concealment Headquarters" did catch our eyes though.

A low shrub with small brilliant red leaves.

Along the fence at the edge of Cuddy Park the grass is littered with feathers.

Every open mouth on a gull represents a drawn-out screech.

You can practically see  this one's tonsils. There were many more gulls and geese today than a couple of days ago, and fewer mallards.

This explains in part, perhaps, why there were more birds -- someone feeding them.

Looking east with storm clouds in the northeast, and the mountains showing due east.

Jim keeping an eye on the rain possibilities.

Brilliant red branches -- they've been this color all winter, but seem even brighter now against the gray water.

This looks like a herring gull -- red spot on the lower part of its bill, flesh-colored legs, black wing tip feathers with white spots on them.

Pansies and violas at Fred Meyers.

The pines are blooming -- April 24, 2015

On this pine branch you can see the cones, and to the upper right, a flower (but I don't know whether it's male or female).

I never gave it much thought until I was walking into Costco today and noticed some nice-looking pine branches with neatly clustered cones. I started taking pictures and then saw what had to be flowers, with pollen on them.

Sure enough, pines do bloom. It's the male flower structures that dispense the pollen. The wind carries it to female flowers that grow into cones. That takes a long time -- as much as three years.

The pussy willows at Cuddy Park are laden with pollen too.

Also at Cuddy Park --  geese, ducks, gulls. Jim envied this mallard pair the ability to sleep standing on one foot with heads tucked into their own feather pillows.

A gaggle of geese on the water . . .

and then suddenly calling and circling over the pond.

A gull, a goose, mallards . . .

Sun in the clouds over Cuddy Park.

Later, at Point Woronzof, an Alaska Airlines flight coming in.

Looking northeast at Woronzof, toward the Alaska Range.

Jim, and sunset. Note how close the sun is setting to Mt. Susitna. In another month or so , it will be setting to the east of Susitna.

Looking northwest after sunset.

Signs of spring -- skinny-tired bikes are out, grass is greening up. In Anchorage, we see people in flip-flops and shorts almost any time of the year, at least at stores and walking here and there for short distances. But now the sandals and shorts are showing up more often and at a greater distance from shelter. Encouraging.