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.

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.