This is the same group of Bunchberry plants
that I pictured some time ago. Shown later in the year. A bit worse for wear as is evident, but with nice red berries.
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Bunchberry; With Berries
Bunchberry, along with a few others, such as Thimbleberry, Raspberry, Strawberry, Huckleberry, and Pacific Elderberry, are some of my favorite plants.
As usual, this image is available on a number of items at my Zazzle store.
A cougar scans for potential prey from a high vantage point somewhere in the dry interior of Washington State or British Columbia.
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Cougar On The Rocks
I would like to announce the discovery of a new species of moose.
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A Cow “Camoose” – Alces absonditus
Tentatively dubbed Alces absonditus (Hidden Moose) by the scientific community, the Camouflage Moose has caused a level of excitement not seen since the Panda was introduced to the West. For now biologists are keeping the area where several “Camoose” have been sighted a secret in order to protect the animals. But I received this photo from a confidential source.
A fractal depiction of the Northern Lights reflected off the surface of the Arctic Ocean.
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The Northern Lights
I entitled this Qaanaaq after a settlement in northern Greenland; one of the northernmost inhabited spots on the planet. I like the sound of the word and it seemed appropriate for the image.
This image is available on numerous items through Zazzle.com; not at my wildlife store, but at
The taiga during the short summer season. The taiga, covering a large art of the world, but little understood by most people, is threatened due to climate change.
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An image of the North American taiga (boreal forest) during the short summer period.
The Taiga is a nearly continuous belt of coniferous trees across North America and Eurasia overlying formerly glaciated areas and areas of patchy permafrost. The term “boreal forest” is sometimes used to refer to the more southerly part of the biome, while taiga is used to describe more barren areas of the north approaching the tree line and the tundra biome. The term “boreal” is taken from Boreas, Greek god of the north wind.
The taiga is the world’s largest terrestrial biome accounting for 29% of the world’s forest cover. It stretches over Eurasia and North America. Winters are very cold , summers are warm, rainy, and humid. In North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States (northern Minnesota through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Upstate New York and northern New England). It also covers most of Sweden, Finland, much of Norway, lowland/coastal areas of Iceland, much of Russia, northern Kazakhstan, northern Mongolia, and northern Japan. However, the predominant tree species varies. For example, the taiga of North America consists of mainly spruces; Scandinavian and Finnish taiga consists of a mix of spruce, pines and birch; Russian taiga has spruces, pines and larches depending on the region, the Eastern Siberian taiga being a vast larch forest.
The growing season, when the vegetation in the taiga comes alive, is usually slightly longer than the climatic definition of summer as the plants of the boreal biome have a lower threshold to trigger growth. For the Taiga Plains in Canada, growing season varies from 80 to 150 days. Data for locations in southwest Yukon gives 80–120 frost-free days. High latitudes mean that the sun does not rise far above the horizon, and less solar energy is received than further south. But the high latitude also ensures very long summer days, as the sun stays above the horizon nearly 20 hours each day, with only around 6 hours of daylight occurring in the dark winters, depending on latitude. The areas of the taiga inside the Arctic circle have midnight sun in mid-summer and polar night in mid-winter.
The taiga experiences relatively low precipitation throughout the year , primarily as rain during the summer months, but also as fog and snow. Snow may remain on the ground for as long as nine months in the northernmost extensions of the taiga. Muskeg (bogs) occur in poorly drained, glacial depressions. Sphagnum moss forms a spongy mat over ponded water. Growing on this mat are species of the tundra such as cottongrass and shrubs of the heath family. Black spruce and larch ring the edge.
Taiga soil tends to be young and poor in nutrients. It lacks the deep, organically enriched profile present in temperate deciduous forests. The thinness of the soil is due largely to the cold, which hinders the development of soil and the ease with which plants can use its nutrients. Fallen leaves and moss can remain on the forest floor for extended periods in the cool, moist climate. Acids from evergreen needles further leach the soil. Acidic soil often limits flora diversity to little more than lichens and some mosses. Herbs and berries can be found in clearings and areas with a prevalence of deciduous trees. The boreal forest is home to many types of berries such as raspberry, cranberry, cloudberry), bilberry and lingonberry. Diversity of soil organisms in the boreal forest is high, comparable to the tropical rainforest.
Since North America and Asia used to be connected by the Bering land bridge, a number of animal and plant species colonized both continents and are distributed throughout the taiga biome. Others differ regionally, typically with each genus having several distinct species, each occupying different regions of the taiga. Taigas also have some small-leaved deciduous trees like birch, alder, willow, and poplar; mostly in areas escaping the most extreme winter cold. Southernmost regions of the taiga may have trees such as oak, maple, elm, and tilia scattered among the conifers.
Evergreen species in the taiga have a number of adaptations specifically for survival in harsh taiga winters, although larch, the most cold-tolerant of all trees,is deciduous:
- Taiga trees tend to have shallow roots to take advantage of the thin soils.
- Many species of tree found there seasonally alter their biochemistry to make them more resistant to freezing, called “hardening”.
- The conical or spire-shaped promotes shedding of snow and prevents loss of branches.
- Needleleaf – narrowness reduces surface area through which water may be lost (transpired), especially during winter when the frozen ground prevents plants from replenishing their water supply and dessication could become problematic. The needles of boreal conifers also have thick waxy coatings–a waterproof cuticle–in which stomata are sunken and protected from drying winds.
- Evergreen habit – retention of foliage allows the trees photosynthesize with their older leaves in late winter and spring when light is good but temperatures are still too low for new growth. Larch are dominant in areas underlain by nearly continuous permafrost and having a climate even too dry and cold for the waxy needles of spruce and fir. Dark needles promotes maximum heat absorption allowing for photosynthesis at temperatures lower than would otherwise be the case.
A wide variety of wildlife are found in the taiga. Insects play a critical role as pollinators, decomposers, and as a part of the food web. Many nesting birds rely on them for food especially in the months of February and March. The cold winters and short summers make the taiga a challenging biome for reptiles and amphibians, which depend on environmental conditions to regulate their body temperatures, and there are only a few species in the boreal forest including red-sided garter snake, common European adder, blue-spotted salamander, northern two-lined salamander, Siberian salamander, wood frog, northern leopard frog, boreal chorus frog, American toad, and Canadian toad. Most hibernate underground in winter. Fish of the taiga must be able to withstand cold water conditions and be able to adapt to life under ice covered water. Species in the taiga include Alaska blackfish, northern pike, walleye, longnose sucker, white sucker, various species of cisco, lake whitefish, round whitefish, pygmy whitefish, arctic lamprey, various grayling species, brook trout (including sea-run brook trout in the Hudson bay area), chum salmon, Siberian taimen, lenok and lake chub.
The taiga is home to a number of large herbivorous mammals, such as moose and reindeer/caribou. Some areas have populations of other deer species such as the elk (wapiti) and roe deer.The largest animal in the taiga is the wood bison, found in northern Canada, Alaska and has been newly introduced into the Russian far-east. There is also a range of rodent species including beaver, squirrel, mountain hare, snowshoe hare, North American porcupine and vole. These species have adapted to survive the harsh winters in their native ranges. Some larger mammals, such as bears, eat heartily during the summer in order to gain weight, and then go into hibernation during the winter. Other animals have adapted layers of fur or feathers to insulate them from the cold. Predatory mammals of the taiga must be adapted to travel long distances in search of scattered prey or be able to supplement their diet with vegetation or other forms of food (such as raccoons). Mammalian predators of the taiga include Canada lynx, Eurasian lynx, stoat, Siberian weasel, least weasel, sable, American marten, North American river otter, European otter, American mink, wolverine, Asian badger, fisher, gray wolf, coyote, red fox, brown bear, American black bear, Asiatic black bear, polar bear and Siberian tiger.
More than 300 species of birds have their nesting grounds in the taiga. Siberian Thrush, White-throated Sparrow, and Black-throated Green Warbler migrate to this habitat to take advantage of the long summer days and abundance of insects found around the numerous bogs and lakes. Of the 300 species of birds that summer in the taiga only 30 stay for the winter. These are either carrion-feeding or large raptors that can take live mammal prey, including Golden Eagle, Rough-legged Buzzard (also known as the Rough-legged Hawk), and Raven, or else seed-eating birds, including several species of grouse and crossbills.
Large areas of Siberia’s taiga have been harvested for lumber since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In some cases, after clearcutting of trees, topsoil was also removed for shipment to Japan. In Canada, eight percent of the taiga is protected from development. The main forestry practice in the boreal forest of Canada is clearcutting, which involves cutting down most of the trees in a given area, then replanting the forest as a monocrop (one species of tree) the following season. Industry officials claim that this process emulates the natural effects of a forest fire, which they claim clearcutting suppresses, protecting infrastructure, communities and roads. However, from an ecological perspective, this is a falsehood, for several reasons, including: a) Removing most of the trees in a given area is usually done using large machines which disrupt the soil greatly, and the dramatic diminution of ground cover permits large-scale erosion and avalanches, which further damage the habitat and sometimes endangers infrastructure, roads, and communities. b) Clearcutting removes most of the biomass from an area, and the various macro and micro-nutrients it contains. This sudden decrease in nutrients in an area contrasts with a forest fire, which returns most of the nutrients to the soil. c) Forest fires leave standing snags, and leave patches of unburned trees. This helps preserve structure and micro-habitats within the area, whereas clearcutting destroys most of these habitats. In the past, clearcuts upwards of 110 km² have been recorded in the Canadian boreal forest. However, today 80% of clearcuts are less than 260 hectares(2.6 square km). Some of the products from logged boreal forests include toilet paper, copy paper, newsprint, and lumber. More than 90% of boreal forest products from Canada are exported for consumption and processing in the United States. However with the recession and fewer US homes being built, that has changed. Some of the larger cities situated in this biome are Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Yakutsk, Anchorage, Yellowknife, Tromsø, Luleå, and Oulu.
Most companies that harvest in Canadian forests are certified by an independent third party agency such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Sustainable Forests Initiative (SFI), or the Canadian Standards Association (CSA). While the certification process differs between these groups, all of them include forest stewardship, respect for aboriginal peoples, compliance with local, provincial or national environmental laws, forest worker safety, education and training, and other environmental, business, and social requirements. The prompt renewal of all harvest sites by planting or natural renewal is also required.
Climate change
The zone of latitude occupied by the boreal forest has experienced some of the greatest temperature increases on Earth, especially during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Winter temperatures have increased more than summer temperatures. The number of days with extremely cold temperatures (e.g., −20 to −40 °C) has decreased irregularly but systematically in nearly all the boreal region, allowing better survival for tree-damaging insects. In summer, the daily low temperature has increased more than the daily high temperature. In Fairbanks, Alaska, the length of the frost-free season has increased from 60–90 days in the early twentieth century to about 120 days a century later. Summer warming has been shown to increase water stress and reduce tree growth in dry areas of the southern boreal forest in central Alaska, western Canada and portions of far eastern Russia. Precipitation is relatively abundant in Scandinavia, Finland, northwest Russia and eastern Canada, where a longer growth season (i.e. the period when sap flow is not impeded by frozen water) accelerate tree growth. As a consequence of this warming trend, the warmer parts of the boreal forests are susceptible to replacement by grassland, parkland or temperate forest.
In Siberia, the taiga is converting from predominantly needle-shedding larch trees to evergreen conifers in response to a warming climate. This is likely to further accelerate warming, as the evergreen trees will absorb more of the sun’s rays. Given the vast size of the area, such a change has the potential to affect areas well outside of the region. In much of the boreal forest in Alaska, the growth of white spruce trees are stunted by unusually warm summers, while trees on some of the coldest fringes of the forest are experiencing faster growth than previously.
Recent years have seen outbreaks of insect pests in forest-destroying plagues: the spruce-bark beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) in Yukon and Alaska; the mountain pine beetle in British Columbia; the aspen-leaf miner; the larch sawfly; the spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana); the spruce coneworm.
Many nations are taking direct steps to protect the ecology of the taiga by prohibiting logging, mining, oil and gas production, and other forms of development. In February 2010 the Canadian government established protection for 13,000 square kilometres of boreal forest by creating a new 10,700 square kilometre park reserve in the Mealy Mountains area of eastern Canada and a 3,000 square kilometre waterway provincial park that follows alongside the Eagle River from headwaters to sea.
Two Canadian provincial governments, Ontario and Quebec, introduced measures in 2008 that would protect at least half of their northern boreal forest. Although both provinces admitted it will take years to plan, work with Aboriginal and local communities and ultimately map out precise boundaries of the areas off-limits to development, the measures are expected to create some of the largest protected areas networks in the world once completed.
The taiga stores enormous quantities of carbon, more than the world’s temperate and tropical forests combined, much of it in wetlands and peatland. In fact, current estimates place boreal forests as storing twice as much carbon per unit area as tropical forests.
A Bald Eagle scans for prey from its perch, snow-covered branch of a Cottonwood tree.
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Bald Eagle
Multiple versions of this image are available at My Zazzle store.
The Bald Eagle, as the only sea eagle endemic to North America, can truly be said to be the All-American bird. Its range includes most of Canada and Alaska, all of the contiguous United States, and northern Mexico. If its territory has access to open water, it remains there year-round, but if the body of water freezes during the winter, making it impossible to obtain food, it migrates to the south or to the coast.
The Bald Eagle placed in the genus Haliaeetus (sea eagles) gets both its common and specific scientific names from the distinctive appearance of the adult’s head. The scientific name is derived from Haliaeetus, from Greek hali = salt/ocean, aeetus = eagle, and leucocephalus, Latinized Ancient Greek for “white head,” leuco = white, cephalis = head.
Bald Eagles are powerful fliers, and soar on thermal convection currents. They reach speeds of 35–43 mph when gliding and flapping, and about 30 mph while carrying fish. Diving speed is between 75–99 mph, though they seldom dive vertically. An eagle’s eye is almost as large as a human’s, but its sharpness is at least four times that of a person with perfect vision.
The Bald Eagle is an opportunistic feeder subsisting primarily on fish, which it swoops down and snatches from the water with its talons. It builds the largest nest of any North American bird and the largest tree nests ever recorded for any animal species, up to 13 ft deep, 8.2 ft wide, and one metric ton (1.1 tons) in weight.
The Bald Eagle’s call consists of weak staccato, chirping whistles, kleek kik ik ik ik, somewhat similar in cadence to a gull’s call.
The Bald Eagle typically requires old-growth and mature stands of coniferous or hardwood trees for perching, roosting, and nesting. Tree species is less important than the tree’s height, composition and location. Selected trees must have good visibility, be over 66 ft tall, an open structure, and proximity to prey. Perhaps of the paramount importance for this species is an abundance of comparatively large trees surrounding the body of water.
The species is typically quite sensitive to human disturbance while nesting. While wintering, Bald Eagles tend to be less habitat and disturbance sensitive. They will commonly congregate at spots with plentiful perches and waters with plentiful prey and (in Northern climes) partially unfrozen waters. Alternately, non-breeding or wintering Bald Eagles, particularly in areas with a lack of human disturbance, spend their time in various upland, terrestrial habitats sometimes quite far away from waterways. In the Northern half of North America (especially the interior portion), this terrestrial inhabitance by Bald Eagles tends to be especially prevalent because unfrozen water may not be accessible. Upland wintering habitats often consist of open habitats with concentrations of medium-sized mammals, such as prairies, meadows or tundra, or open forests with regular carrion access
Mammalian prey includes rabbits, hares, ground squirrels, Raccoons, Muskrats, beaver, and deer fawns. Newborn, dead, sickly or already injured mammals are often targeted. However, more formidable prey such as adult raccoons and sub-adult beavers are sometimes attacked. Together with the Golden Eagle, Bald Eagles are occasionally accused of predating livestock, especially sheep. There are a handful of proven cases of lamb predation by Bald Eagles but they are much less likely to attack a healthy lamb than a Golden Eagle and both species prefer native, wild prey and are unlikely to cause any extensive determent to human livelihoods.
To hunt fish, the eagle swoops down over the water and snatches the fish out of the water with its talons. They eat by holding the fish in one claw and tearing the flesh with the other. Eagles have structures on their toes called spicules that allow them to grasp fish. Osprey also have this adaptation. Bald Eagles have powerful talons and have been recorded flying with a 15 lb Mule Deer fawn.This feat is the record for the heaviest load carrying ever verified for a flying bird. It has been estimated that the gripping power (pounds by square inch) of the bald eagle is ten times greater than that of a human. When hunting concentrated prey, a successful catch which often results in the hunting eagle being pursued by other eagles and needing to find an isolated perch for consumption if it is able to carry it away successfully.
On June 28, 2007 the Department of Interior took the American bald eagle off the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened. Bald eagles are still protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. The number of nesting pairs in the lower 48 United States increased 10-fold, from less than 450 in the early 1960s, to more than 4,500 adult bald eagle nesting pairs in the 1990s. In the Southeast, for example, there were about 980 breeding pairs in 1993, up from about 400 in 1981. The largest concentrations were in the states of Florida and Louisiana. Today, the largest concentrations in the lower 48 are in Florida, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
A nice rural scene here. A dilapidated, old, red truck sitting near an abandoned cabin.
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The Old Red Truck
Not! I manufactured the image from three photographs I took in Sandpont, ID over a period of years using free software.
Here is the original photograph of the truck. You will notice that the truck is white. Transforming it into a red truck was a bit more difficult than it would otherwise have been as the color was so close to that of the snow. Still, it only took a few minutes.
The Old White Truck
Here is the original photo of the house. Notice that the image is horizontally reversed.
Ramshackle Cabin
And here is the original background image, also horizontally reversed, from some years ago.
Background Image
The three photos assembled into one. As I was not trying trying to create an image to fool the Internet public I did not take much care with precision cropping of outlines; or matching hues, saturation or luminosity. Not bad though; for a quickie job.
Three Photos Into One
Be warned You can’t trust what you see. There are many people out there trying to put one over on you.
As I have noted before; sometimes you just get likely. I came up with a random, sort of, fractal the other day resembling a highly-stylized human wearing fur clothing. It even appears that there is a wind-blown fur ruff around the parka hood. I thought it would make a nice addition to my series of postage stamps for an independent Alaska; all I needed to do was drop into an appropriate polar background an add a harpoon based on an actual Inuit weapon. The result is below. I hope you like it. “Tuvaaq” is the word for hunter in Inupiaq, the Inuit language.
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Tuvaaq
Here’s the fractal without the fancy background.
Fractal Hunter
Both versions of the image are available on a number of items at my Zazzle store.
Jack Frost making art on your windows. I added a wintery background to a random fractal which resembles ice patterns on a window pane. The glowing blobs of color, elements of the original fractal image, are just a nice plus.
The winter solstice arrives tomorrow.
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Jack Frost At Work
Those patterns on your windows during winter appear as water vapor crystallizes. The patterns are caused by slight changes in the temperature of the air, but other factors, related to the formation of snow and other forms of frozen precipitation, also contribute to variations in design.
They often begin when a film of condensed moisture is frozen by a puff of cold air, and the glass gets a thin sheet of ice. Perhaps another film of moisture forms and trickles down, cutting ditches and tiny streams through the underlying ice, while another puff of cold air freezes this moisture. New frozen vapor molecules may add microscopic ice crystals. The freezing and melting process repeats again and again. Bit by bit the subtle weather conditions etch the window panes with patterns.
Like snowflakes, frost needs a nucleus around which to form. Ice crystals form on dust, small bumps and imperfections in a windowpane, or the texture of plants. Then frost grows as more ice crystals form on the ones that have gotten started. It can make fanciful feathery or spiky patterns.
In contrast, when water vapor condenses into water droplets on a cold windowpane and these droplets then freeze slowly, the ice has a different look, as seen in the close-up photo of frozen condensation droplets. The large bubble-like shapes in the photo are frozen condensation droplets, and the many small lines on their surface are cracks that formed as the ice froze and expanded.
UPDATE November 8, 2012:
A project is in the works to use a remotely-piloted, camera-equipped drone to search for evidence of Sasquatch in the western United States. More information at The Falcon Project. I urge anyone who is able to make a modest donation to support the effort.
Though I think there is a very good chance that Sasquatch (Bigfoot) exists it is obvious that I do have fun with the idea.
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Sasquatch Security
If you live or travel in rural areas of the Pacific Northwest you may possibly come across one of the region’s lesser-known species of native wildlife. “Sasquatch” is an anglicized derivative of the word “Sésquac” which means “wild man” in a Salish Native American language. Sasquatch is reported to be a large, hairy ape-like creature, ranging between 6–10 feet tall, weighing in excess of 500 pounds, and covered in dark brown or dark reddish hair. Alleged witnesses describe large eyes, a pronounced brow ridge, and a large, low-set forehead; the top of the head has been described as rounded and crested, similar to the sagittal crest of the male gorilla. Sasquatch is commonly reported to have a strong, unpleasant smell. Enormous footprints for which it is named are as large as 24 inches long and 8 inches wide. Tufts of hair of an unidentified primate species are often found. Most scientists say Sasquatch, aka Bigfoot, is nothing but folkloret and attribute sightings or footprints to misidentification or hoaxes. However, some scientists such as Jane Goodall believe it may exist. Based on examination of footprint casts, Professor Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University, an expert on foot morphology and locomotion in primates, believes sufficient evidence exists to warrant to warrant further investigation. One theory suggests Sasquatch are a relic population of ancient hominids which reached North America from Eurasia via the Bering Land Bridge during a period of glaciation. Stories about Sasquatch-like creatures are found among the indigenous population of the Pacific Northwest. The legends existed prior to a single name for the creature. They differed in their details both regionally and between families in the same community. Similar stories are found on every continent except Antarctica to include the Yeti of the Himalayas and the Australian Yowie. Members of the Lummi tell tales about Ts’emekwes, the local version of Bigfoot. The stories are similar to each other in terms of the general descriptions of Ts’emekwes, but details about the creature’s diet and activities differed between the stories of different families. Some regional versions contained more nefarious creatures. The stiyaha or kwi-kwiyai were a nocturnal race that children were told not to say the names of lest the monsters hear and come to carry off a person—sometimes to be killed. In 1847, Paul Kane reported stories by the native people about skoocooms: a race of cannibalistic wild men living on the peak of Mount St. Helens. The skoocooms appear to have been regarded as supernatural, rather than natural. Less menacing versions such as the one recorded by Reverend Elkanah Walker exist. In 1840, Walker, a Protestant missionary, recorded stories of giants among the Native Americans living in Spokane, Washington. The Indians claimed that these giants lived on and around the peaks of nearby mountains and stole salmon from the fishermen’s nets. The local legends were combined together by J. W. Burns in a series of Canadian newspaper articles in the 1920s. Each language had its own name for the local version. Many names meant something along the lines of “wild man” or “hairy man” although other names described common actions it was said to perform (e.g. eating clams). Burns coined the term Sasquatch, which is from the Halkomelem sásq’ets (IPA: [ˈsæsqʼəts]), and used it in his articles to describe a hypothetical single type of creature reflected in these various stories. Burns’s articles popularized both the legend and its new name, making it well known in western Canada before it gained popularity in the United States. For more information on Sasquatch visit the Bigfoot Field Research Organization. BFRO provides a free database to individuals and other organizations. Their internet website includes reports from across North America that have been investigated by researchers to determine credibility
