Pics of the Day: 47-49; Spring’s arrival

The vernal equinox was on March 20, and I think our cherry trees knew. The day before, their buds burst. It was only a light smattering of flowers in their lower branches at first. Then on Sunday, most of the buds except the ones at the crown popped open. Last night, the last of the crown buds transformed into beautiful blush-white blooms. I snapped these pictures yesterday (before the crown buds burst) and noticed a few dozen bees alighting on the flowers to gather pollen. Today, when I stood beneath the trees, I heard the droning “Zzzzzzz zzzzz zzzzzz,” of what must be a hundred bees visiting our earliest spring-time blooms. None of the trees in our yard except the evergreens have any leaves yet, but I did spy a few with binoculars that are unfurling at the crown of one of our poplar trees. And the goldfinches that visit our seed feeder are in the process of molting their beige feathers for the brilliant golden ones that give them their name. Just when I thought I couldn’t stand one more morning of frost and chill, spring is finally here!

{Pic-47}: A bee visits one of the cherry blossoms in our yard.

{Pic-48}: Waking up to these blooms bursting open was quite a sight for my winter-weary eyes.

{Pic-49}: Three large cherry trees line our driveway.

Pics of the Day: 44-46; Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge

{Pic-44}: Ice on the freshwater marsh's edges, Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, N.C. © DeLene Beeland 2011.

{Pic-45}: A skin of ice clings to a branch in a canal on Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, N.C. As the water levels in the canal lowered slightly, the ice was left hanging. © DeLene Beeland 2011

{Pic-46}: A rime of ice drips from the leading edge of a freshwater marsh tapering off into Croatan Sound. Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, N.C. © DeLene Beeland 2011

Pics of the Day: 39-43; China

In 2004, I visited China in December. I’d been doing a lot of photography and someone I knew hired me to come along to photo-document their business trip. We traveled to Shanghai, Harbin, Kunming and Nanjing. These are some of the pictures:

{Pic-39}: This picture was taken in Harbin, China which lies at a latitude several hundred miles north of North Korea. It's the coldest I've ever been in my life; yet the people of Harbin still rode their bikes and walked everywhere. We saw many carts pulled by both cyclists and donkeys, though this was the first cart I saw that had both a donkey and a bike. © DeLene Beeland 2005

Pics of the Day: 36-38; Grand Canyon

Pic 36: Grand Canyon, Bright Angel trail © 2005 DeLene Beeland

Pic-37: Grand Canyon, South Kaibab trail © 2005 DeLene Beeland

Pic-38: Grand Canyon, Bright Angel trail © 2005 DeLene Beeland

Pics of the Day 34-35: Jasper Provincial Park, Canada

{Pic-34}: A waterfall in Jasper Provincial Park. I climbed up its slope in July 2008, and we camped at the head of the lake behind it. © 2008 DeLene Beeland

{Pic-35}: Lake behind the waterfall in pic-34. © 2008 DeLene Beeland

Pics of the Day: 31-33; Monterey Bay Aquarium

{31}: Monterey Bay Aquarium, San Francisco. © DeLene Beeland 2004

{32}: Colorful bivalves and invertebrates at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. © DeLene Beeland 2004

{33}: Drifters at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. © DeLene Beeland 2004

Defenders of Wildlife quits wolf-livestock compensation program

On Aug. 18, 2010, the president of Defenders of Wildlife sent a letter to Rowan Gould, the acting director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, announcing that the non-profit was ceasing its 23-year-old compensation fund. The fund has paid out $1.4 million to livestock producers for verified losses attributable to wolves — whether they were reintroduced wolves or naturally re-colonizing wolves — throughout the Northern Rocky Mountains and the desert southwest. The letter announces that the Defenders compensation program will end on September 10, 2010. Ranchers won’t be left entirely in the cold though, new federal legislation provides funding to assist states in crafting their own compensation programs, and Defenders has announced that it will be shifting its focus to its Wolf Coexistence Partnership program. This program has long lived in the shadow of the livestock compensation program at DOW. It aims to help livestock producers figure out (and pay for) pro-active solutions that reduce livestock-wolf conflicts in the first place. Whether it’s penning pregnant cows and buying winter hay, hiring range riders, or putting up turbo fladry — the proactive program attempts to teach ranchers new solutions or enable them to enact solutions they could not otherwise afford that have a high potential for deterring wolf attacks. Personally, I am surprised and a little pleased to see this announcement. There is a growing body of literature suggesting that paying livestock producers for wolf-killed cattle does more harm than good. I truly believe that Defenders entered into their program with the right intentions of trying to help protect wolves, and to remove the economic burden to ranchers of placing a predator on the landscape, but I think over the years we’ve seen that reliance on a payment program short-circuits encouraging ranchers to adopt methods that deter attacks in the first place. Later this week or next  I will try to do a post on the pros and cons of compensation, and alternative models that switch the frame from a negative incentive (payment for a wolf-killed carcass) to a positive incentive (such as payment for densities of predators on a rancher’s land). (At the moment, I’m traveling for work so it may be a little while before I can get to this.)

Pics of the Day: 29-30; Wasson Peak, Tucson, Arizona

{Pic-29}: View from Wasson Peak near to Tucson, Arizona. Ocotillio, in the foreground arcs into the sky. Santa Rita Mountains in the background. © 2005 DeLene Beeland

{Pic-30}: View from Wasson Peak near to Tucson, Arizona. This view is looking toward the city valley, with the Catalina Mountains on the left and the Rincon Mountains on the right. © 2005 DeLene Beeland

Pic of the Day: 28; Newnans Lake, Florida

I shot this image at sunrise one spring morning in 2005. I was visiting the lake every three days to count birds for a project in my general ecology class. The small study consisted of comparing the species diversity present at man-made and natural water bodies around town. One morning, I watched two red-shouldered hawks copulate on a telephone wire near to my observation site. Another morning, at one of the man-made water bodies (a retention pond near a Home Depot) I spotted a rare wanderer, a greater white-fronted goose, hanging out with about 300 muscovy ducks. The local paper ran a story on it (the print version ran under the headline, Goose on the loose). Local records for the county revealed it was only the 10th sighting in 100 years of this species. If you click on the news link above, you can view the goose.

Pic-28: Newnans Lake, Florida. © 2005 DeLene Beeland

Pic of the Day: 26; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Pic-26: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. View of the city taken from Corcovado mountain, with my back to the Cristo Redentor statue. © 2004 DeLene Beeland