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We went for a walk in the morning to look at the neighborhood of Magnolia--we hadn't really seen it in the daylight.
( Read more... )
We went for a walk in the morning to look at the neighborhood of Magnolia--we hadn't really seen it in the daylight.
( Read more... )
"Good" wasps?
Jun. 28th, 2013 06:14 pm
In a couple weeks I'm going to be giving a presentation on yellow jackets to our ZooTeens (teenagers hired to work at the zoo for the summer). My primary objective is to turn these young people into my eyes and ears and get early warning about yellow jacket situations before they are hopeless. My secondary objective is to educate them about insects in general and wasps in particular, and get across the idea that these animals are mostly positive actors in our ecosystem, and it's only when you introduce large amounts of human garbage that they become problematic. Perhaps I'm not being totally honest about my primary and secondary objectives.
I haven't decided how deep to get into the subject. I definitely want to describe the differences between solitary wasps, social wasps, and bees, but do I bring up ichneumons, like this beauty here? I think I probably will.
( Snapshot hidden to protect the suddenly and surprisingly included in the snapshot project without proper notice )
Before the class I walked around looking for mushrooms--it had been extremely dry, and I wanted to make sure we were going to find some! I passed this guy on the path and we went our separate ways.
( Also some mushrooms )
Before the class I walked around looking for mushrooms--it had been extremely dry, and I wanted to make sure we were going to find some! I passed this guy on the path and we went our separate ways.
( Also some mushrooms )
3:00 snapshot #829
Oct. 16th, 2011 07:43 pm
Heading back down the trail to the Nature Center at Drumlin Farm, during the Fungi Field Walk!
We saw Winecaps, conifer witch's butter, false wood ear, narrow mazegill, Stereum, turkey tail, Amanita citrina, carbon balls, cheese polypore, Irpex lacteus, red Russulas, coral mushrooms, eyelash cup, common brown cup, and others!
3:00 snapshot #824
Oct. 13th, 2011 08:29 pm
The view out my office window includes mushrooms now.
Earlier this week I did a mushroom walk for work (fully voluntary participation for all, but fairly official) and it went over really well. It inspired me to consider dumping the powerpoint presentation part of my Drumlin Farm mushroom walk. It's good to sit and get some background, but it always runs too long, and people just want to be outside. For nature stuff, the less tech the better.
Speaking of which, I have a Fungi Field Walk at Drumlin Farm this coming Saturday. The same day there is a zookeeper association event that I've done a lot of work for, but won't be able to do anything that day obviously because of the class. I'm going to rush home from Drumlin, change into Derek Smalls, and rush over to the zoo.
It's fun, my life, but I would like it to be a bit less busy for a little while, so I can relax, and maybe putter around the house a bit more.
Cameras and other technology
Oct. 11th, 2011 09:44 pmPerhaps you've noticed, perhaps not, but I've been using an iPod touch to take some of my recent 3:00 snapshots. The most recently posted one shows heavy grain, due to the dark setting, but the others have been okay. I've been considering buying (again) a small point and shoot so that I can take snapshots without hauling out the DLSR and making it look like an event. Then my friend Alex gave me the iPod, and I've been experimenting with it, and it seems to be okay for the snapshots. The pictures aren't good enough to rely on for fine art or for natural history identifications, but for snapshots they are more than adequate.
It's nice to be able to take halfway decent photos and then instantly send them to twitter as well. (FYI, add me @urbpan and scroll back, to see me in my halloween costume wig) I feel like I'm edging toward the kind of real-time grass-roots nature blogger I fantasized about being a decade ago.
in other news, the cottage is full of dogs, as we are taking care of The Jim for Alex, and are fostering Preston, and haven't strangled our other dogs yet. We're holding sanity together pretty well considering.
Today I did a mushroom walk for my work (A "quicky keeper training" class) and it went well despite 4 days of dry weather. Lots of folks showed up, and I got a flattering/embarrassing round of applause at the end. Unlike the other mushroom walks I have led in the past, this one had no introductory PowerPoint presentation. No matter what, I always walk away from a class or a nature walk with the feeling that I needed to add more. I give the students my email address, but it's rare that anyone contacts me. I guess whatever sliver of my personality is a perfectionist wants to fix my shoddy class and make it right, but I suppose I have to let it go.
This Saturday I have another (the last of the year) mushroom class scheduled, and I'm thinking I should greatly reduce or scrap the PowerPoint this time around. The information is in my head, and it comes out fine in the field, when we're actually looking at mushrooms. And people really just want to go out into the woods and talk, so who am I to make them sit and stare at a screen. Later that day the zookeeper association (that I am vice president of) is holding one of its major events. The timing is such that I will have to rush to finish the class, come home and put on my costume, then rush off to the event, confident that everything has been put into place without me. It's almost comforting, knowing that there's nothing I can do to fix anything at that stage.
It's nice to be able to take halfway decent photos and then instantly send them to twitter as well. (FYI, add me @urbpan and scroll back, to see me in my halloween costume wig) I feel like I'm edging toward the kind of real-time grass-roots nature blogger I fantasized about being a decade ago.
in other news, the cottage is full of dogs, as we are taking care of The Jim for Alex, and are fostering Preston, and haven't strangled our other dogs yet. We're holding sanity together pretty well considering.
Today I did a mushroom walk for my work (A "quicky keeper training" class) and it went well despite 4 days of dry weather. Lots of folks showed up, and I got a flattering/embarrassing round of applause at the end. Unlike the other mushroom walks I have led in the past, this one had no introductory PowerPoint presentation. No matter what, I always walk away from a class or a nature walk with the feeling that I needed to add more. I give the students my email address, but it's rare that anyone contacts me. I guess whatever sliver of my personality is a perfectionist wants to fix my shoddy class and make it right, but I suppose I have to let it go.
This Saturday I have another (the last of the year) mushroom class scheduled, and I'm thinking I should greatly reduce or scrap the PowerPoint this time around. The information is in my head, and it comes out fine in the field, when we're actually looking at mushrooms. And people really just want to go out into the woods and talk, so who am I to make them sit and stare at a screen. Later that day the zookeeper association (that I am vice president of) is holding one of its major events. The timing is such that I will have to rush to finish the class, come home and put on my costume, then rush off to the event, confident that everything has been put into place without me. It's almost comforting, knowing that there's nothing I can do to fix anything at that stage.
Mushrooms of Drumlin Farm
Sep. 26th, 2011 07:00 pm
Yesterday I led a "Fungi Field Walk" at Drumlin Farm. Because of this summer's wet weather, it's been an incredible few weeks for mushrooms. I had the biggest group I've ever led (the registrar stopped letting people in after the 16th person) and found more mushrooms than on any other walk. I got there early and researched some things I was a little unsteady on, and we had a great time. This is a clump of Mycena mushrooms, probably M. galericulata. We came across many clumps of them in many locations.
( Read more... )
GLOVES NOT NECESSARY
Aug. 29th, 2011 09:28 pm
I got a little flack from some fellow mycophiles yesterday. It seems that several of my photos of mushrooms include my own gloved hand. My hand is gloved, I hasten to add, because I have taken these photos during the course of my job, at which I spend much of the day in nitrile gloves. Perhaps I am installing stable fly traps, which are basically huge strips of adhesive tape paper clipped to a cylinder--sticky work! Or maybe I'm handling feces or gore or poison etc. At any moment I could come across an interesting bit of fungus! Good thing I brought my camera. From now on the next step will be: remove those gloves, then take out the camera. But if the gloves aren't gory or gluey or tainted with toxins, what's the big deal?
"…Seriously: as a rabid mycological dismisinformationist… my discomfort with this photo is that your less myco-informed Facebook friends might infer that you're wearing the glove to protect you from absorbing mycotoxins through your skin: 'My friend… who knows quite a bit about wild mushrooms, wears vinyl gloves when handling them.'"In politics, we concern ourselves not only with impropriety but also with the *appearance* of impropriety; similarly, in education (and on here, I consider teaching my top priority) we concern ourselves not only with avoiding explicit misinformation but also with making any inaccurate implications, however inadvertent they may be. Throw down the gauntlet, I say!"© David William Fischer
Okay, David, I take your point.
To all who missed it, here it is again:
IT IS PERFECTLY SAFE TO HANDLE WILD MUSHROOMS. EVEN POISONOUS ONES. THE POISON WILL NOT COME THROUGH YOUR SKIN AND MAKE YOU SICK OR KILL YOU.
In fact, here's some comments to the above italicized remark:
During our ID sessions I'll often taste a mushroom (swirl and spit) if it's a useful keying tool. I swear half the group looks like they're going to burn me at the stake for heresy when I do that. -Another Mycologist
That's right, this other mushroom guy pops these things into his mouth and mixes the flesh with his saliva. And so far he is still alive, though he admits that the other people in his mushroom club look at him like a heretic.
Suffice it to say, handling and collecting wild mushrooms is quite safe. In the classes I teach I make this quite clear, although I do recommend that people wash their hands when they get home. If nothing else, to wash away the poison ivy, nematodes, and flesh-eating bacteria they may have picked up along the way.
3:00 snapshot #725
Mar. 31st, 2011 05:20 pm
A souvenir from one of my alternate life history dream jobs.
I am most happy when I am learning, or teaching. Fortunately I have many upcoming opportunities for both.
This Sunday I am leading an "urban hike" as part of "Ecolympics" at Boston University.
On Saturday the 9th, I am taking part in a class on keeping Backyard Chickens, at Drumlin farm.
Monday the 11th I am teaching a course on Pest Control for Zookeepers.
Sunday, May 22nd, I am leading a Fungi Field Walk at Drumlin Farm.
Likewise, I am doing that program again Sunday, July 17th.
There needs to be more learning in there! Well, I'll take some mushroom classes with the Boston Mycological Club, and I'll have some zookeeper training courses, so that will have to do for now!
Mushroom Class People
Sep. 28th, 2009 08:56 pmOn the off chance that someone who has gone on a Fungi Field Walk with me is reading this, I thought I'd bring up some relevant mushroom information. Other people might like it too.
One of the mental notes I've left for myself and misplaced several times is "Research how the mushroom called 'carbon balls' distributes its spores." Carbon balls (Daldinia concentrica, also called 'coal fungus') are the fruiting bodies of a wood-digesting fungus. They are dark brown to black, and hard and dry to the touch. If you crush them between your thumb and finger, it's feels similar to crushing a well-burnt piece of wood. If you slice them with a knife, you can see concentric rings of growth inside (you may also, as I did, see insect larvae hiding inside, as Tom Volk did).
What I didn't know (until I consulted Tom Volk's page) was where the spores were in this fungus. It looks kind of like a puffball, but the inside of puffballs turn to spores, and that doesn't appear to be what's happening with carbon balls. The concentric rings are the clue. The spores are produced by cells on the surface of the mushroom. The mushroom is perennial, and with each season of growth, it adds another new layer of spore-producing cells.
If I find some in the city, I will write up a More Urban Species entry for them.
This mushroom is closely related to Dead man's fingers.
One of the mental notes I've left for myself and misplaced several times is "Research how the mushroom called 'carbon balls' distributes its spores." Carbon balls (Daldinia concentrica, also called 'coal fungus') are the fruiting bodies of a wood-digesting fungus. They are dark brown to black, and hard and dry to the touch. If you crush them between your thumb and finger, it's feels similar to crushing a well-burnt piece of wood. If you slice them with a knife, you can see concentric rings of growth inside (you may also, as I did, see insect larvae hiding inside, as Tom Volk did).
What I didn't know (until I consulted Tom Volk's page) was where the spores were in this fungus. It looks kind of like a puffball, but the inside of puffballs turn to spores, and that doesn't appear to be what's happening with carbon balls. The concentric rings are the clue. The spores are produced by cells on the surface of the mushroom. The mushroom is perennial, and with each season of growth, it adds another new layer of spore-producing cells.
If I find some in the city, I will write up a More Urban Species entry for them.
This mushroom is closely related to Dead man's fingers.
Mushroom Edibility FAQ
Sep. 24th, 2009 11:21 amBehind the cut are a series of questions about mushrooms, mostly about edibility since that's what people like to know about. The natural history and ecology stuff I'll cover in the class but I thought this might make a good handout for people what do you think?
( click for FAQs )
I've answered mushroom questions here and here before, but if you have any more (especially you new people) please ask away!
( click for FAQs )
I've answered mushroom questions here and here before, but if you have any more (especially you new people) please ask away!
Your mushroom question, revisited
May. 19th, 2009 07:57 pmI'm teaching another mushroom class this Saturday. I'm working on working on a powerpoint presentation for it, or at least consolidating two handouts into one concise and useful one. It was very helpful to prepare for my last one by asking you all your mushroom questions! Here are last years'. Any new questions I can answer for you?
Random life update
Mar. 1st, 2009 10:41 amThe house sparrow chatter outside makes it sound like it's a beautiful warm spring day. In fact we're getting our traditional March First snowstorm, first of two parts. Today it's light and fluffy but sticking. Tomorrow it's supposed to pile up to nearly a foot. I guess my Texan coworker will get her chance to go sledding after all.
Life has been interesting, maybe a little too interesting. I haven't really posted about it on livejournal since my mom died; I've been going a little bonkers on facebook, where people know me as me, and not as The Urban Pantheist. There I feel a little better about posting music videos and trading funny insults with old friends.
I took a gun safety course yesterday, and fired a real gun for the first time in my life. I can see where people think that's fun. I'd like to go back to the range and try shooting with a little more distance--I shot the hell out of the target at 15 feet, but that's just outside of point blank, really. Being in a gun club in Massachusetts was interesting. The instructor and much of the club staff are clearly in the "liberals want to take my guns" camp. And they kind of have a point, but they aren't going to convince many liberals that there's anything wrong with that, with their wide-eyed tinfoil hat approach to the issue.
The zoo has an annual film festival, composed of 10 minute movies made by staff. I went last year and it was really fun, with movies ranging from painfully amateurish to charmingly amateurish. This year I was asked to emcee the event. I agreed, but I really have no idea what I'm going to do. Some people want me to be funny, but I think the organizers just want someone who doesn't think they have to put on a show. Last years' emcee changed his costume four or five times, and clearly thought this was funny.
I also agreed to be on a committee to help plan a zoo trivia night, and zoo movie night (where we show hollywood movies in the zoo for staff to enjoy). So far the increased stress of this is mild, but as the events get closer, I can tell they will take a toll.
All this stuff is happening in the next several weeks. With the spring months, peoples' calendars thaw out, and tons of events come splashing out everywhere. Also in April I'll be teaching a Pest Control Class, starting the stable fly and mosquito control programs, and going on vacation for a week. I know the vacation is the good part, but it's hard not to see it as a week that just disappears from the calendar while events fill up all around it. After that is a spring Mushroom class, and I really should rejoin the mycology society so that I can brush up on mushrooms and actually sound like I know something.
And I haven't run an urban nature walk in months, owing to family stuff and hatred of winter. Now I'd really like to bring the group to Dane Park but it would best if I could find someone who knows a lot about geology to help guide us through "terranes" and the continent of Avalon and such. Anyone know a geologist who would like to help?
Then it's summer, and I'd really like to not have anything planned for it, but I also would like to get out and enjoy what could be my last summer in New England for a while. Oh, and there's a distinct possibility that we could move to another unit in our building in the summer, and have our current unit renovated.
Time to stop volunteering to do things, I think.
(also somewhere in there Maggie will have her second surgery, we'll go to vermont, my dad and I will go overseas, and then it's fall)
Life has been interesting, maybe a little too interesting. I haven't really posted about it on livejournal since my mom died; I've been going a little bonkers on facebook, where people know me as me, and not as The Urban Pantheist. There I feel a little better about posting music videos and trading funny insults with old friends.
I took a gun safety course yesterday, and fired a real gun for the first time in my life. I can see where people think that's fun. I'd like to go back to the range and try shooting with a little more distance--I shot the hell out of the target at 15 feet, but that's just outside of point blank, really. Being in a gun club in Massachusetts was interesting. The instructor and much of the club staff are clearly in the "liberals want to take my guns" camp. And they kind of have a point, but they aren't going to convince many liberals that there's anything wrong with that, with their wide-eyed tinfoil hat approach to the issue.
The zoo has an annual film festival, composed of 10 minute movies made by staff. I went last year and it was really fun, with movies ranging from painfully amateurish to charmingly amateurish. This year I was asked to emcee the event. I agreed, but I really have no idea what I'm going to do. Some people want me to be funny, but I think the organizers just want someone who doesn't think they have to put on a show. Last years' emcee changed his costume four or five times, and clearly thought this was funny.
I also agreed to be on a committee to help plan a zoo trivia night, and zoo movie night (where we show hollywood movies in the zoo for staff to enjoy). So far the increased stress of this is mild, but as the events get closer, I can tell they will take a toll.
All this stuff is happening in the next several weeks. With the spring months, peoples' calendars thaw out, and tons of events come splashing out everywhere. Also in April I'll be teaching a Pest Control Class, starting the stable fly and mosquito control programs, and going on vacation for a week. I know the vacation is the good part, but it's hard not to see it as a week that just disappears from the calendar while events fill up all around it. After that is a spring Mushroom class, and I really should rejoin the mycology society so that I can brush up on mushrooms and actually sound like I know something.
And I haven't run an urban nature walk in months, owing to family stuff and hatred of winter. Now I'd really like to bring the group to Dane Park but it would best if I could find someone who knows a lot about geology to help guide us through "terranes" and the continent of Avalon and such. Anyone know a geologist who would like to help?
Then it's summer, and I'd really like to not have anything planned for it, but I also would like to get out and enjoy what could be my last summer in New England for a while. Oh, and there's a distinct possibility that we could move to another unit in our building in the summer, and have our current unit renovated.
Time to stop volunteering to do things, I think.
(also somewhere in there Maggie will have her second surgery, we'll go to vermont, my dad and I will go overseas, and then it's fall)
Tags:
quick random
Apr. 15th, 2008 05:51 ampolitics -- The latest ammo against Barack Obama is the charge that he is 'elitist.' This baffles me on so many different levels, but I'll keep it brief. In fact, I'll copy from merrydian, who saw Jon Stewart's take on it: If you are trying to be president, and you don't think you're better than other people on some level, what the hell are you doing? On the other hand, wasn't just a couple weeks ago that we were worried that Obama was an anti-white-church-going ignorant black racist? In what world do these two charges mesh, except that of desperate character assassination?
we've had a bumpkin pretending that he didn't think he was better than other people for the past 8 years running roughshod over the constitution and putting more and more money into the hands of the actual elite. i'm ready for an administration of people that actually sound intelligent, if elite, to change a few things.
this week i co-teach, or help teach--it's not really clear which--a keeper training class on pest control. it's not a ton of pressure, but i'm a little nervous. the person who has been teaching it is eager to pass it on, and i'm pretty sure i'll be teaching it very differently when i get the responsibility myself. i'd like to approach it from a natural history perspective--what in an animal's evolution makes it a pest? but i think the emphasis will be on policy enforcement for a reluctant staff. we'll see, it could cover a lot of ground.
spring struggles to exist in boston. according to accuweather it's 25 degrees f right now. i'd like to get back to riding my bike to work, but i'm just not as adventurous as i once was. plus it's hard to imagine waking up even earlier. or cutting into my precious lj time.
i'm reading a book called 'pit bull placebo' which is about how pitbulls are treated in the media, with a history of dog attack stories from the late 1800's to now. it's not very well written, and it's clearly preaching to the choir, but it has a lot of good factoids in it. i'll make a post just about this book when i'm done.
my obama icon is from a poster by shepard fairey, of 'andre the giant has a posse' fame.
http://obeygiant.com/
we've had a bumpkin pretending that he didn't think he was better than other people for the past 8 years running roughshod over the constitution and putting more and more money into the hands of the actual elite. i'm ready for an administration of people that actually sound intelligent, if elite, to change a few things.
this week i co-teach, or help teach--it's not really clear which--a keeper training class on pest control. it's not a ton of pressure, but i'm a little nervous. the person who has been teaching it is eager to pass it on, and i'm pretty sure i'll be teaching it very differently when i get the responsibility myself. i'd like to approach it from a natural history perspective--what in an animal's evolution makes it a pest? but i think the emphasis will be on policy enforcement for a reluctant staff. we'll see, it could cover a lot of ground.
spring struggles to exist in boston. according to accuweather it's 25 degrees f right now. i'd like to get back to riding my bike to work, but i'm just not as adventurous as i once was. plus it's hard to imagine waking up even earlier. or cutting into my precious lj time.
i'm reading a book called 'pit bull placebo' which is about how pitbulls are treated in the media, with a history of dog attack stories from the late 1800's to now. it's not very well written, and it's clearly preaching to the choir, but it has a lot of good factoids in it. i'll make a post just about this book when i'm done.
my obama icon is from a poster by shepard fairey, of 'andre the giant has a posse' fame.
http://obeygiant.com/
