Birds and Cats: Hairy Woodpeckers Are Much Bigger Than Downey's - Someone's Missing Their Cat

Whenever we spot a woodpecker in the backyard, it looks a lot like this one.  The bird books identify this as either a Downey or a hairy woodpecker.  We've decided, in the past, it's been a Downey, because the beak was short.

Well, the other day this giant woodpecker was in the back.  After some uncertainty, we finally figured out it was a Hairy woodpecker.  There is just no mistaking one from the other because of the size.  Of course, you can't always be sure how big a bird is off in the distance.  But clearly this one was significantly larger than the other ones we've seen.  And if you look closely the beak is almost as long as the rest of his head.

The magpies that have been upturning leaves in the yard as the snow melts, and hop about the branches in the trees were there too.  And while they watched the woodpecker, they kept a safe social distance for the 15 minutes or so the woodpecker was there.

Here's a Downey that visited last September.  He's much closer to me than the Hairy, and significantly smaller.  (The book says Downey's are about 6 inches and Hairy's are about 9 inches)

I saw this ad the other day in the newspaper.  It's just another ad for a lost cat.  Until you see the date.  Five years is a long time.

I did try to call to find out the story but I got a recording saying the person wasn't accepting calls at this time.

"Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats "

Iguazú, Argentina 2019

The Sun Magazine* has a section called The Dog Eared Page, where the publish works that have been from the January 2020 issue, is about hummingbirds and hearts.
published before.  This one,

"A hummingbird’s heart beats ten times a second. A hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser. . .
"To drive those metabolisms they have race-car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate. Their hearts are built of thinner, leaner fibers than ours. Their arteries are stiffer and more taut. They have more mitochondria in their heart muscles — anything to gulp more oxygen. Their hearts are stripped to the skin for the war against gravity and inertia, the mad search for food, the insane idea of flight. The price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature. It’s expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine. Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise, and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old."

Then he makes a stark contrast.

"The biggest heart in the world is inside the blue whale. It weighs more than seven tons. It’s as big as a room. It is a room, with four chambers. A child could walk around it, head high, bending only to step through the valves. The valves are as big as the swinging doors in a saloon."

Most of us know so little about the natural world, a world we have tried to set ourselves apart from.  But, we too, are in the continuum from hummingbird to blue whale.  Our hearts are also four chambered.  Some specialists know a lot about hummingbirds or about blue whales.  But as profession of science has required more and more specialization, many scientists know a lot about a very small portion of the universe.  Knowing nature holistically is not the specialty of science, yet it's what we need, so that we understand how our actions affect everything else.  How extracting oil affects the air, the earth, the water, and all the living things near and far.  How it affects human health, wealth, values, morality.

Juneau,  Alaska 2008

*The Sun Magazine is a wonderful magazine with interviews, poetry, short stories, readers' stories based on a set theme, and other insightful writing.  It's also ad free.  You can see an article or two online without a subscription, but you can see all the titles over the years.  

Magpie Visits And I'm Reading The Overstory

 Richard Powers' The Overstory is a great distraction during a pandemic.  Here's just one illuminating quote:

“He reads the encyclopedia article on mental disorders.  The section on diagnosing schizophrenia contains this sentence:  Beliefs should not be considered delusional if they are in keeping with societal norms."

Beauty Break

Enough of this COVID-19.  Bright sunshine sparkling back from dazzling snow outside.  Small wonders inside.

Enjoying Early Spring On Bainbridge Island

Crocus all over in the last couple of days.  Note saffron comes from crocus stamens, but only crocus sativus which blooms in the fall.  

 American Wigeons

This mallard picture is straight from the disk.  No photoshop or any other adjustments.

A Northern Shoveler

A calm windless day

Walking in the park across the street from where my granddaughter was having her choir class.  

Continued Frosty Sunshine

It's still a mystery how birds, like this raven, can survive wearing the same set of 'clothes' at 5˚F below and 80˚F above.



This was yesterday morning walking back from breakfast with friends.  If you're dressed right for the weather, it isn't cold.


I didn't post this yesterday because I really wanted people to read the Willie Stark shakedown post, because I think it helps us understand how 'quid pro quo' aren't as explicit as the Trump defense would have us believe.  And it also shows how power-hungry people screw over the people who work for them as well as everyone else.  Jack most probably shows us a variation of Michael Cohen who ended up doing Trump's dirty work.  And it's a warning to Republican Senators that it doesn't matter how often you defend Trump.  If you don't show absolute obedience every single day, you'll get turned on.  Ask Rep. Gaetz.  You can read that here.

Some San Francisco Shots

Up early to get the grandkids to school.  We bus to meet one school bus in front of the second kid's school.  Then walk most of the way back.  I have lunch with a student from over 20 years ago who is working on his doctorate and the National Intelligence University in Monterey.

Then back to do kid pick ups.  Here are a couple of pictures from the day.

The shot below was on the kitchen counter.  I call it Still Live with Monster and Cheerios.

But there parks, large and small, tucked in here and there too.

This is Mountain Lake.  The sign began:

"Before you is one of San Francisco's last surviving natural lakes . . ."

It's part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area where I also took the following picture.

Steller Jay, Escape Room, Homeless Camp At Valley Of The Moon

A Steller Jay dropped by yesterday just outside the kitchen window.  These bird are beautiful and brazen and there's some kind of a turf war in our yard now and then between the jays and magpies.







My OLÉ one time class at the Anchorage Escape Room near G and 5th Avenue, was a lot of fun.  There were about ten of us on this hour long adventure to escape.   And it took all of us to figure out the clues to open pad locks that got us more clues to get us to the final room and out the last door.  There were some cool surprises.  I don't want to say more.  Here we are gathering in the downstair office.  The room with the Tree Door is a new escape adventure that isn't completed yet. They want to make it perfect.  We went into the door on the left.

Our group reminded me that everyone has something valuable to contribute if others just give them a chance.  We didn't get out in the allotted hour, but since there was no one else waiting, they let us keep going and we got out in 90 minutes instead of 60.  They said only 30% of the groups make it out in 60 minutes.


I was pleased that the weather was warm enough and dry enough I didn't have to think about ice and could ride downtown for the escape room.

On the way home I passed a large homeless camp in the woods to the east of Valley of the Moon Park.  I'd guess there were 15 to 20 tents.  I didn't see anyone so could do an impromptu extra-credit for my Homelessness class.  Last Friday's was full of the kind of data I was looking for.  Dr. Richard Mandsager was the speaker and he had lots of data about the different causes of homelessness, how many in the different categories in Anchorage, and looked at the larger environmental factors that push people into the streets.  I hope I can get more into that here one of these days.

The sign says, "Camp Here - Occupy to Overcome."  (I'm having trouble with iPhoto.  It's not saving the edits when I crop photos.  And Apple would rather we move 'up' to their newer software, Photo, and hook us into paying monthly fees for iCloud.   No wonder no one has any money.)

Solstice Is Past And It's Fall In Anchorage

There's more termination dust.





Ravens Roost had an apple festival the other night.

There were clouds in   Goose Lake.

Trees are getting yellow and losing their leaves.

I got some radishes on the last day of the Muldoon Farmers Market for this year.

And this woodpecker visited our yard today.  

Why I Live Here - A Little Nature Break

Had some errands to run, but that also gave me the opportunity to take in some looking nature spots.  So just let yourself slide into the picture for a moment to slow down your heart beat.

University Lake.

The creek that goes by the dorms at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

It makes sense to me why Anchorage homeless would rather be out here than in some institutional storage room for people.  Now if they could police those who trash the place and/or use it as a base for petty theft, everyone would be happy.  Maybe.  I'm taking an OLÉ class starting in October on Homeless Issues, so maybe I'll understand this better.

Jonathan Haidt At Citizens Climate Lobby And Then Cauliflower And Carrots At Farmers Market

Anchorage voters are adamant that the summer flower budget isn't cut.  So the municipal green house keeps busy all year.  And the best two landscaped institutions are the University of Alaska Anchorage and Providence Hospital.  Our Citizens Climate Lobby meeting is at UAA and these flowers are an example.  There are small luxuries that do matter because they do so much for people's mental health.

Even these summer tourists were enjoying a stroll around the campus.









Inside, we heard from Jonathan Haidt via teleconference with the other 400 plus local chapters of CCL around the country.  Plus another bunch of international chapters.

Haidt, the author of The Righteous Mind, studies and talks about the emotional aspects of morality and public debate.  He listed

Three Principles Of Moral Psychology:

1.  Intuition comes first, then the brain can take in the rational argument.  So, the brain reacts emotionally first to something, which is why what you look like, how you talk, etc. will affect how people listen. If the intuition reacts positively, then it's more likely to accept the rational argument. I saw this as a good explanation why small talk, ice-breaking matter.  First you need a sense of the messengers before you listen to what they suggest.

2.  There's more to morality than harm and fairness - people conceptualize these basic human reactions differently.  For the Left, say, fairness is more equated with equity, whereas for the Right more with loyalty, authority.

3.  Morality Binds and Blinds.  It keeps tribes together and causes them to NOT see things that contradict their beliefs.

He went on to connect these ideas specifically to climate change politics.


After the meeting, I biked over to the Farmers Market at the BP parking lot (I guess it will have a different name next year).