On Track

Twilight: It's Official

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:13:51 GMT

Twilight Credit: Nicotren/Stock Xchng

Everywhere I turn nowadays I see the words “Official Twilight” this and “Official Twilight” that. Of course this is all in reference to the best-selling books and movie series, but it has made me think about the official definition of twilight.

Twilight is not just the period of time after sunset but also the time between darkness and sunrise. There are three different periods of twilight, all defined by the distance the sun is below the horizon. The length of time that each period of twilight lasts varies by location and time of year. You may have noticed that sometimes the sun sinks slowly and the darkness seeps in gradually, while at other times the sun seems to drop like a rock and the darkness is much more sudden.

On Ecopoetics

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:07:59 GMT

Photo by Andrew Lyons-Gould

Over the swamps

a wild

magnolia bud—

greenish

white

a northern

flower—

And so

we live

looking—

—William Carlos Williams, from “Perpetuum Mobile: The City,” Selected Poems, New Directions.
_____________

The journal Ecopoetics claims a dedication to “exploring creative-critical edges between making (with an emphasis on writing) and ecology (the theory and praxis of deliberate earthlings).

Some poets I know welcome it; others see it as a glorification of colonial nature, ignoring, as one poet says, “the bulldozer in favor of the beautiful plant.”

Counting Crows (and Other Birds) at Christmas

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:52:57 GMT

Brant Geese, a popular sighting along the Atlantic coast during the winter bird count.
Photo by Phil Eager.

It’s just about time for the annual Christmas Bird Count organized by the National Audubon Society, a major event on the birding calendar, and one that I particularly look forward to each year. The count period this year runs from December 14 to January 5, and the concept is as simple as its name: counting birds during the holiday season. As the journal Nature wrote last year, the Christmas Bird Count has become the model for effective citizen science projects , and may be the longest-running such project in the world. It's also a fun social event, which allows you to make new friends and to see people you don't see all year.

We now look on the Christmas Bird Count as a good excuse to go birding in the winter and to take a break from all of the holiday craziness, but its origins are rooted in conservation. The first Christmas Bird Count was organized in 1900 by Frank Chapman and the young National Audubon Society as a kinder and gentler answer to the Christmas "side hunt,” a gruesome holiday tradition in which groups would compete to shoot the most birds in a given day.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:27:02 GMT

Image credit: Babak Tafreshi/TWAN

A twinkling star may make for a sweet nursery rhyme, but it also makes for a bad night of observing.

Stars twinkle due to our soupy atmosphere. Stars are so far away that they appear as nothing more than a point of light. When the air that the star is shining through is turbulent, undulating, and waving, the point of light seems to move a tiny bit, jumping around from one point of the sky to another as seen through a telescope. With the unaided eye, this wiggling motion of a star due to our atmosphere makes the star look as if it is twinkling.

This effect, sometimes called scintillation, is more pronounced for stars close to the horizon. When looking straight up, you are looking directly out into space through the least amount of atmosphere possible, whereas when you look toward the horizon you are looking through the thickest possible amount of air.

Library Puts John Muir's Letters Online

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:38:15 GMT

The newest digital collection at the University of the Pacific’s library will excite any John Muir enthusiast. The library has scanned more than 6,500 of his letters and posted them online.

Reading through the letters will give you glimpses into his personal life and conservation efforts, including his founding of the Sierra Club. The letters are both handwritten and typed. The handwritten ones are more fun to read, though, because you get to see his beautiful, fluid penmanship.

The collection isn’t really organized, but you can search for topics, letters to and from correspondents, or by date. It’s also enjoyable to just go through the collection at random, piecing together instances from his life.

The library has also made collections of Muir's photographs, drawings, and journals available online. These collections are free to view; you don’t even need a library card to access them. But beware: You could easily spend hours clicking on images, getting lost in his world.

-- by Julie Littman / photo courtesy of the National Park Service

In Poetry: What Man has Made of Man

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:44:57 GMT

Photo by Peter Lyons-Gould

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

--William Wordsworth, quoted in this month’s Poetry by A.F. Mortitz

Poetry comes in a handy, under-sized, monthly-digestable format. It costs $3.50 at the corner smoke/magazine/chocolate shop near my office. I think it’s the cheapest thing in the store—an affordable habit.

The contents are mixed, for my taste—a little too clever (New Yorker comes to mind here) and talky—but there is always something that makes me glad I picked it up: a good translation, a profile of a new or recently deceased poet, or, in this case, a piece of criticism that, despite its flaws (see “too clever” comment above), puts the ever-challenging dilemma of individual and society front and center.

Bird News: Encouraging, Depressing, Fun

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:15:22 GMT

Photo of Brown Pelican by Phil Eager.

In a bit of good news for one species of seabird, it was announced today that the Brown Pelican is being removed from the endangered species list. The Brown Pelican was hit particularly hard in the 1970s and 1980s by its exposure to DDT (and teetered on the edge of extinction as a result), but even before then it was hunted for its feathers. Amazingly enough, the effort to save the Brown Pelican started under President Theodore Roosevelt, who established Pelican Island in Florida as the first refuge in what became the National Wildlife Refuge system. As Audubon California notes, the delisting is an encouraging development for the pelican, but it certainly doesn’t mean the species is in the clear: they face plenty of long-term challenges, including pollution, rising ocean levels, and the continued crashing of the fishing stocks in the Pacific. But it’s definitely progress.

Speaking of challenges, on the opposite end of the spectrum for seabird news were the disturbing and depressing stories in the media in the last few weeks about the albatross populations in the Pacific Ocean. You’ve probably heard about the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch (or patches, unfortunately), an accumulation of floating plastic and other garbage that spans an area the size of Texas. But you might not have thought about the impact all of that floating plastic has on seabirds that forage for food that lies close to the surface of the ocean. To a seabird, the floating pieces of plastic can look dangerously similar to its food sources.

Nice Guitar, Photos for 'America the Beautiful'

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:17:46 GMT

Trails community member Leon Muhudinov posted an entry in the Forums inviting us all to check out his video slide-show of national parks, with lovely background music -- his own arrangement of "America the Beautiful" for guitar.

Check it out. It's sweet. And thanks for sharing it, Leon!

Trails Twitter Contest: Win $1,000 of North Face Gear

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:03:26 GMT

Sierra Club Trails is the best new way online to find hiking, biking, and paddling trails, share tips, and connect with others who love to get outside.

Now, with the help of our friends at The North Face, we'll help a contest winner (you?) load up with backpacks, tents, sleeping bags, clothes -- or any other gear you need -- to help make your outdoor experience even better!

How to Enter

1. Sign up to follow @sierra_magazine on Twitter

2. Re-tweet the following message: Win a $1,000 of gear from The North Face! Follow @Sierra_magazine and RT this by Nov. 23 to enter. http://bit.ly/154yVm

A drawing will be held on December 15th from all who entered the contest, and the winner will get $1,000 worth of gear and clothing from The North Face. (Read the full Contest Terms and Conditions.)

Okay! Now go for it!