The starry sky spotlight events for the upcoming month include a meteor shower, lunar eclipse, and a chance to see the elusive planet Uranus.

All the planets closer to the sun than Uranus (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) are easy to see from Earth – no binoculars or telescope required. But Uranus is a bit fainter, at magnitude 5.8, and is best found with optical aid. Using only a small pair of binoculars, you should be able to find Uranus on June 8 as it passes less than a degree from Jupiter. Jupiter is the brightest object in the southeast in the early morning hours. Uranus will be in the same field of view as Jupiter and its moons.

The Lyrid meteor shower is not the strongest shower of the year with only 10 meteors an hour at peak, but it is one of the first meteor showers that observers can enjoy as the weather gets warmer in the Northern Hemisphere. The Lyrid meteors reach their peak of activity between June 14 and 16. Look in the direction of the constellation Lyra (east) after sunset.

A partial lunar eclipse occurs on June 26 for observers in western North America and regions surrounding the Pacific Ocean. The moon will set while it is still partially eclipsed as seen from the Rockies down toward Texas, but farther west the entire eclipse can be seen. The moon enters Earth’s shadow at 3:17 a.m. PDT and the eclipse ends at 6:00 a.m. PDT. For those who miss out on this partial lunar eclipse, a total lunar eclipse will occur on December 20 – 21 for all of North America.

Read the observing guide for June for more highlights, including how to spot Venus, Saturn, and Mars.

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Neither beautify nor uglify. Do not denature.

—Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer, Green Integer 2

So Saturday, the boys and I are coming into Yosemite on Hwy 120, sleet off and on, about 35 degrees, and a deer flashes across the road within feet of the front bumper. There’s another, down, in the road, barely lifting it’s head, one eye rolling back.

“Holy crap!” Peter (13) yells from the back seat. There are no visible marks on the animal. No car with a bent grill. We idle dangerously on the curve in the road. CRASH!

The biggest coyote I’ve ever seen jumps onto the road from the bank and grabs the deer’s neck in its jaws. Shaking it.

*#*##$%$#*!! Andrew (15).

Nature is savage. Marlin Perkins never had it better—in the middle of the road! Readers of this blog are lucky there were other cars coming and my efforts to back up to get a photo were thwarted—“Dad, you’re going to kill us!”

….

It is easier to feel than to realize, or in any way explain, Yosemite grandeur. The magnitudes of the rocks and trees and streams are so delicately harmonized they are mostly hidden.

—John Muir, The Yosemite, My first Summer in the Sierra

My car is a mess, not withstanding the window made out of packing tape that resulted from a black bear bending my doorframe down to the ground last fall. Apparently, they really will break into your car for a tube of sunscreen. Amidst the rubble and remaining glass shards, an old journal from a Half Dome trip in 2001:

The yawning breadth of the Sierras
and that’s enough. That’s why
we came here my brother and I
in November after the first snow.
People gone the cables
down for the season
no common-sense reason
to be here. Only the fluttering
of a pack in the wind
to mark the ascent,
the lonely pace of a raven
following from camp bringing news
of an alien planet.

…

After a day of bouldering near Camp 4, the boys and I huddle around a gathered-wood fire and watch the climbers sort gear by headlamp. What sounds like thunder— reverberating through the camp—is really a rock-fall. People from all over the world come here because they are drawn to adventure, to something that exists nowhere else.

As for poets, Gary Snyder found his Yosemite inspiration in trail crew work, as his Zen training might suggest. We’ll end with this meditation with a piece from “Riprap” :

In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change in thoughts
As well as things.

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J Gould has been exploring wild places and writing about them since age 6. He was one of the first "beach-watchers" and newsletter editors for NOAA out at Point Reyes National Seashore. He reads sporadically across the spectrum of poetry and poetics, without any discernible pattern, and toils in virtual anonymity as a poet with annual chapbooks and publications in obscure journals -- the first being Toyon at Humboldt State, where he taught and earned an MA in English. Friend J Gould here, and join the Poetry and Nature group to meet others who share your interest.

We were amazed by the variety of photos entered in the May contest. There were many, many different interpretations of this month's theme of "contrast"-- from colors, light and shadow, the seasons, to the shock of technology encroaching upon nature.

Drumroll, please…The judges chose "Conflict of Seasons," by Vita Ryzhova, as the Grand Prize winner. Just like in March, we have a tie for People's Choice, though this time it's only two ways instead of three. Both "Joshua Tree at Sunset," by Bob Randall, and "Beauty and Blight," by Keith Breazeal, received the same total number of comments.

The remaining top photos are, in no particular order, "Sunflower," "Mule Deer," "Death Valley Sand Storm," "Needles of Chamonix," "The Peaceful Leaf," "Lake Tahoe," and "Sunset at Dorman Beach."

Check out the stunning slideshow of all 10 top photos.


Conflict of Seasons, by Vita Ryzhova

This month we have another Grand Prize winner who lives in central California (though she wasn't born there) - we swear we didn't plan it that way! Vita Ryzhova is 19 years old and will soon begin attending college to become an eye doctor. She moved to the Golden State by way of Russia, and has been taking photographs for about a year. Her stepfather has been showing her the ropes. She's very excited about her win, and says "I have never won anything before!"

The judges admired the "originality, in the concept of contrast." They said, "aesthetically it's nice," "it has a lot of texture, has some color;" and "it's not something you see every day."

Vita earns a collection of beautiful photography books: National Geographic's Rare: Portraits of Endangered Species, by Joel Sartore; Sierra Club Books' Galen Rowell: A Retrospective; and a rare, out-of-print, leather-bound, limited edition of Ansel Adams at 100, by John Szarkowski.



Joshua Tree at Sunset, by Bob Randall

Bob is an avid hiker and photographer who loves to combine his favorite hobbies. He's also climbed Mt. Whitney, the highest summit in the contiguous United States, and aspires to be a member of the Sierra Peaks Section, available to current Sierra Club members who climb six peaks on the Peaks List. He grew up in Bend, Oregon where he acquired his love of nature and hiking, and has been in Pasadena, CA for the last 20 years, primarily for its access to the San Gabriel Mountains.

Bob got his shot on the last evening of a trip to the Mojave Desert that resulted from Joshua Tree National Park having no more campsites available. Bob learned at least two things on this trip: lesser known outdoor areas have infinitely fewer people than the popular spots -- and frequently with even more to offer the outdoorsman -- and that image stabilization lenses are a hiker's best friend in the evening. The shot was captured on a sunset walk with a Nikon D40, handheld using an 18-55mm IS lens and a polarizer. He also usually carries a 55-200mm lens and a mini tripod -- but had neither on this evening's walk. He knew he had a good shot when he took it, thought it was even better when he saw it on his computer, and thought it would be perfect when he saw the month's theme of "contrast."

Community members who commented on Bob's photo admired the contrast between "negative space and vibrant sky," and the colors of the fading light.

Beauty and Blight, by Keith Breazeal

Keith Breazeal retired from the Navy in 1987, but has been taking photographs since he was a kid. He returned wholeheartedly to the hobby with the rise of the digital camera. He's not strictly a nature photographer, though, and also enjoys taking photos at airshows, which you can see on his website.

As you can see, Keith has altered his image. He changed the bottom half to black-and-white to make the foreground "totally separate to the eye." He "wanted a dividing point of the blight versus the beauty," which he saw after pulling off Interstate 5 near Mt. Shasta in Northern California.

Members of the community who commented on Keith's photo appreciated his unconventional, creative approach to the theme of "contrast," and called it "provocative," "moving," and "intelligent."

You know the drill: Next month we'll launch the June photo contest. The theme will be "Wild!" Get ready with your bests shots and you just might win a SPOT Messenger GPS with a year of free service.

And, we know you all tune in here to find out the next month's theme WAY in advance, so for July we'll accept photos for the theme of "Freedom."

Thanks for your participation in the May contest by submitting photos or leaving comments -- and good luck in June!

The pond at the library. Photo by Jon Jay.

Pond scum.

I never thought I’d admire it. But watching a tiny creek that flows outside Wawona’s library turn into a seasonal pond has given me an appreciation for its merits. The pond’s not large—about the size of a classroom. And it’s not deep either—at its peak you could wade through it and not get wet above the knees. But within its borders, it contains a world of wonder and beauty, a complete habitat whose changes are both incremental and constant.

If you leave the library and look to your left, you can see the plant-filled water sitting in a tiny valley just below the parking lot. It looks like an insignificant indentation filled with snowmelt, a blip on the screen compared to Yosemite’s overwhelming grandeur. On my own, I don’t know that I would have wandered over. But for my daughter and her friends, it’s a place of pilgrimage—no walk to the library is complete without a visit.


Thanks to Stuart at the Pond Life blog for the rest of the photos.

That’s how I learned that in early spring, if you look very, very closely, you can find viscous sacs hanging from the branches and leaves that lie submerged in the water. These glutinous bags, too big and slimy for anything to eat, are known as frogspawn.

When one of my daughter’s friends gingerly picked one up, I could see that its mucous-like membrane was full of tiny little dark spheres of life. By placing it ever so carefully back where she’d found it, we left the embryos to grow until they were large enough to attach themselves to weeds growing in the water. Then they lived on pond scum—also known as algae and, according to some scientists the fuel of the future.

For now, what the algae are fueling is the growth of tadpoles into Pacific tree frogs. At first their little fishlike bodies were so small we could barely find them in the water. But now their heads are huge in comparison to their tails making them easy to see.

Their moms, however, are almost impossible to spot. In a lesson from nature that I would do well to heed, some mother frogs stay close to their offspring making sure they are protected, but never enabling them. Because unlike me, they understand at a primordial level that, after their children leave protective custody, they will have to make their own way in the world.



Luckily their parents have blessed them with an extraordinary ability to fit in. Full grown, Pacific tree frogs can not only change their skin color from brown to green and back again, they can also change their patterned markings. So perfect is their camouflage, I doubt I could find one on my own. But my daughter’s friend Rachel has perfected the gift of what I call “nature sight.”

Gazing at the same water as the rest of us, it took only the tiniest fraction of a movement for her to reach down into the algae. When her hand emerged, she held a full grown former frogspawn that was colored exactly like the pond scum it was lying in—as exquisite and perfect a creature as I have ever seen. Making me think that “pond scum” and “frogspawn” are not the nasty epithets people believe, but rather words to be met with a wry, knowing smile and the words, “Thank you for the compliment.”

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Last May, while hiking in Yosemite National Park, long-time Los Angeles resident Jamie Simons turned to her husband and said, "I want to live here." Today she and her family have made the move to live for one year in Wawona, where her daughter attends the one-room schoolhouse, Jamie writes, her husband longs for noise, fast food, people, and the city.

My wife and I are getting in shape for a Sierra Club Outings trip to the Scottish Highlands next fall, so we're trying to do at least one solid hike each weekend. Living in San Francisco, we have so many options -- the Marin Headlands, Mt. Tam, the Santa Cruz Mountains … it's a hiker's paradise!

Even so, sometimes it's nice to do a hike that starts really close to home. This weekend, for instance, we'll do at least one hike right here in the city.



Not every hike has to be in a national park or a wind up at a 100-foot waterfall. Lots of good hiking can be found right in our major metropolises. Here are 10 "city" hikes we found in Trails, including our next hike -- to the highlands of San Francisco.

Do you have a favorite city hike? If it hasn't been posted on Trails yet, let us know!

Boulder, Colorado

Chicago

Dallas

Los Angeles

Phoenix

San Francisco

San Francisco East Bay

Seattle

Tucson

Washington, D.C.

This picture of noctilucent clouds was taken from the International Space Station. Earth is seen at bottom, the pinkish region is the troposphere, the blue shaded area above is the stratosphere, and the wispy white denotes the noctilucent clouds beneath the blackness of space. Credit: NASA

Late May to early August is prime season for viewing noctilucent clouds. Noctilucent clouds (also known as polar mesospheric clouds) are thin, wispy night-shining clouds that lie at the upper edge of Earth’s atmosphere. These mysterious clouds were first seen in 1885 after the Krakatoa volcano erupted and poured ash into the atmosphere. But even after the particles dispersed, the clouds kept returning.

The tiny ice crystals high in our atmosphere may be a sign of global warming. The green house gases that are warming the lower atmosphere have the reverse effect higher in the atmosphere, making the already cold region even more frigid. During the summer, the atmosphere holds more water vapor and expands, pushing the atmosphere higher into space. Water vapor billows up into the mesosphere and freezes onto dust particles, creating the clouds.

There is still a lot to understand regarding noctilucent clouds: why they are a new phenomenon and what is causing them to be seen at lower latitudes as of the last decade.

To try to get a glimpse of the noctilucent clouds, look after sunset in June or July for white or electric blue streaks of clouds high in the atmosphere. By early evening, the sun will be far enough below the horizon that it is no longer casting any light on the lower reaches of the atmosphere, but the highest areas of the atmosphere, where noctilucent clouds reside, will still be receiving sunlight and thus shining well after the sun has disappeared. If you do spot them, consider yourself lucky. The clouds are still a rare sight that few have witnessed.

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Photo by John Gould.

Monet and Renior and Degas believed that sight was simply the sum of its light. In their pretty paintings they wanted to describe the fleeting photons absorbed by the eye, to describe nature entirely in terms of its illumination. But Cézanne believed that light was only the beginning of seeing. “The eye is not enough,” he declared. “One needs to think as well.” Cézanne’s epiphany was that our impressions require interpretation; to look is to create what you see.

—Jonah Lehrer, Proust Was a Neuroscientist

If the impressionists were “just not strange enough” for Cézanne, as Lehrer writes, and his postimpressionism was a recognition of the abstract nature of reality and the subjective process of meaning-making that creates our view of the world, then any authentic art has to create space.

What a perfect entryway into post-modern “nature” poetry, which in my mind is less about “images” of nature and more about the interpretation of experience. The nature we are really after, the animal our heart yearns to discern, is more there when we pull back from the focus of the lens.

Before I moved in with a poet—her books, and more importantly, her thoughts. When my repertoire consisted primarily of Snyder, Berry, and Hass. I remember being unaffected by much of what was being written by poets of my own generation. It seemed either inaccessible, or not interesting.

The fact that I was wrong on both accounts is lucky. And so began a letting go of my own personal strangle hold on poetry. Take Cole Swensen’s excerpts from “Nine Trees” in Noon:

One after one
what paces
within
destroys all sound
and the glass
on the surface of the lake,
the scratch and the
listening skin

and

Grey now and the shift
is bare
where winter or—
and tall, no
stare out the window
like there was something there
What was disconcerting, foreign to me, is still foreign here. Maybe it’s my Buddhist leanings toward an acceptance of groundlessness, but the space I encounter in these poems is now more engaging and alive than it is problematic. Life is a struggle, and the purpose of poetry is to engage us in that struggle, not shy away from it.

Comprehension, be it through the image of a tree, or the verbal rendering of it in poetry, needs blurred edges to convey a sense of our reality as movement, constantly changing. Nothing is static, not even meaning. The “real work,” as Snyder put it, is in the making.

And here is the perfect exit, from this particular workspace, from John Ashbery’s Three Poems:

It is necessary to go forward completing
The gesture from the beginning of life
That was worrying its shape into the trees
All this time, as though that shape were responsible
For the many fluctuating situations that fill the air.

—from “The New Spirit”

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J Gould has been exploring wild places and writing about them since age 6. He was one of the first "beach-watchers" and newsletter editors for NOAA out at Point Reyes National Seashore. He reads sporadically across the spectrum of poetry and poetics, without any discernible pattern, and toils in virtual anonymity as a poet with annual chapbooks and publications in obscure journals -- the first being Toyon at Humboldt State, where he taught and earned an MA in English. Friend J Gould here, and join the Poetry and Nature group to meet others who share your interest.

Dogwood in Yosemite Valley: Nancy Casolaro

The visitors have returned to Yosemite National Park…in droves. All winter long, the park belonged to the hardy—those who didn’t mind living with the snow and the cold. The place was isolated and quiet, home only to those brave enough to forgo California’s famously mild winters for something that felt much closer to the Eastern seaboard. Well, move over snowbirds—the warm-weather tourists have arrived.

The first sign of this was when the Western Tanagers took up residence. As gaudy as Vegas showgirls, they proudly strutted their stuff, displacing our affection for the red-breasted robins that kept us company all winter. Next came the woodpeckers, red-and white-headed, flittering around from tree to tree like guests at a giant buffet.

Our reaction was both excitement and relief because, for us, one of Yosemite’s great mysteries has been—where are the birds? With the exception of Stellar Jays, ravens and robins, we seldom saw or heard any. But as the warm-weather set in (interrupted almost weekly by snowfall), it occurred to us that maybe we’d just lived in Los Angeles too long. We’d gotten so used to birdsong year-round, we’d forgotten what happens to cold places in spring. They bloom—with flora and fauna and, if you live in Yosemite National Park, with two-legged visitors too.


Redbud: Karis Simons

Seemingly overnight, yellowed fields have turned purple with lupine. Along the forest trails, bright Indian pink, yellow madia and alpine buttercup liven up the paths with color. The roads are full of cars, the campgrounds full of tents and the trails crowded with people.

It’s odd, this sudden influx of life. And it’s exciting too. Exciting enough that when a middle-age man, brimming with the enthusiasm of a seven-year old, stops to tell me about his climb to Chilnualna Falls and how I should do it too, I’m charmed. I feel no need to tell him that I live here. It’s too much fun experiencing his joy.

And I’m downright grateful when another visitor points out a 360-degree rainbow around the sun. Walking along a trail, none of us had bothered to look up. But there it was—a natural phenomenon called a sundog that I’d never seen before. I would have missed it if the park weren’t chockablock with people eager to share their excitement and their knowledge.


Indian pink: NPS

My neighbors who live here year round say by August, I’ll be sick of all the tourists and longing for the quieter days that come with Labor Day. I’m sure that’s true. But for right now, I love watching the miracles the warm weather brings—beavers in the road, tadpoles in the pond, adults giddy with the joy of discovery.

When my husband tells me that on his drive home from town he was accompanied by a Golden Eagle that flew alongside him at window height, I know we’ve landed in the right place. We may be more like the robins, just trying to fit in and make it through winter, but in the long run, staying and grounding our lives here has rewards as sweet as spring, proving one doesn’t need to fly high to soar.

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Last May, while hiking in Yosemite National Park, long-time Los Angeles resident Jamie Simons turned to her husband and said, "I want to live here." Today she and her family have made the move to live for one year in Wawona, where her daughter attends the one-room schoolhouse, Jamie writes, her husband longs for noise, fast food, people, and the city.

The school year cycle is ending and so, too, is my arts residency at Clearspring Elementary School. Since September, our 75 fifth graders have studied seasonal change, or phenology, across science, math and language arts. I brought in the fine arts, and taught students to keep illustrated nature journals tracking the seasons with leaf and flower prints, drawings, and watercolor paintings.

I wanted kids to learn about the natural world by being out in it: I wanted them to learn to estimate the temperature by counting the chirps of a cricket. I hoped they would learn the direction a storm blew in from by feeling the direction of the wind and remember a certain cherry tree that flowered on its south side in December. My residency gave teachers a concrete focus for integrating their individual subjects. In language arts, students wrote and illustrated poems in the style of Emily Dickenson's "Letter to Bee,."

At the same time, in science they measured leaf size and they graphed the data in math. With me, they made stomping leaf prints, by far their favorite project of the year.



Here's how to make them: Find a leaf with lots of veins and texture on its surface. Ink one side of the leaf using your fingers or a brayer. Open a large telephone book to the middle, place the leaf ink-side up on the open page. Place a sheet of copy paper (or rice paper) on top of the leaf and carefully close the book without moving the paper. Place the book on the floor and start stomping! When you open the book, carefully remove the paper, peel off the leaf, and set the completed print aside to dry.

In all subjects, kids discussed cycles across a broader perspective: How long is the growing season in our schoolyard? How do cycles provide a structure for our passage through time? Which cyclic changes are natural and which are imposed by humans?

Our ideas were reinforced by Project BudBurst , an online site that students and teachers can use to record phenological data such as first flower, first ripe fruit, first leaf on a tree. Other sites, such as the Project Feeder Watch out of Cornell University, prompted us to collect data on birds, too. If you're tired of data and want to do some listening, NPR's Science Friday ran a segment on phenology in March 2009. Here's the link to a talk with the director of the USA National Phenology Network.



Our inaugurall Phenology Festival is on Thursday. After a lesson in graphic design, students created trifold boards that documented their year studying season cycles. Here is a short from the show--this student cut out flowers from old tin cans to line the bottom of her board. Her leaf prints are in the upper right.

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Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

Just think of the Forums as a place to gather and swap info with friends--like these folks on the East side of the Sierra Nevada. Photo courtesy Jenny Coyle.

I wonder how many of you who read the On Track blog also check out our Forums section here on Trails. There's such great stuff being talked about there, so I want to make sure you know about it.

There are sections on backpacking food, wilderness survival, GPS equipment, outdoor gear...

And today I particularly want to help out Ryan, a community member who's looking for good backpack trips in Rocky Mountain National Park. He's heading there at the end of May. If you've got suggestions, click here to read his post, and then serve him up some great ideas!

Click here to see all the Forum topics on Trails,

Hope you're getting outside this weekend!

-- Tioga Jenny

The shadow of the Earth as seen from Cerro Paranal, Chile. Credit: ESO/H. H. Heyer

Some of my favorite things to observe in the sky occur before the stars even come out. As sunset is pushed back later and later with the approach of summer, observing the intricacies of light after sunset becomes a rewarding pastime.

When it’s clear out, the shadow of the Earth can be seen twice a day, at sunrise and sunset. The light from the setting sun hits the edge of the Earth and projects its shadow on the atmosphere. The next clear sunset, face east and look for a dark blue band along the horizon. The shadow of the Earth is sometimes called the twilight wedge. Just above this dark blue band should be the pink glow of antitwilight, also called the Belt of Venus. The Belt of Venus is created from the backscattered red light of sunset.

Crepuscular rays occur at sunrise or sunset when clouds or mountainous terrain obstruct the sun’s rays as they shine from below the horizon. These rays can extend all the way to the opposite horizon to create anticrepuscular rays.

Crepuscular rays can also occur while the sun is still higher in the sky but generally blocked by clouds with some of the rays shining through. The term Jacob’s Ladder is also used to describe this phenomenon. After sunset as the sky darkens, the brightest objects will appear first, such as the moon and Venus. This weekend the brightest and first stars to appear are Arcturus high in the southeast, Vega low in the northeast, and the stars Procyon, Betelgeuse, and Capella surrounding Venus in the west. You may still even be able to catch Sirius as it disappears below the west-southwestern horizon. Two other planets should also be some of the first points of light to emerge from the twilight: Mars and Saturn trailing in the zodiacal constellations behind Venus.

Twilight phenomena are a great way to introduce the night sky to family and friends and might make them want to hang around with you until dark to learn more.

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Photo courtesy John Gould.

What is man in nature? Nothing in relation to the infinite, everything in relation to nothing, a mean between nothing and everything.

—Blaise Pascal, Pensées

Okay, so if you’re following along from last week, after the light interlude of Farley Mowat peeing out his territory among the wolves, I pick up Charles Seife’s book Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea and return to more serious matters.

It turns out that Pascal helped invent probability theory, at first to put more money in the pockets of aristocratic gamblers, but then he had an “intense spiritual experience” that turned him theologian. Nothing like an encounter with paradox, with the complexity of existence, to alchemize the pursuit of scientific truth into the acceptance of groundlessness.

Poets play with this potential all the time. The physical object, the image, the signified, the unpinable locus of meaning. The wisdom and neurosis of spiritual devotion. The seemingly spiritual experience of awe in the face of natural phenomena.

A few lines from Robert Duncan:

That Freedom and the Law are identical
And are the nature of Man—Paradise….

It is as if I were moving towards
the wastes of water all living things remember the world to be,
the law of me
going under the wave….

and Anne Carson:

To hear how God was moving through the universe

gave Isaac his question.
I could tell you his answer
But it wouldn’t help.

And Fanny Howe:

Let it snow unless it is in heaven

Let it know
What it is itself that waterstuff

As it covers the silver
Winter dinner bell.

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J Gould has been exploring wild places and writing about them since age 6. He was one of the first "beach-watchers" and newsletter editors for NOAA out at Point Reyes National Seashore. He reads sporadically across the spectrum of poetry and poetics, without any discernible pattern, and toils in virtual anonymity as a poet with annual chapbooks and publications in obscure journals -- the first being Toyon at Humboldt State, where he taught and earned an MA in English. Friend J Gould here, and join the Poetry and Nature group to meet others who share your interest.

This Saturday brings one of the more interesting events in the birding calendar: the 27th annual World Series of Birding organized by the New Jersey Audubon Society. It’s an event in which teams of birders fan across the state of New Jersey (yes, you read that right) from midnight to midnight in order to count as many species of birds as they can see and/or hear in that time period.

If it sounds a bit strange, it is, but the event does a lot for fundraising and very successfully promotes both birding in general and New Jersey as birding destination. The WSB (and many other bird-a-thons) are scheduled for the middle of May, in order to maximize the number of migrating and breeding species to be counted. In recent years, the winners of the statewide competition have counted upwards of 200 different species – in one day, in New Jersey! Just in Cape May County, the winning team last year had over 180 species.

Started in 1984 by Pete Dunne (Roger Tory Peterson was on the winning team that inaugural year), it’s now become big enough to be mocked by a baby-faced Jon Stewart and Steve Carrell in this Daily Show segment from 2000.

There are various categories of competition, from the statewide teams to teams focusing on specific counties, and there’s now even a low carbon footprint category for teams competing by bicycle, kayak, etc. There’s even a small team (with appropriate security clearances!) that counts bird species on the property of a nuclear power plant along the coast. I’m always particularly amused by the entertaining names that are chosen for teams – teams in last year’s World Series included, for example, the “Nine Inch Rails” and the “Limping Limpkins”.

The statewide teams usually start in the northern part of the state and follow a pre-scouted route south towards the finish line in Cape May, at the southern tip of the state. They really do start counting at midnight – with so many species counted by ear, a good WSB team can tally over 30 species before the sun even comes up.

It’s not just one day of sleep deprivation, nor is it a day of nice casual birding with your friends (there are other days for that). Teams spend weeks scouting locations and planning out their routes, identifying likely spots for as many species as possible before the big day. Even though it’s a serious competition, with serious bragging rights to the winners, it’s still a friendly competition since all of the money goes to good causes, and teams freely share information with each other. There's now even a Twitter hashtag (#wsob) to follow for team updates and scouting reports.

More than just a competition that intrigue sand confounds non-birders, the WSB has become a major fundraiser for a number of bird conservation organizations, large and small, including the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the Cape May Bird Observatory. According to this local news article from Cape May, CMBO raises around $100 per species seen and Cornell’s Team Sapsucker brings in about $1,000 per species. Although we’ve not done the WSB before (yet?), our annual problem is trying to decide how much to pledge to our favorite team, taking into account just how good these birders are (and the resulting check we’ll need to write!).

Although the World Series of Birding gets a lot of the attention, many large and small bird-a-thons and Big Days are scheduled around the country each year, including another biggie, the Great Texas Birding Classic, along the Texas coast each spring. The Los Angeles Times has a nice story on a big day commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Los Angeles Audubon Society, and Massachusetts Audubon and PRBO Conservation Science also organize well-known bird-a-thon fundraisers. There are even similar events scheduled internationally, from South Africa to the wonderfully named La Maraton de Aves in El Salvador.

I’m not advocating that we all rush out and criss-cross our states this weekend frantically counting birds, but keeping track of your species list (especially this time of year) can be a fun way to encourage yourself to pay just a little more attention to the birds you’re seeing. You never know when that next sparrow or warbler might be hiding around a bend in the trail, just waiting to be added to your day list.

Happy birding, and good luck to all of the World Series of Birding teams!

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Birding Phil started birding in Cape May, N.J. and Central Park in New York City more than 10 years ago. Since then, his birding adventures (with his wife, Mimi Calter) have included trips to Alaska, Belize, and mainland Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, along with a bunch of other hotspots in the continental U.S., including Florida, Texas, and Arizona). Phil was included in Chris Santella's book "Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die: Birding Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations," in which Phil talked about Pt. Reyes, CA. Birdwatchers -- head on over and join the Birdwatchers group on Trails.

Living in Yosemite National Park has given me an acute appreciation for many things. Some you’d expect—beauty, quiet, solitude and the gift of great neighbors. Some surprise even me. I have a newfound respect for fan-driven fireplace inserts; man-high piles of seasoned oak and pine and, of course, four-wheel drive vehicles. But topping the list (okay, equal to great neighbors) is the miracle of electricity. Maybe that’s because it’s not a given up here.

If it’s snowing (and it has been virtually every week right into May), don’t count on having power. Now that it’s spring, the electricity might go down for just a few hours or maybe a day. During January, when days of drenching rain were followed by days of wet, heavy snow, hundreds of trees snapped, taking out poles and power lines like they were toys. And because Wawona is the furthest most point of those lines, we went without power for nine days. I was not a happy camper. But I was inside, the heat still worked and I could cook. Which made me wonder: what was it like for the people who had to work through those storms?

According to Bradford Applin, the PG&E construction supervisor for Oakhurst and Mariposa, 30-year company veterans said they’d never seen anything like it. But working together to get the lines back up was a thrill. “When the storms hit, it was like the Super Bowl for us. This is what we train for. This is why we’re here. You get such an adrenaline rush. You have to keep everyone safe, be creative and work as a team.”



Hundreds of men and women worked against incredible odds in horrible conditions. Wawona and the southern end of Yosemite National Park present an unusual set of problems. As Mr. Applin explained, in a city, electrical lines run in loops, giving a utility company a range of options when power goes out. If one area of the city is affected, they can usually find a way to loop the electricity around on the grid and restore it relatively fast. Not so up here. Why is that?

Yosemite is a national park with large swaths of protected wilderness that can’t be touched. On its southern boundary, the park is surrounded by national forest, which means a minimum amount of land and poles can be used to transmit electricity. Hence, there is only one line—one very long string—that stretches all the way from Oakhurst, 26 miles south, up and over mountains and through dense forests to the tiny town of Wawona. If there is trouble anywhere along this line, power goes out. If hundreds and hundreds of trees fall down, either on the road or across the lines; if the snow is so thick and heavy it pushes limbs down onto the lines or if the one highway into the park is closed because of storm conditions, the power goes out—and stays out—for a very long time.



When a catastrophic event occurs, PG&E personnel immediately set up a command center that coordinates crews, including assessment crews, a statewide strike force that is trained to work under subpar conditions, management teams from the Forest Service and the National Park Service, Caltrans and the CHP and private contractors who provide services like helicopters and pilots. (At one point there was even talk of bringing in the National Guard).

Then they assemble their work force. In an instant, Oakhurst’s small 15-member team swelled to hundreds of people from as far away as Eureka and Chico, all of whom had to be housed and fed. Checking every inch of the line from Oakhurst, they discovered that there were 107 separate spans of wire (7 miles in all) that had to be replaced.

To do this, each day the crews had to chain up their trucks, put 60-pound packs on their backs, snowshoes on their feet and head into the forest. And because the ground they were treading on is protected and possibly sacred (archeological sites exist throughout this area), they couldn’t do it the way they normally would. Snow Cat usage had to be kept to a minimum so crews relied heavily on helicopters to drop supplies. And because they were stringing wire through forests, heavy, wet, snow-covered trees had to be climbed one by one. The alternative to this is called “long line.” This means a crewmember hangs off a wire dangling from the bottom of a helicopter and makes the connections. According to Mr. Applin, climbing the trees is such arduous, time-consuming and exhausting work, people were begging to be long lined from tree to tree.

I say, count me out. I will never complain when the electricity goes out again. I have a new group of heroes. I say they should be paid more than Wall Street executives and Super Bowl players combined. My husband says we should invest in a generator.

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Last May, while hiking in Yosemite National Park, long-time Los Angeles resident Jamie Simons turned to her husband and said, "I want to live here." Today she and her family have made the move to live for one year in Wawona, where her daughter attends the one-room schoolhouse, Jamie writes, her husband longs for noise, fast food, people, and the city.

Say you have the contour drawing down and you're tired of the same old gray pencil.

How about adding color?

I have done some of my best watercolor paintings using only two colors: French ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. This limited palette lets you create highlights and shadows, and even a wonderful inky dark brown. A limited palette forces you to think in lights and darks, rather than in specific colors, which can help you break away from relying on "sap green" to paint your leaves. Here's what french ultramarine (to the left of the brush) and burnt sienna (on the right) look like on my palette:

If you want to try watercolors, all you need is the two tubes of paint ($4-6 each), a #6 or #8 round watercolor brush ($5-10), a white, coated paper plate (most come this way), a plastic water container, and your drawing on a piece of watercolor paper, either from your sketchbook or cut from a 22 x 30 inch sheet ($3-5). You can find these materials at any online art supply store, such as Daniel Smith in Oregon , or a brick-and-mortar store like Michael's or Pearl Art and Craft on the East Coast.

Watercolors are painted in layers, lightest first. Take a look at your drawing and decide where you'd like to begin; often I choose an out-of-the-way place so I can warm up. If I make a mistake off to the side, it will be less obvious! If this is your very first watercolor painting, I'd try out the techniques and colors on a blank piece of watercolor paper, not on your drawing, so you can play with the colors and see how they move when you add water.

My paints are already squeezed out on my palette, but you should begin by squeezing out paint the size of a dime onto your paper plate. Wet your brush in the water container, and scrape it off on the edge. Now, touch your damp brush to the pigment, pick up some paint, and swish it onto the paper plate.

Watch the pigment move on the white plate as you add drops of water with your brush. Rinse your brush and try the same thing with the second color--dare to blend the two! Now you will see the dark brown, almost black, you can get by mixing these two colors. Paint a shape with clear water and add a bit of color. Watch the particles settle. This is called granulation, and many watercolorists choose their pigments because they granulate. Lucy Willis a British painter and author of "Light in Watercolor," makes granulation the focus of many of her paintings.

The paint you use on your drawing can be pure blue, brown, or a greyish mix of the two. Whatever you begin with, know that watercolor paint drys lighter than what you see. When your first coat is dry (it won't feel cool when you put your palm down on it, and you can put it in the sun to speed things up), you should paint a second layer, coloring only those spots that need to be darker.

How can you tell? Imagine the sun coming into your drawing from, say, the upper right. The darkest spots in your painting will be those on the lower left, those spots out of the direct sun. You can continue adding darker layers until you feel that your painting is done. There is no maximum--some painters paint 40! Others paint two.

Here are mine:

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Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

Spring Galaxy M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy. Credit: NOAO/AURA/NSF

Spring is the most popular time of year to do some galaxy hunting. During the spring months, the arch of the Milky Way runs closely along the horizon, which means when you are looking up on spring nights, you are peering out into the universe. A number of galaxies are clustered in the spring constellations, from Virgo to Leo north into Ursa Major.

Ursa Major, the constellation of the Great Bear, is easy to spot because of its well-known asterism of the Big Dipper. The Big Dipper is actually the body of the bear and its handle is supposedly the bear’s tail. If you follow the stars off the front of the bowl of the Big Dipper you will spot the stars that mark its triangular head. Two of the brighter galaxies that share very close quarters are located above the bear’s back and about halfway between the last bowl star and the star that marks the bear’s nose.

These two galaxies are M81 and M82. M81, also called Bode’s Galaxy, is the brighter of the two at magnitude 6.9, which makes it visible in binoculars. M81 lies 11 million light-years away. It is a spiral galaxy seen nearly face on. Through binoculars or a telescope, look for its brighter core and the faint glow of its arms. M82, also called the Cigar Galaxy, is dimmer at magnitude 8.4 because it appears edge on. At 12 million light-years distant, it is a physical pair with M81, which may be distorting M82 and causing heavy star formation. The two galaxies can be seen in the same field of view.

M101, at magnitude 7.8, is a beautiful spiral galaxy known as the Pinwheel. It is also found in Ursa Major, but this galaxy lies above the tail of the bear. M101 forms a triangle with the last two stars in the tail, about five and a half degrees from both Alkaid and Mizar. When you are looking at M101, you’re looking twice as far back in time as when you spotted M81 or M82, because the Pinwheel Galaxy lies 24 million light-years away. Look for a bright central core and arms that wrap clockwise around it.

Get more observing tips on other spring galaxies.

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With the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico continuing to occupy my thoughts this week, I wasn’t feeling too inspired to write a bird posting and, in fact, I missed my Wednesday timeslot for the week. A couple of things changed my mind over the last day or so though.

First, a colleague reminded me that Saturday (May 8) is International Migratory Bird Day, a day on which we’re all supposed to celebrate and revel in the amazing phenomenon that is bird migration, but which this year has a sad twist to it, given the massive threats to migrating and breeding birds posed by the oil spill in the Gulf.

Second, I was watching a morning news program at the gym today about the oil disaster, and the reporter wrapped up her broadcast with the “good news” that only two oiled birds have been recovered so far, and that one of them, a Brown Pelican, was soon going to be released back into its “natural habitat.” Now, apart from the fact that an oil-soaked Gulf is hardly a “natural” habitat, the story (which I’m sure is being repeated in many news outlets) simply ignores the ongoing and devastating problems facing birds and wildlife in and around the Gulf. For most of the media today, if a point can’t be captured in a simple sound bite or with a piece of video, they’ll just ignore the deep and subtle issues involved and focus on the “good” (or at least, simple) news.

Fortunately, there are lots of other news outlets and conservation organizations that are keeping the focus on the threats to birds and other wildlife during the time of year when they’re most vulnerable. None of it is easy reading for anyone who cares about our planet and its wildlife, but it should be essential reading for all of us.

As I mentioned last week, and as the New York Times points out, measuring the extent of this disaster isn’t just a matter of counting oiled birds scooped out of the Gulf. We’re talking about an entire ecosystem and food chain under unprecedented threats, from the eggs of blue crabs to the unpredictable effects of oil and fumes on migrating or breeding dolphins and whales. The blog of the journal Science reiterates why the timing of this is just so awful, including one I hadn’t thought of: The start of hurricane season is less than a month away.

Several conservation organizations that focus on birds and birding have great web resources, including links to updated blogs and Twitter feeds about recovery efforts and information about the spill, including the American Bird Conservancy and the American Birding Association.

And some of our broader conservation colleagues, like those at the National Audubon Society, have web pages dedicated to the spill, along with press releases about which bird species are at risk and how the oil is slowly encroaching on the crucial bird areas of the region.

Field of View, the blog of Birder’s World magazine, contributes this map of Important Bird Areas threatened by the oil, as well as suggestions for what we can all do, and links to other resources for information on the spill.

Douglas Brinkley, the author of the brilliant recent biography, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, wrote an article today about Roosevelt’s visits to some of the very islands now threatened by the spill. It’s particularly apt and poignant today because it was an understanding of how fragile that ecosystem is that led Roosevelt to create the National Wildlife Refuge system, a system that has done so much to help protect our country’s birds but which is defenseless against man-made disasters like this one.

Finally, out on the front lines of rescuing and rehabilitating the birds and other wildlife affected by the spill is a large network of groups that do just that -- they are on-call every day for large spills like this, as well as for smaller spills that don’t make the news. The Oiled Wildlife Care Network has a blog about the ongoing efforts and challenges involved with the rescue efforts, as does the International Bird Rescue Research Center. The work these groups do is essential to saving the lives of wildlife every day, and we should all think about volunteering for or supporting our local wildlife-rescue group, even when they’re not in the news.

So, no, despite the TV news reports, all is not fine for the birds of the Gulf region and their “natural habitat.” I’ve been a bit guilty of feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing, and not wanting to think (or write) about it. But when you read about just how devastating this whole thing will be, and all of the amazing efforts of the Sierra Club and other organizations to help minimize the damage, you realize that we shouldn’t (and can’t) tune this out. Otherwise, the talking heads and sound bites on TV will prevail, and we’ll learn nothing at all from this latest disaster.

Oh, and don’t forget to get outside this weekend and try and enjoy some migrating birds. It’s good for the soul and might help recharge us all for what looks to be a long and difficult recovery.

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Birding Phil started birding in Cape May, N.J. and Central Park in New York City more than 10 years ago. Since then, his birding adventures (with his wife, Mimi Calter) have included trips to Alaska, Belize, and mainland Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, along with a bunch of other hotspots in the continental U.S., including Florida, Texas, and Arizona). Phil was included in Chris Santella's book "Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die: Birding Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations," in which Phil talked about Pt. Reyes, CA. Birdwatchers -- head on over and join the Birdwatchers group on Trails.

Photo courtesy John Gould

Like an external absence, like a sudden bell,
the sea spreads the sound of the heart,
raining, at nightfall, on a lonely coast:
night doubtless falls,
and its mournful, shipwrecked-banner blue
peoples itself with planets of hoarse silver.

—Paublo Neruda, from “Barcarole” in Residence on Earth

After last week’s descent into the “other,” I’m still reeling, still sitting on the bank of that river waiting for the experience of nature to clean me out, the alchemy to transform my mood. Yet here I am with Neruda. Vacillating in the spaces between the “lonely coast” and “planets of hoarse silver.” The “external absence” still the most prominent feature.

But Neruda’s poem is moving. The melancholy is not static, like the tone that pervades Mathew Arnold’s famous lines from “Dover Beach”:

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Arnold’s sea is, by nature now, a sorrowful force. More than an “external absence” it is an active agent of sadness he perceives acting on him. It is only by resisting this nature, by turning “to one another” that he can survive the reality of his existence on a “darkling plain.”

Neruda’s tone is more contemplative, finding some internal witness that notices how nature contains within its mourning the birth of beauty and potential. It is more his own alienation from nature that causes pain.

From “Ritual of my Legs:

Always,
manufactured products, socks, shoes,
or simply infinite air,
there will be between my fee and the earth
stressing the isolated and solitary part of my being,
something tenaciously involved between my life and the earth,
something openly unconquerable and unfriendly.

Susan notices, over my shoulder, the continuing obsession with nature’s dark side. As I’m reaching for Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, she gently suggests I reconnoiter with the wolf book I have shoved in my shoulder bag. When all else fails, the male psyche can relax and enjoy a good adventure story, and the never-fails-to-raise-the-spirits mention of peeing in the woods. This one from Farley Mowat takes it to a new level, describing the ritual marking of his own little camp territory within the 400 square miles demarcated by a resident wolf pack:

Staking out the land turned out to be rather more difficult than I had anticipated. In order to ensure that my claim would not be overlooked, I felt obliged to make a property mark on stones, clumps of moss, and patches of vegetation at intervals of not more than fifteen feet around the circumference of my claim. This took most of the night and required frequent returns to the tent to consume copious quantities of tea; but before dawn brought the hunters home the task was done, and I returned, somewhat exhausted, to observe the results.

From “Good Old Uncle Albert” in Wolf Songs

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J Gould has been exploring wild places and writing about them since age 6. He was one of the first "beach-watchers" and newsletter editors for NOAA out at Point Reyes National Seashore. He reads sporadically across the spectrum of poetry and poetics, without any discernible pattern, and toils in virtual anonymity as a poet with annual chapbooks and publications in obscure journals -- the first being Toyon at Humboldt State, where he taught and earned an MA in English. Friend J Gould here, and join the Poetry and Nature group to meet others who share your interest.

The May photo contest is officially open! This month's theme, as you know, is "Contrast." That can mean color, light/shadow, subject matter -- let your imagination loose.

We're not requiring that you add a trail to be eligible for this month's grand prize like we did last month, but we are asking very nicely that you continue adding trails. After all, this is your site, and community members are the ones who keep Trails fresh, interesting, and useful.

The prize is a set of very elegant photography books. The first is National Geographic's Rare: Portraits of Endangered Species, by Joel Sartore, full of stunning photos and information about this planet's threatened creatures.

Up next is Sierra Club Books' Galen Rowell: A Retrospective, a big coffee table book of spectacular landscape shots by the famous photographer.

Finally, we're really excited about the tome that rounds out the collection -- a rare, out-of-print, leather-bound, limited edition of Ansel Adams at 100, by John Szarkowski, showcasing the work of the king of contrast himself.

You have until Friday, May 14 at noon to enter ONE photo, and until May 21 to vote for your favorites by leaving positive comments.

You'll find everything you need to know about the contest -- how to submit an entry and vote, and how our judging works -- in the Trails Monthly Photo Contest group. Complete contest rules can be found here.

The Merced River.

My daughter will be nine on Thursday and, sad to say, even though we live in a national park, she had never been camping, not even in our backyard. Then last weekend, friends organized a family campout to nearby Briceburg and we jumped at the chance to join in.

To get to Briceburg from Wawona, we drove through Yosemite, took the turnoff to Highway 140 and exited the park through the gate at Arch Rock. In nearby El Portal, it was the annual Spring Fling and between the folk singers, the tie-dye and the whole-wheat chocolate chip cookies, it felt like we’d landed in 1970. But our time travel was just beginning.

Continuing on Hwy 140 until we saw the Briceburg Visitor Center, we banked a steep right, crossed the one-lane bridge that spans the Merced River and continued four miles down a deeply potholed one-lane dirt road. Suddenly, it was 1860. Because in the midst of the frenzy known as the Gold Rush, Briceburg was not famous for its natural splendor, for the golden poppies that cover its hillsides or for the swift, swirling waters of the Merced. At that time, the same encampments that line the river today were home to people with only one goal in mind --and that was finding gold.


The stamp mill.

Men and women started by panning and when the easy pickings were gone, the Mountain King Quartz Mine was established to take it from the hillsides. The methods used were brutal for both men and nature: In 1917, seven men died of asphyxiation when fresh air was cut off to the lower mine, while the ear-splitting, spine-cracking cacophony of the ore-crushing stamp mills wailed day and night.

Today, except for rusted pylons sitting by the roadside and an ancient cemetery, nothing remains. Which is why our large party was able to drive out on a warm, sunny Saturday morning and stake out our own claim—two perfect campsites by the side of the river, complete with beachfront property.

Once we’d all gathered and reconnoitered, the adults did what adults do. We set up camp, got food ready, went for walks and stared at the campfire like it was TV. The kids? Ranging in age from four to ten, they made a beeline down to the water and spent hours and hours making hotels and castles out of sand, built houses out of reeds, rode their bikes along the bumpy, thrill-filled road and occasionally indulged their elders by taking walks down the road to see waterfalls, flowers, and rattlesnakes. (It helps to camp with one of Yosemite’s medics, a nurse and the park’s fire marshal. My anxiety level about snakebites and other wily happenings was a mind-easing zero.)

After dinner, we all gathered to roast marshmallows and take in the star show, provided free of charge by the universe. Then it was off to bed. Next morning, I awoke to my daughter’s declaration that this was the best camping trip ever. Since it was her only camping trip ever, I was happy to agree.


Spring poppies.

But that feeling didn’t set in for me until a couple of hours later. Breakfast was done and all the adults had our beach chairs pulled in a circle, wagon-train style as we lingered over coffee. The kids were in sight, playing in the bushes, but they were mentally in a world of their own. That’s when one of the moms declared, “This is absolutely perfect.” Naturally, we all agreed. The weather was gorgeous. The place breathtaking. But it turns out, the setting was not what she was talking about. Pointing to the kids and then to our little circle, she said, “This. This is perfect. They’re being kids. We’re being adults. We’re together but they’re in their space, we’re in ours.”

And then I got it—the most precious thing about Briceburg. It isn’t the gold, not even the beauty. It was the natural ebb and flow of family life the way my parents lived it. We’d arrived at our final destination…America 1960.

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Last May, while hiking in Yosemite National Park, long-time Los Angeles resident Jamie Simons turned to her husband and said, "I want to live here." Today she and her family have made the move to live for one year in Wawona, where her daughter attends the one-room schoolhouse, Jamie writes, her husband longs for noise, fast food, people, and the city.

What does it take to keep a nature journal? Just two things: a pencil and a sketchbook.

I do a life-sized contour drawing for each of the paintings in my "100 Flowers" series. My paper is 18" x 24", and I transfer the drawing directly to the canvas.

But what if you can't draw, haven't drawn in ages, are afraid to draw...what then? Contour drawing makes it easy to enter the world of sketchbooks. A contour drawing captures the essence of an object with all of its texture. You can create a lovely contour drawing within an hour of learning the technique, no matter your age or art-school experience.

Why does this work? It works because contour drawing is done very slowly. In fact, the more slowly you draw, the more accurate your contour drawing will be. The slowness quiets down the chatter of your mind. My students often feel a wave of impatience (the left brain), with thoughts such as, "This is silly" or "Why go so slow...I can draw the shape of a flower," just before they relax into drawing beautifully (as the right brain takes over).

So here's what to do: Grab a pencil and a blank piece of paper. Choose an object to draw--something you like, maybe a teacup, a pair of Felco pruners, or a pineapple. Place the object on a table in front of you. Contour drawing is just following the outer contour of an object with your eye and drawing a corresponding line on paper. Practice once before starting to draw by slowly tracing your index finger along the contours of your object.

Continue by slowly moving your eye along the outer edge of your object and slowly drawing a corresponding line on the paper. Look back and forth between the object and the paper to check your lines. Don't lift your pencil, and don't stop to erase. Your first drawing should take you about five minutes.

My students begin by drawing their own hands, and the classroom falls silent as they work. They take off a shoe next and work on that for the next 15 minutes. They often don't realize how much time has passed while they were working and, if things go well, you will feel this way, too.

Finally, know this: Your first drawing is only the first of many, and it will be your weakest, so don't lose hope if it doesn't come out exactly as you had planned.

If you're intrigued by contour drawing, read the essential book on the subject: Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It is available through Amazon, of course, but she has a great website, too. If you'd like to hear more about the creativity debate between the left and right sides of the brain, listen to this 2006 segment from Studio 360 .

And here's the painting that grew from my contour drawing:

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Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

Not that there’s ever a good time or place for something like the huge Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, but the disaster has occurred so completely in the wrong place at the wrong time when it comes to threatening untold numbers of birds and other wildlife. Coming right in the middle of spring migration and breeding season, it’s almost impossible to overstate the potential devastation facing any number of seabirds, shorebirds, and songbirds, as well as many turtles, whales, and dolphins.

Pictures of oiled birds are often what sticks in our minds when thinking about oil spills, and the first birds that are showing up in rehab centers are indeed oiled seabirds, like the Northern Gannet in this story. Once a bird gets coated in oil after landing on the water to rest or to feed, the effects are widespread and quickly become life-threatening. Once a bird’s feathers are oiled, it can’t preen itself, which hinders its ability to fly and to keep its feathers waterproof and properly aligned. Matted feathers lead to hypothermia, and the constant preening done by an oiled bird also means that it’s ingesting oil into its system.

However, as the Audubon Society describes in its comprehensive (and thoroughly depressing) press release, that’s unfortunately only one type of threat facing birds and other wildlife in the spring time. Many migratory shorebirds use the beaches and wetlands of the Gulf Coast as an important stopping-over spot on their northbound journey each spring. And the shorebirds and seabirds that nest along the shores will have their nesting grounds damaged, including the possibility of having their eggs, or their newly-hatched chicks, oiled. Even warblers and other songbird migrants may be affected as this is the peak of their trans-Gulf migration period. And who knows what effects the oil, fumes, and “controlled” burns could have on that journey.

As just one example of an imperiled species, the Brown Pelican is the state bird of Louisiana, and this oil spill is just the latest threat to the bird’s continued survival. As I wrote back in the summer, the Brown Pelican was just removed from the endangered species list last year, after decades of threats from DDT, habitat loss, and, yes, oil spills. It makes you wonder how well the population will survive with this latest huge threat in the middle of its breeding season.

There are efforts under way to try and control the threats to wildlife, but the poignant first photo in this BBC story shows just how hard of a task that is. Sure, you can put up containment booms offshore and along the beaches, but birds aren’t hard-wired to understand the threats of oil and the function of booms.

In a way, it’s a sad commentary on the prevalence of oil spills and other man-made disasters, but there are now so many experienced and capable bird rescue and rehabilitation centers that can spring into action in times like this. Whether it’s something on the scale of the Gulf disaster or Exxon Valdez, or something smaller, there are always incidents to be responded to. The International Bird Rescue Research Center in California is just one of these great organizations that is responding to the Gulf Coast, incident and you can follow their work and get updates on the rescue efforts on their blog.

So, what can we do about this? Obviously, the long-term solution involves breaking our dependence on oil and other dirty sources of energy (and stopping the expansion of offshore drilling), but in the more immediate term, there are a few things we can do. I suspect that, as with many natural or man-made disasters, a lot of groups and organizations will need money in the near term to help with their efforts-- but there are also other ways to be active. You can help support a wildlife rehab organization, like the IBRRC, or if you have the time and ability, you can see about volunteering your time either locally or in the Gulf region. Audubon has some ideas on how to help, including setting up a clearinghouse for volunteers, and the IBRRC has some other numbers and links about how to help.

As we’ve seen time and time again, ecosystems and their individual parts are more resilient than we might sometimes think, and we can only hope that this is the case again. But with the huge scale and the disastrous timing of the “river of oil” in the Gulf, our luck may have run out this time. I really hope not, but it’s just so painful to think of what might happen.

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Birding Phil started birding in Cape May, N.J. and Central Park in New York City more than 10 years ago. Since then, his birding adventures (with his wife, Mimi Calter) have included trips to Alaska, Belize, and mainland Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, along with a bunch of other hotspots in the continental U.S., including Florida, Texas, and Arizona). Phil was included in Chris Santella's book "Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die: Birding Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations," in which Phil talked about Pt. Reyes, CA. Birdwatchers -- head on over and join the Birdwatchers group on Trails.