Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Akai Tori

A few days ago, I mentioned I’d like some red birds from someone, since I now knew the phrase for red bird in Japanese – and Heliconia came through nearly instantly with these beauties:

UFD I
UFD I. Image courtesy Heliconia.

All right, so they’re arguably orange. But it’s definitely a red-orange. Heliconia was a bit worried about them being arguably orange rather than reliably red, but I say this is fine – I can show off my (laughably infinitesimal) Japanese vocabulary and call them aki tori* – autumn birds. Because orange and red are colors of autumn. So it works. Just nod, smile, and go with it, people. Continue reading “Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Akai Tori”

Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Akai Tori
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Mystery Flora: Campus Beautification

I know, I know – two domesticated species within a week, where’s the wildflowers, right? But we’ve been doing the OSU geotour, might as well do the campus flowers too, amirite? And these are quite wonderful.

For one thing, they are trees:

Mystery Flora I
Mystery Flora I

Continue reading “Mystery Flora: Campus Beautification”

Mystery Flora: Campus Beautification

Geopuzzle: Cheshire Cat

I’d actually hoped to write this one up myself, but Lockwood beat me to it. Here’s the Cheshire Cat puzzle Aaron and I solved on the Quartzville trip. Think you can find the answer faster than we did?

Smile If you Like Earth Science Week: Cheshire Cat! (Clues 1 & 2)

Cheshire Cat! Clue 3 for the Puzzle

Cheshire Cat! Clue 4

Cheshire Cat! Clues 5 and 6

Good luck!

Aaron and Lockwood discussing the Cheshire Cat.
Cheshire Cat outcrop panorama. Best I could do with all the alders in the way. Sorry.
Geopuzzle: Cheshire Cat

Saturday Song: [Learning] Japanese

It turns out that one (not particularly efficient) way of learning Japanese is to spend a whole day reading haiku based around the same theme. After a while, even though the translations are loose at best, you begin to pick out particular words and know what they mean. I can now say “red dragonfly.” Aka tombo. And when I see aki (秋), I know autumn is somehow involved. Look, it’s more Japanese than I knew yesterday morning.

But if any readers speak Japanese, I’d dearly love to know what the phrase “tombo kana” means. Do you know how good online translators are with Japanese? Not good at all. Do you know what it did to a perfectly beautiful, deeply meaningful Issa poem? Observe: Continue reading “Saturday Song: [Learning] Japanese”

Saturday Song: [Learning] Japanese

Mystery Flora: Anticipating Snow or White Weddings?

Our Goldener Oktober confused the hell out of our local plants, imported and domestic. I’ve seen a lot of things burst into bloom that probably shouldn’t have done. I’d swear, for instance, that the hedgy sort of bushes along one of our local streets bloomed once already this year, but when I bopped by them the first week of October, there they were, at it again.

Continue reading “Mystery Flora: Anticipating Snow or White Weddings?”

Mystery Flora: Anticipating Snow or White Weddings?

Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Positively Volcanic

I’ve never gotten so fortunate with birds in Oregon before. Quite a few actually stopped long enough for photo ops this time, and some even did interesting things for the camera. Some are even in focus. This one isn’t so much, but it’s the most intriguing of the lot. It landed in a tree some distance from me at Clear Lake, waited for me to get in just one shot, and then flew off. I’m glad it held still for a moment – it’s got some fantastic coloration, perfect for an area covered in basalt flows and flaming red vine maples.

Continue reading “Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Positively Volcanic”

Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Positively Volcanic

Cryptopod: Blackbody on Blackberry

Right. First order of bidness: we’re renaming the “Cryptoinsect” thing because some people apparently can’t accept chucking in any old arthropod under that title. Rather than argue technical versus lay terms and such, we’ll just say “Cryptopod” and be done with it. It’s easier to say and I can sneak sea creatures in under such a title. So there. Nyah!

/fake butthurt

Second order o’ bidness: present a cryptopod. Why, I haz one! (And if anyone here comes along to tell me that’s not an arthropod, I shall give them such a smack.)

Cryptopod I

Continue reading “Cryptopod: Blackbody on Blackberry”

Cryptopod: Blackbody on Blackberry

What I Did On My Goldener Oktober Vacation

Every once in a while (probably more often what with anthropogenic climate change), a kink develops in the weather, and the Pacific Northwest ends up with unseasonably warm weather. This can be torture in the summer, when desert air ambles up to say hello and desiccate everything. This time, it meant late summer weather in the fall, which was brilliant. especially since the antics with our vacation calendar meant I’d missed the latter half of summer. Only summer didn’t end on schedule.

Continue reading “What I Did On My Goldener Oktober Vacation”

What I Did On My Goldener Oktober Vacation

Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: The Sound of Music

Eskered, who sent us a quite nice weka a while back, could use our help.

UFD #1 was taken in Fiordland National Park, South Island, New Zealand. This bird is a song bird, have a rather pathetic video of blurry forest as I frantically looked around for the bird, but the audio is great.

Somewhat blurry photo, alas. We all know what it’s like trying to snap these buggers in uncertain light with all the obstructions the camera’s trying to focus on instead, and the little barstards move the second you get focused on them, if you ever do.

UFD I

Regardless of blur, we’ve this song, and a visual, and surely, someone here can work wonders with them.

I’ve three more from Eskered. I’ll be doling them out slowly as time goes by. There’s one, especially, that geologists are going to identify with. It’s definitely our kind o’ bird.

Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: The Sound of Music

Fun Moments in the Field

Oy, am I tired – been out having fun in the field. Which ties in wonderfully with Evelyn’s Accretionary Wedge #50 theme, so that works out splendidly.

We’ve definitely had some fun moments on this field trip so far. I’ll start with one from a place that I definitely want to take Evelyn to – she’ll adore it. It’s called Clear Lake. I looked at it and immediately thought of kayaks. This is a lake that begs to be slowly explored from a few inches above the water. I shall have to purchase kayaks (no kayak rentals, alas) and then get Evelyn and Jackie out here. I’ll post pictures soon that will have all of you clamoring to come along.

Oregon’s all about basalt, and there’s plenty there. Here are some nice basalt pebbles.

Basalt pebbles at Clear Lake

Nice, aren’t they? You can see the variety of colors basalt can take on – there’s some black, and gray, and rusty orange. They’ve got a little bit of stuff growing on them, but still, they’re fine examples of the local rock.

Continue reading “Fun Moments in the Field”

Fun Moments in the Field