Baldie Finds A Helper, or Two

I wonder if this was the eagle that Gary spotted near Kent.

He probably ended up at the Sarvey Wildlife Rescue Center in Arlington. It's good organization to support BTW.

Tunicate Invasion

Now I'm wondering that all those pretty orange drippy things that I showed school kids on the beach last summer, were in fact, invaders.

This story by Susan Gordon at the TNT talks about the invasion of a tunicate species that seems to act like an aquatic version of The Blob.

I'll have to keep a sharp eye out this summer and report this out for someone to sprinkle salad dressing on it (read the story for this to make sense).

Photo from The News Tribune

Baldies, Bunnies and Bumbles

In reverse order.

As I'm watching it snow tonight, and rejoicing I'm finally seeing some of this white stuff, my daughter reminds me that this may mean the end of the bubble bees I saw earlier this week.

"See mom, it probably killed the bumble bees! Now how do you feel about it!" end quote.

Okay, if it killed the bumbles, I hate the snow. (well, sort of.) - she just read this last comment and slugged me.

Could this be another local hit on the wildlife due to global warming (in reverse)? (I took this picture of a bumble napping in a daffodil the day before this snow)

On to baldies. My hubby saw a bald eagle near the wildlife area off of the East Valley Highway near the rock shop.

And finally bunnies. It was about this time a few years ago that the neighborhood cat was stalking something. And that something was screaming, literally. So I went over to investigate. It was a terrified baby rabbit that Fat Millie (the cat) hat trapped against a azalea bush. We rescued the bunny, which Jennifer wanted to make a pet.

But we convinced her said bunny probably wouldn't survive and to release it with its fellow bunnies in the Scenic Hill Cemetery, which we did. Now I doubt this species of rabbit is endangered, but there are some, oddly, which are stuggling for survival according to this article, and this one. (which is about the pygmy rabbits in Spokane.)

I Miss The Old Swimming Pool

That used to be in our neighbor's back yard.

Each year at this time, the frogs would hatch, and we'd hear their unabashed chorus of spring. A few years they filled in the pool, and no more frogs. This story reminded me of their lost paean.

This May Explain the Robins in February

Walking the dog last month, I looked up as I took my usual route through my Kent neighborhood, and looked up at a tree, still bare of leaves. But in it were about a dozen robins, looking back.

I was startled not only by the size of the flock, but that they were there at all. And then the trees. Even my daughter noticed. One day, the trees were in bud or seemingly bare, and the next, full extravagant bloom. In early March.

This great story explains what I'm seeing, I think. While we might think of global warming only affecting the polar bears (file that under it sucks to be you), it in fact affects everything. Including birds that hatch too early, only to starve because the insects aren't out; same goes for the butterflies in Virginia, or other carnivores up the food chain. And as this blog post notes, global warming-or cooling, whatever the cause, will affect us.

It was followed up a day later by this story in the PI.

Photo by Jennifer Conner

When Faced With Mortal Danger, Clone Yourself

Every year as a Beach Naturalist volunteer, I'm telling people to drop the shells, in many cases, sand dollars and don't take them off the beach. I tell them that a. if they are darkish brown/purple, they may still be alive - and you'll be killing them. Or if they have already died, the calcium in their shells is needed by the environment in the circle-of-life thing.

Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't. But the more cool facts I let them know about the creatures, they more likely they are to put them back (aside, from the fact it's illegal to take shells out of a city park in the first place.).

So add this one cool fact, reported by Sandi Doughton of the Seattle Times, about sand dollars. When threatened as a larvae (in the living soup that is Puget Sound) they clone themselve before being gobbled up.

Photo by the Seattle Times

As the Salmon go, So go the Smelt?

Apparently so, according to this article in The News Tribune recently. It really bothers me when the bottom of the food chain fish begin to die off. It doesn't bode well on up the line.

Photo from The News Tribune