Month: May 2021

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So Many Stories – So Little Time

There are so many great stories in the news lately, it’s hard to pick just one.  There was the one, here, about the Utah woman who went off the grid last November. She survived all winter living in a tent with a sleeping bag, eating moss and grass, and drinking water from a nearby stream. She was discovered recently – weak and emaciated, but otherwise none the worse for wear – when a searcher’s drone crashed near her campsite. What are the odds?

Oh, and just in case you were thinking of trying this yourself at home, check out the story, here, of a woman near Durango. Recently while walking her dogs at sunset, she was eaten by bears. You heard me: Eaten. By. Bears. Moral of the story? If you wanna engage in outdoor escapades in the Rocky Mountain West, you better try it sometime other than sundown. Or at least while the bears are still hibernating. Or get some bigger dogs, fercryinoutloud. Just sayin’.

Then there’s the news of Bill and Melinda Gates’ impending divorce which has set the Twitter-verse afire with malicious memes galore. My favorite? See below. You can weigh in on your own favorite after perusing, here. My only question is this:  129 billion USD and no pre-nup. REALLY, guys? At least Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos had that much going for them.

 

So Many Stories
So Many Stories – So Little Time – And Best of luck Melinda!

 

Finally, for my friend Lou who’s a true believer, the NYer has a spread on UFOs, here. That’s right, apparently the Pentagon now takes this stuff semi-seriously. Like as if we don’t have enough trouble with bat-sh*t crazy people who hail from right here on earth? But I digress. Sorry, Lou, but Borowitz is the only one who tells it like it really is, here.

 

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That is all.

Isn’t that enough?

I GUESS!

 

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Williamson’s Sapsucker

Alright all you yellow-bellied sapsuckers – listen up! Today I saw a cousin of yours on the Mason Creek Trail. As it turns out, there’s an interesting story behind Williamson’s Sapsucker.  For my photo, along with a few of the juicier historical tidbits, see below.

 

Williamson's Sapsucker
A male Williamson’s Sapsucker working on a dead aspen on the Mason Creek Trail.

 

Today’s hike took off where my previous one took a downhill turn. Instead of turning left at the Old Mill and heading down the Borderline Trail – see that post, here – today I went up, and right. Above Old Mill, Mason Creek is still mostly snow and ice. But with springtime temps in the upper 70’s like today, that won’t last long.

With both of us taking advantage of a sunny spring day, I heard him before I saw him. In the deep woods, the sound of a woodpecker is tell-tale. But unless you’re fortunate enough to come across one in the open like I did today, you’ll probably never see him at all.

 

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Sapsuckers are a kind of woodpecker. The male Williamson’s is mostly black with a distinctive white blaze on head and wings. The only two tidbits I’ll pass along here are these: The male and female are so different-looking that, for a long time after first being identified, ornithologists thought they were completely different species. The second curious thing is that Williamson was an engineer and civil war vet, not an ornithologist. If you want to find out how this particular pecker came to be named after him, you’ll have to click the link and read the story, here. Otherwise you may just want to keep your eyes and ears peeled when hiking high mountain meadows and hope for the best.

 

Williamson before the Sapsucker
Col. Robert Williamson was an engineer and Civil War vet who had little interest in birds — but ended up with one named after him all the same.