La Vie En Rose and how you're on this planet

This is turning into a music blog for now. But this is the music I listen to when I work and I'm in a writing grove - which doesn't occur often so I'm going with. 

I finished a section in a paper about threats to tropical birds on climate change and emerging infectious disease - what fun. 

Kind of a downer but this came on and I felt better for a few minutes. Romantic and sweet. Made me think of my grandparents and maybe how my parents were created. Ugh. Better feeling gone.

Astrud Gilberto's Berimbau

When I was a kid and I or one my sisters brought home a new record it always took me a few iterations to see what songs I liked best - something you did while studying the cover and reading the lyrics. One of the downers of the digital age is the ease of getting singles so nobody ever need listen to a song until it grows on you - then you end up loving it. I think all John Prine songs are like this. 

I do appreciate Pandora and other streaming services in that they provide a venue for hearing new songs. Every once a while a song strikes you. I can't even point to why I like this song so much. A great sound of course. But there's something extra. This song pays homage to Capoeira with sounds of traditional instruments. It's all done so well. 

Capoeira is a dance-fighting originally practiced by Brazilian slaves and now practiced by smelly dread-toting Americans from middle-class families who do it terribly. These guys know capoeira:

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

1. Working on the introductory paper for the special issue - reviewers have suggested a "total rewrite of some sections"

2. I have to make small edits to my paper in the Special Issue

3. I have six species evaluations to do for the state - past due now. I offered to give population and habitat evaluations for a few grassland species that I've been studying 

4. I'm chair of the Academic Planning Committee that oversees new programs at Wilkes. We have our biggest meeting since I've been a member or chair (6 years worth). We have proposals: a neurotraining facility (if you're feeling overworked and stressed - hmmm), a neuroscience major, two new nursing programs, and a 4 + 1 masters program in bioengineering. Each proposal consists of a narrative and a budget. Yuck. That's Tuesday. 

5. I have to edit a paper that was recently accepted in Restoration Ecology. We use C isotopes to show an entire ecosystem is produced from planting grasses at a once toxic site that was completely unvegetated at one point. This needs to be done by Monday or Tuesday

6. Regular professor stuff: teaching two upper levels to homeworks, quizzes, and lectures to prepare. 

But I did take a mental health break to do some of this:

Enough of that - back to work and jazz

A coffee & birds study from the home of coffee

There are a number of bird studies looking at the effects of coffee plantations versus forests or shade coffee versus sun coffee. Most of these studies are from Central and South America and very few from Africa. 

Recently accepted in a special issue of Biological Conservation is a study by graduate student Even Buechley and colleages on shade coffee in a region of Ethiopia where coffee is a native species. I love thinking about locals picking coffee beans in the area for hundreds (thousands?) of years. My long lost coffee cousins. Unfortunately, there isn't a link from the journal but the University of Utah published a press release. The link from Biological Conservation should be appearing soon. 

Coffee is a shrub and shade coffee plantations grow under large trees that shade the plants below. Studies from the Americas show, very strongly, that shade coffee is much better for birds than sun coffee. You can now buy coffee from shade coffee plantations if you wish to support birds - I do. In Ethiopia, this study showed that coffee plantations had more species than forest and coffee plantations served as adequate habitat for several forest species as well as migrant birds from Europe (yes, birds migrate there too!). 

Shade coffee plantation with coffee below and canopy above.
Photo Credit: Evan Buechley, University of Utah.

This study is going to get some great press - as it deserves. Large portions of the tropics and near tropics are coffee plantations. How we manage coffee plantations will likely have huge effects on tropical diversity. National Geographic just ran a story here. 

I need to get to Africa and see some birds and, damn it, I need a cup of coffee. 

Death in the hedges

I have a thick hedge in the back yard. Below is a picture from the summer (aaahh, summmer) and now there's about a foot of snow on the ground. We're in a suburb of Wilkes-Barre and I put out bird seed. We don't get Redpolls, Evening Grosbeaks, or crossbills but we do get House Sparrows - hordes of them. Lately, we have about 30-40 at a time. All that chirping might attract some attention. It did. 

Watched a Cooper's Hawk dive in to the hedge and emerge with a sparrow. This hedge is dense enough that it's difficult to put your hand in and pull those stupid nightshade vines out.  

One down, thirty-nine to go. 

Alice the heart-melting puppy

My dog just died a month ago so I'm still a little sensitive and hurting and it may explain why I'm a tearing up mess. But here's a puppy I find so damn cute. 

Meet Alice. 

Today is World Wetlands Day!

I grew up in Karrsville, NJ (not sure that's even on a map). There was a small stream that went by the house, Pohatcong Creek was just down the road, and my neighborhood had five ponds that I fished from (and not always... openly).  I loved these places but after getting into ferns - this is a real thing OK - I got into swamps. So I love wetlands of all flavors. I realize how few pictures I have of wetlands so I better step it up. 

Today we can celebrate wetlands because it is World Wetlands Day!

As cold as it is, and this boggles my mind, Ambystoma salamanders are moving into small fishless ponds and breeding - now - beneath the ice!!! How cool is that?  

Sandpipers at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge

Stream running through La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica

Wetlands outside Williamsburg, VA

Wetland (complete with cranberries) on Wilkes property 

Great blue with flounder - Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge