iLike My iPhone (iThink)

Hiding place in a drystone fence (taken with iPhone)

It's been getting on a year since I switched from a caveman cell phone to a smart phone and I can finally begin to say, with some level of confidence, that I sort of understand how it works. I can take pictures (and put filters on them); I can theoretically download Minecraft; Facebook and eBird, with their streaming updates of rare birds, are now available everywhere I go. Siri is always there to guide me to the nearest gas station or coffee place; getting lost, which used to be a sort of ritual for my roadtrips, is now a thing of the past.

My iPhone has come in handy in the great outdoors, too. My previous phone took pictures any Bigfoot hunter would be proud of; the iPhone, while not up to snuff with a "real" camera, definitely does a passable job. Combined with binoculars or a tripod it could even be used to document distant or moving targets like birds.

Bullfrog, unedited picture with iPhone through binoculars

And unlike a true camera, you almost always have your cell phone handy, so no missed photo opportunities. (For the sake of honesty I feel like I should admit that all my photos are iPhone photos. I have future plans to win the lottery and outfit myself in National Geographic photographer equipment, but until then, the phone camera is a bit cheaper.)

It's got other advantages too. The first app I downloaded was the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's free bird ID app, Merlin. Set up like a simplified field guide, you can choose to either browse the 350 species included or have the app guide you through a series of questions to help you decide on the identity of an unknown bird. Merlin's weak point is the restrictive species list (looking for Empidonax flycatchers? Better hope the old Sibley is on hand). Its strong points are that it's FREE and includes 800+ audio records of songs and calls, very handy for those times in the field when you know it's a warbler but you just can't remember which one. And the iPhone's usefulness as a hiking partner doesn't stop there. Can't figure out what that flower is? Hit up Google Images. Directionally challenged and forgot your compass at home? There's an app for that. It even calls people, so if you fall and break your legs you can call 911. 

So I guess when it really comes down the wire, iDo like my iPhone--for the most part. I realize that my adoption of the wonders of technology isn't nearly extensive as it could be, but I do occasionally have the nagging feeling that my 12-year-old self would be very disappointed in me. My tendencies were towards the Luddite, partly due to financial constrains and partly because did Daniel Boone have an iPhone? Did Audubon? Did Roger Tory Peterson, for pete's sake? I learned my birds with the aid of the 1980s edition of Peterson and a pair of binoculars about as effective as looking through a couple of trash cans taped together, and about the same size. My views have mellowed since then; I've come to realize that Audubon didn't have an iPhone not because he was above such things, but because the technological advances of his time limited him to a shotgun. Still, I feel a faint twinge of guilt at the words of Aldo Leopold: "Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim," he writes. "We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry." My iPhone still comes with me into the woods--but I do make an attempt to be a little less trigger happy with Google Images.

IPhone photo of foxglove beardtongue

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Get Your History On @ the Lexington Cemetery

Today's Adventure Time took place in the wilds of the Lexington Cemetery and Arboretum in Lexington, Kentucky. Dating back to 1849 (allegedly to deal with high mortality from a cholera epidemic going on at the time), Lex Cem is on the National Register of Historic Places and worth a visit from anyone passing through the Bluegrass.

My visits to the cemetery are mostly for birding purposes; it's also a 170-acre arboretum and a local birding hotspot, especially during migration when it provides a safe haven from urban sprawl for migrants passing through. According to eBird, around 150 different species have been seen at the park. With the weather at sauna-like levels of heat and humidity the birds were pretty quiet today; the most exciting find was my first-of-year Scarlet Tanager.

Even though the birding was slow, there's plenty of other stuff to see--Lex Cem has enough to hold the interest of any history buff or connoisseur of the grotesque and Gothic. It's the final resting place of, most famously, statesman and orator Henry Clay, and includes a massive monument where he and his wife are buried (it's literally so tall you can't really get a good look at it).  Directly next to the Clays' tomb is a huge American basswood, which nearby signage claims is the largest basswood in the United States.

Sharing the cemetery with Union soldiers as well as fellow Confederates is General John Hunt Morgan of Morgan's Raid fame. Morgan and his "Calico Raiders" went farther north into Yankee territory than any other Confederate force during the Civil War. I spent a lot of years in southern Ohio counties scattered with historical markers indicating Morgan had passed that way, so after moving to Lexington I felt obligated to go visit the burial place of the general who had (way back in 1863) sacked my former stompin grounds.

Evidently other people like to visit as well. On previous visits I've found flowers, little rock stacks, keychains and a passive-aggressive Union flag. 

And of course there's enough statuary to satisfy the morbid Victorian in all of us:

 For those with paranormal interests, the mausoleum has the obligatory dark shadows, screams, and cold spots. And if none of that stuff interests you and you just like fuzzy adorable things, I'm pretty sure Lex Cem has the highest chipmunk-per-acre concentration in all of Lexington.

Spring: Episode 2

 The crazy part of spring is over, but it was good while it lasted. In late April we had some pretty fierce thunderstorms here in the Bluegrass and the park where I work was flooded—with water and birds both. Warblers, vireos, thrushes, grounded during their nocturnal migration by heavy wind and rain, were dripping off the limbs in a dizzying array of color and sound. One tree alone yielded blackpoll, Blackburnian, yellow and bay-breasted warblers, as well as warbling and red-eyed vireos; back in the woods, Swainson’s thrushes flitted through the trees above a foot of standing floodwater. Decent weather gave the birds time to refuel and within a couple days they were on their way farther north, leaving only a scattering of residents behind.

Water, water everywhere...

Now we’ve settled into phase II: It’s baby time!

2nd year bullfrog tadpole

Hatchling red-eared slider. This little guy or gal was somewhere between quarter and silver dollar sized.

Male and female Canada geese with their brood, the day of hatching. It's important to remember when you see these adorable fuzzy babies that the mortality rate for goslings hovers right around 50%. The moral of the story is that science ruins everything with its daggone data.