Hiking is hard and your drone is starting to make you look creepy. But how else to see nature’s glory? As part of the Plein Air at the Lost Coast festivities on Oct. 3 and 4, Air Shasta took locals and visiting art enthusiasts up, up and away in its slick little Robinson R44 helicopter. […]
Outdoors
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HumBug: Don’t Worry, Bee Happy
With great alarm, many articles have informed us that honeybees are dying out in record numbers. The phenomenon is called Colony Collapse Disorder. There are numerous theories from over use of neo-nicitonieoids insecticides, GMO crops, mites, climatological stress and a combination of all of the above. Like a plague, it has wiped out many hives […]
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HumBug: Neglected Damsels
Whenever I give a talk on dragonflies, I point out that there are two subgroups to the order Odonata. The dragonflies (anisoptera, which means “same wing”) and the damselfiles (zygoptera meaning “different wing”), which I am told refers to the sizes and shapes of the front and hind wings. I guess because they’re bigger and […]
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HumBug: Good Mothers
In grammar school I learned that only the birds and mammals cared for their young. Later I learned that crocodiles and alligators build and protect nests, but largely the “lower lifeforms” do little after laying their eggs. Aside from the social insects that feed, protect and rear the young into adulthood, parental care is relatively rare […]
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HumBug: Yellowjackets
Once, while recovering from shoulder surgery, I heard my wife scream from the backyard. Arm immobilized with a brace, I stumbled outside. She was under attack from dozens of yellowjackets. Before I could get her away from them she had accumulated nine stings. The scars she got from accidentally disturbing a nest in the ground […]
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HumBug: The Most Unlovely Insects
Butterflies and dragonflies can entrance us with their beauty. Praying mantises carry themselves with a slender, lethal elegance. At the other end of the insect spectrum, you can find the order of flies. Unlike all other winged insects, members of the order Diptera have only two wings not four. Di meaning two and ptera meaning […]
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HumBug: Jumping Spiders!
Even people who do not like spiders can find much to love in the red backed jumping spider. First of all they are cute.(well, cute for a spider). Stocky and fuzzy, with eight eyes positioned across a broad face, they are somehow a little less spidery-creepy than a black widow. If you are impressed by […]
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The Reluctant Cyclist, part 5
Number of miles ridden: 21 Time traveled: 2 hours 05 minutes 31 seconds Number of times scolded for not wearing helmet: 1 (the scolding worked) Number of times actively feared for life: 3 Due to my bike needing repair and then some time out of town, I hadn’t ridden other than when I pedaled out […]
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Humboldt Bay Marathon Off and Running!
Today marked the debut of the Humboldt Bay Marathon, the first such event to take place in the area since the early 1970s. Founded by local runner Rich Baker, the marathon kicked off in Eureka (with a half-marathon start in Arcata) and the finish for both involving music, snacks, awards and beer tasting courtesy of […]
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On the XP: Local Families Take A Historic Ride Across the West
The Pony Express occupies a relatively small window in American history, but an outsized place in Wild West mythology. The mail service, in which riders carried messages via horseback for 1,800 miles from St. Jackson, Missouri to Sacramento was only in existence for 19 months — from April 3, 1860 to October 1861 — before being […]
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The Reluctant Cyclist, part 4
Number of miles ridden (part one): 5.6 Time traveled: 23:54 minutes Number of miles ridden (part two): 3 Time traveled: 22.43 minutes (This included a stop at the Co-op during which I left Strava on. Oops.) Number of stop signs deliberately blown through (clear view of no cars! momentum! some guilt!): 1 Number of times […]
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HumBug: Tiny and Primitive
If you have sharp eyes or good glasses, pick up a potted plant and you might see a tiny gray thing, not much larger than the period at the end of this sentence, scurry away or even leap. This particular kind of critter has been hiding under rocks for a very long time. These are […]