Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Interesting things that come "across my radar"

You can probably say I am an internet junkie.

I read lots of things from many places on the internet.

I start my day usually checking out my new email and the Discussion Forum and the Photos of the Day at The Digital Image Cafe. I've made lots of friends there and I enjoy seeing the beautiful photographs each morning as well as to see if there is any photography information I would find useful.

I have set up a My Yahoo page that gives me lots of different news headlines that I can click on for more details. I read news articles, editorials, and entertainment articles (I"m tired of hearing about the celebrities whose lives are so messed up right now - the names change, but the disfunctional lifestyles go on and on and on.) Sometimes I look at the Austin American Statesman. Today I looked at one of the editorials and I wrote a letter to the editor. My first draft was twice the size limit, so I just sent the first part.

Lately I've been reading Yellowstone.net and The Yellowstone Newspaper to make Yellowstone still feel real when we are so far way. I am fascinated with the story of Hollywood Star, the bear that has been relocated twice now. The last time they took her 100 miles away and she still came back to the Fishing Bridge area. Apparently she has moved over to Pelican Valley. There are several photos of her on the postiing. She is a beautiful bear. I sure hope that she stays in Pelican Valley and away from people, so they don't have to kill her.

I also read several blogs. Some of them are friends and family. I love hearing what's going on in their lives. I started reading two blogs after attending the Festival of the Cranes at the Bosque del Apache NWR. Julie Zickefoose and her husband, Bill Thompson (Bill of the Birds). His article today was about pigeons in the Los Angeles area. I have to agree that putting birth control in their food supplies can certainly have unintended consequences - not only to raptors that feed on them, but also to other birds that may also ingest the drugs. On the other hand, pigeons tend to over populate in metropolitan areas (as do grackles.)

From the Yellowstone Newspaper I chased this link to The Yellowstone Spectator. It dovetails with Bill of the Bird's comments about how small things can affect other things. Who would have thought that the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone would increase the growth of aspen groves and provide better habitat for beavers? By the way, my beaver photos were the beaver that lives in the lodge he pictured.

I also chased this link from the Casper Star Tribune. This fits in with some research I did on the regrowth of trees in Yellowstone after the 1988 fires. I had to figure out how white pines were related to lodgepole pines. I'm interested in lodge pole pines because they need fire to open their cones for the seeds to germinate. They are also under attack all over the western United States from pine bark beetles. I wonder what the landscapes are going to look like with so much of the forest dead. And due to fire danger, so much of the dead wood will be logged, that the mountains will have a very different look.

I'm interested in lots of different things and my web surfing shows it. While sometimes my time might be more productively spent doing other things, I sure do learn a lot as I chase the different threads.

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