A Mast Year

Dark-eyed Juncos, interesting cloud formations, and more...

This is a “mast year” for oaks.

Boom times, called “mast years,” occur every 2-5 years, with few acorns in between. One huge oak can drop up to 10,000 acorns in a mast year!

I was reminded of mast years in a wonderful post about Red-headed Woodpeckers by Diane Porter at My Gaia. My Gaia is one of my favorite substacks about nature. Red-headed Woodpeckers are one of my favorite birds. I remember them being everywhere when I was a kid. Their numbers have plummeted since then. Diane says we can expect the birds to overwinter given the abundance of acorns. So, good news!

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I captured these two bits of the sunrise on two adjacent days last week. I have no clue as to what atmospheric conditions created them.

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The milkweed are glorious this time of year. When I took this shot, I didn’t notice Violet the Dog in the background

.I was trying to photograph this beautiful grass but Violet the Dog insisted that she be in the frame, so fine with me.

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I love seeing the paths into the timber. Sometimes I think it would be fairly easy to be a predator.

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Photo by Mykola Swarnyk, Wikimedia Commons.

I heard my first Dark-eyed Junco of the season the other day.

The dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis) is a species of junco, a group of small, grayish New World sparrows. This bird is common across much of temperate North America and in summer ranges far into the Arctic. It is a very variable species, much like the related fox sparrow (Passerella iliaca), and its systematics are still not completely untangled.

The genus name Junco is the Spanish word for rush, from the Latin word juncus. Its modern scientific name means "winter junco", from the Latin word hyemalis "of the winter".

My Grandpa Leonard called Juncos “snowbirds.” It didn’t make any sense to me because they aren’t white. Now I read that calling them “snowbirds” is a very old usage, largely because they overwinter in parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

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I caught these Bald Eagles riding the thermals the other day.

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I’m going out well before dawn many days, and I saw this young deer at the pond. Notice it still has some spots.

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I’ve been playing around with Instagram. Check out the above video of part of my walk with Violet the Dog. We walk fast!

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If you enjoy Cedar Creek Nature Notes, I encourage you to subscribe to my friend Larry Stone’s “Listening to the Land.” It’s fantastic. Larry has forgotten more than I will ever know about our outdoor world.

For another glimpse of the wonders of the Iowa outdoors, Diane Porter’s My Gaia is another Substack I enjoy. It’s full of observations on nature and is ripe with wisdom.

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I’m a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Please sample the talents of my fellow collaborative members. If you can afford to be a paid subscriber, that would be great. If not, the vast majority of content is free. And here is a link to the Iowa Podcasters’ Collaborative, should you be interested. Check out my Substack Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture if you aren’t already a subscriber. My Iowa Revolution podcast with award-winning broadcaster Spencer Dirks can be found here.