The Backyard Science group regularly features the Daily Bucket. Originally, Backyard Science was designed for folks to document the year-to-year changes in their own vicinity. Yet for many, everywhere before us is part of our backyard; the forests; the shorelines; the mountains; the sky; all of it. Please provide a comment about your own natural area; your backyard; or your favorite spot. Include, as close as you are comfortable, your general location.
I live in a 60-year-old suburb in northwest Oregon. The developer actually did a little planning. There are many large trees there of similar species, often smartly planted in the far corners of the lots, away from the houses.
Since I spend many hours looking out my windows or over my fence at these trees, I decided to identify the species of the largest, nearest trees. This turned out danged hard to do. For instance, here is a redwood:
Then what's in the photo below?
They're both redwoods.
The top one is a coastal redwood, that grows as a native in the fog belt along the Pacific Coast from about Santa Barbara to the California/Oregon state line. The second photo is a Sequoia Redwood, native to the Yosemite Park region.
Yet they both grow in my neighborhood 100 yards apart, although they probably grow at least 100 miles apart in nature.
And this is the easier example.
Now it is for readers' comments about their own favorite natural areas, whether there are tricky trees, or not.
"Green Diary Rescue" is Back!
After a hiatus of over 1 1/2 years, Meteor Blades has revived his excellent series. As MB explained, this weekly diary is a "round-up with excerpts and links... of the hard work so many Kossacks put into bringing matters of environmental concern to the community... I'll be starting out with some commentary of my own on an issue related to the environment, a word I take in its broadest meaning."
"Green Diary Rescue" will be posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.