Category: outdoors

Shimogamo Shrine

Shimogamo-jinja is a large Shinto shrine complex and UNESCO world heritage site in the northern part of Kyoto. It’s located at the confluence of the Kamo and Takano rivers.

shimogamo-map — Map of the shrine complex. We entered where the little yellow arrow is pointing at the upper left, and made our way down through the forest. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

As you might expect, water is a significant feature of the shrine, and apparently has been part of the spiritual significance of the site for several thousand years.

shimogamo-mitarashi — Mitarashi stream rises from a small spring on the shrine grounds. There’s a shrine over the actual spring.

It was one of the least Westernized tourist sites we visited in Kyoto, and virtually none of the signage had English. This would definitely have been a place where having a better idea of what was around us would have helped.

shimogamo-grounds — Main grounds and Mitarashi stream.

shimogamo-romon — Ro-mon gate. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

The shrine complex includes several large buildings, and it serves as the base for several important Kyoto festivals. We’d just missed the Aoi Matsuri (hollyhock festival), their main festival, which includes a horseback archery competition. We did see evidence that the festival wasn’t quite over. though.

shimogamo-truck — We think this truck was being prepared for part of the festivities. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

On the shrine grounds, there’s a fairly large forested area called Tadasu-no-mori. I imagine this forest represents what the entire confluence point area looked like several hundred years ago.

shimogamo-forest — Tadasu-no-mori and Mitarashi stream. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

One interesting highlight is an archaeological site that dates back roughly 2000 years, indicating that the area has been important for quite a while. Because we were mainly in cities, we didn’t see many Japanese archaeological sites on our trip- at least sites that hadn’t been updated and modified for modern use. There seems to be a tendency for prehistoric sacred sites to have shrines built on them, then more shrines are added to those, then a temple is built, and eventually you have a major shrine complex. Unless, of course, the shrine stays small and residential or commercial development completely surrounds it.

shimogamo-site — Part of the excavated site in the forest. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

While the shrine is situated where it is because of the river confluence, you have to walk a bit outside the grounds to actually reach the rivers. The triangle of land at which the two rivers merge is a nice open site with paths on the banks of all the rivers. The rivers themselves are pretty shallow (I’m guessing that might be a seasonal thing), and there are blocks set in the rivers so that you can cross over them on foot. Pretty neat.

stones — Yan is wistfully wondering where he can rent a bike.

This was also bird central, so we saw a bunch of species, including lots of black kites. They seemed to be the most common raptors around here. We also saw some rodents that looked like capybaras or muskrats or …something. Did Japan have native large aquatic rodents? We had no idea. They were perched on rocks in the river, doing their thing. With adorable babies!

A few days later, I visited the Natural History Museum in Tokyo, and it turns out that these were nutrias (also called coypu). They’re native to South America, but were introduced to Japan for the fur trade. As we saw in Kyoto, they’ve escaped, and are now a fairly widespread invasive species. So that was our Shimogamo invasive species encounter.

Florida outdoors

Plants on Caladesi Island

On our recent trip to Caladesi Island, I tried to do a better job of taking photos than I usually do. The birding wasn’t great when we were there, so I had time to take some photos of plants.

Some of my attempts at photography were pretty mixed, as seen in this attempted close-up shot:

This plant I didn’t want to get too close to, but the photo turned out fine anyway. Cute little flowers.

I had more luck with some of the smaller plants. This lupine was pretty- a patch of it was blooming along the trail, with bees buzzing all around:

Then there were some tiny succulents along dips in the trail:

I’m not sure about the identification about some of these the species we saw. I think the pines were longleaf pines, but I’m not 100% sure. Here’s a young one:

Then there was one shrub that I though would be really easy to identify from the photos, and apparently is not. It was growing along the trail next to buttonwood and mangrove, so I’m assuming there was a fair amount of brackish groundwater there. These look like pretty old flowers. At first, I thought the yellow parts were a keel-like structure, as in the Fabaceae (pea family), but now that I look at the photo again, it looks like there are some shriveled up petals in there too. So I’m drawing a blank on this one. Any suggestions?

Florida outdoors

Hiking Caladesi Island

Over Spring Break, we took a day trip to Caladesi Island, which is a barrier island just north of Clearwater Beach. The island has a dynamic history- it was originally connected to what is now the further-north Honeymoon Island, but a 1921 hurricane dug a channel between the two islands, separating them. Then a 1985 hurricane created a sandbar connecting Caladesi to Clearwater Beach. So technically, it’s not really an island at the present.

Caladesi Island map, from floridastateparks.org. Note the prominent lack of a sandbar connecting the state park to the beach to the south. I'm sure this helps maintain visitor fee revenue, which I have no problem with in principle.

Both Caladesi and Honeymoon Islands contain state parks– you can drive to Honeymoon, and Caladesi is accessible by ferry from there. We took the ferry over in the morning, and did some hiking and hanging out on the beach before heading back.

cala1 — Longleaf pines and saw palmetto along the trail.

The trails in the island’s interior go through some scrub areas, as well as longleaf pine forest and mangroves. It was cool enough that we weren’t being blasted in the sun, though the shady forest trail was definitely refreshing. We actually got a bit of rain off and on, which was fine.

Florida’s an interesting place to hike, because you have really dry, sandy soil that supports different vegetation communities with really small changes in elevation. While most of the trail was dry, there were muddy areas with mangroves and wetland plants in places where the ground dipped down only a few feet.

cala6 — There was prickly pear cactus in the drier parts of the island.

The scrub areas were perfect for gopher tortoises, and sure enough, we saw one munching away on grass near the trail. It seemed pretty used to people- we stopped and mutually stared at one another for a while, then it went on eating away. Maybe it was hungry after the morning’s rain.

We also got to see a halo around the sun, which was pretty cool. I wasn’t sure this photo would turn out, but it shows up pretty well. (For more on halos, sun dogs, and other types of atmospheric phenomena, click on that link. That website is a really cool resource.)

All in all, it was a good way to relax and unwind before getting back to work.

cala3 — 22 degree sun halo. (Image: Y. Fernandez)

Hawaii outdoors travel

More on hiking to Ka’ena Point

Post author By Sonia Stephens
Post date March 13, 2012
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It’s always best to hike out to Ka’ena Point either early or late in the day. Even when it’s a bit overcast, the sun can be brutal, and there’s nearly no shade. On this trip, we didn’t make it out there until about 10:30 am, which meant that we were really hiking at the worst time of the day. While it actually wasn’t that hot, it was pretty sunny. The prevailing winds did keep the vog away from us, though.

kp4 — Vog creeping up in the distance (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

Yan and I lured Dad out on the hike with a promise of cool scenery to sketch and a pretty easy hike. Which it was (on both counts), but it was also pretty hot for a retired Minnesotan hauling art supplies.

kp8 — I kind of like this photo of Dad & myself, with the Waianaes in the background. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

I think some of the scenery impressed Dad more than other things. For example, the big sea arch and the blowhole seemed to hold his attention…

kp5 — One of the sea arches on the way to the point- I counted about three on this trip. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

…While the abandoned car did not. To be fair, it looked much more like a car last year.

kp2 — Will there be anything left next time we hike out there? (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

birds Hawaii outdoors travel

Ka’ena Point

On our winter trip to Hawaii, we took a hike out to Ka’ena Point, the northwestern tip of Oahu. In contrast to last year, it was quite dry out there.

We saw quite a few Laysan Albatrosses here, nesting. No Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, though.

Other notable bird sightings were a White-tailed Tropicbird, and a very tired looking Cattle Egret winging in to land from apparently way out to sea. They’re not seabirds, though they do apparently fly along the coast from roosting sites to feeding areas. I have no idea where this one had been- it appeared to be heading straight from Kauai, which is probably not realistic- the Ka’ie’ie Waho Channel is 72 miles wide!

We also saw two Monk Seals lounging on the rocks, as well as some Humpback Whales out to sea. There were also some neat critters (and algae) in the tidepools. So not a spectacular day for wildlife, but we saw some cool stuff.

kp3 — Endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal (the lazy grey blob in the center of the frame)

birds Florida outdoors

Orlando Wetlands Park gets a major facelift

Post author By Sonia Stephens
Post date November 2, 2011
1 Comment on Orlando Wetlands Park gets a major facelift

Last weekend, we took a short break from working and drove out to Orlando Wetlands Park. We only had about an hour and a half in the park before closing, but it was still good to get out of the house (and away from grading!)

The really obvious change at the park is the big expansion in flooded pond area. OWP is a water treatment facility that slowly filters treated wastewater through a series of ponds and marshes, before discharging it into the St. Johns River. Plants, algae, and natural microbes do the job of pulling excess nutrients out of the water. After treatment, the water is actually much lower in nutrient levels than the water in the St. Johns, but the nutrients have to go somewhere, and that ends up being the rotting remains of the plants and algae.

Apparently, the time had come to remove some of the nutrient-containing (mainly phosphorus) muck from part of the wetland. After the muck removal, managers planted more native plants, and re-flooded the area. There’s a description of the process here. It certainly gives the place a different “feel.”

Since we didn’t have much time to explore the park before closing, it was quite disorienting to see the new expanse of pond with little cypress tree “islands” where before there had been marsh. I guess my surprise a testament to how long it’s been since I’ve visited, because I think this work was done a few months ago (where does the time go…?). It’s a bit sad that the mapsI helped make for them are now out of date! (Though I think the berms and paths are pretty similar…)

new ponds — Newly-planted ponds. (Photo: OWP staff.)

Anyway, the park closes for the season on Nov. 15th, so I’m going to try to get out there again before that point- maybe bike around a bit to see what’s changed.

Here’s my bird list- not too bad for a breezy hour of walking around. The highlight was probably the whistling-duck families, which have the obvious cute appeal of being, well, ducks that whistle.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Blue-winged Teal
Wood Stork
Double-crested Cormorant
Anhinga
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
White Ibis
Glossy Ibis
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Bald Eagle
Red-shouldered Hawk
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Sandhill Crane
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Downy/Hairy Woodpecker (moved too fast to tell)
Eastern Phoebe
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Common Yellowthroat
Palm Warbler
Savannah Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
Boat-tailed Grackle

Florida outdoors

Hiking the Little Big Econ State Forest

Post author By Sonia Stephens
Post date August 17, 2011
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So, my recent long blog silence has actually been a pretty productive time for me, working on various projects. I’ve managed to get quite a bit done on my dissertation project, submit two conference proposals, and get ready for teaching this upcoming semester.

The weather in Orlando lately has just been hot and humid, though it’s hard to say it’s more hot and humid than it is for essentially half of the year. We haven’t dong as much outdoorsy stuff as we’d like, but it’s a bit hard to get motivated in this weather… But one of the hikes we did do (cut short by an incipient thunderstorm) was in early July in the Little Big Econ State Forest, located NE of Orlando.

We took a short hike from the Barr St. trailhead through the forest and along the river. It was intensely green, and the water very still.

The old oak trees all had some serious epiphyte growth. Vireos, titmice, and blue-gray gnatcatchers were flitting around in the canopy, looking for food.

There were quite a few tiny young bromeliads on the mossy trunks.

A bend in the river, where an alligator suddenly churned the water to catch a fish. We also heard a bald eagle calling from this spot.

We headed back earlier than planned, because of the approaching thunderstorm. Still, it was a good short outing.

birds outdoors travel

Suburban gardening

One of the things that’s a bummer about living in an apartment building is not being able to garden. Sure, we have some things growing on the porch, but we’ve had little success with that route. The two big challenges are the rabbit (who eats any plant not elevated above jumping level) and the sheer number of pests we have in Florida (our screened-in porch seems perfect for letting aphids and whiteflies in, while keeping their natural predators out). We’ve had success with chives, onions, oregano, and marjoram, but it’s hard to make a meal out of those.

At any rate, one of the things we did while visiting my father this spring was admire the gardens, and help out a bit. I use the plural because he has plants both growing around the yard and in the neighborhood community garden a few blocks away.

Right before we visited, Minnesota was named the “Most hipster state” in the US, in part because of the number of community gardens, farmer’s markets, food co-ops, and bike trails in the Twin Cities. Debate ensued, centered on whether these things were indicative of hipsters or hippies. Whatever the reason, there is plenty of fresh locally-grown food (other than during winter).

Some summer, we’ll have to time our visit to when the raspberries are ready to harvest. This year, we admired the raspberry patch, but it was way too early to sample the berries. Dad has this annoying habit of calling me in mid-summer and sighing about how he has so many raspberries that he has to bake with them or freeze them- there are just too many to eat fresh:

A surprise- while we were in the back yard, planting a tree, a flock of wild turkeys came cruising by. These were big birds: two toms and a hen. They walked buy us, about 10 feet away, and obviously weren’t too fazed by our presence. They probably roost in the big cottonwood trees near the railroad track nearby.

There was very little rain while we were there, so one order of business was to water the community garden plot. This garden is located on the property of a local church which is using most of its lot for a prairie restoration project. The prairie area is always swarming with butterflies during the summer. As you can see, most of the garden plots are still in the early stages of spring planting.

One of the big questions while we were there seemed to be when the beans would sprout. We probably went to check on them every day:

garden2 — The onions are doing fine, but where are the beans?

There were apparently at least two varieties planted, but I must confess that I don’t recall which, since I will not actually get to taste them. Oh well.

Yay, beans! Sprouting on our last day visiting.

outdoors travel

Spring flowers

So, it’s been long enough since our visit to Minnesota that a post on “spring flowers” is really delayed. Especially given the insane weather they had in the upper Midwest this week! But maybe a trip back in time to look at some nice springy plants will help with the heat.

While in the Twin Cities, we stayed with my father, who has a rather enlightened attitude about landscaping. Not for him the artificial monoculture lawn that’s been fertilized within an inch of its life and which requires massive amounts of water. No, Dad does not buy into the fertilizer-industrial complex. His lawn is a mix of at least two types of grass, ivy, moss, a tiny fern, oregano and thyme which have escaped the bounds of the herb garden, and wildflowers. It also seems to gather short, spiky spruce needles, which makes it less than fun to walk on barefoot in places, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a result of his lawn care methods… At any rate, the rest of his landscaping choices more or less mirror the lawn.

gardening — Prepping the herb garden for more plants. The errant oregano-as-lawn is on the left, under the evil spruce tree.

Although a lot of Dad’s plants have something to do with food (the aforementioned herb garden, raspberries, etc.), he also has some cute flowers. Near the driveway, there’s a big patch of native columbine:

We were lucky to visit while the lilacs were still blooming, perfuming the yard with their scent:

Finally, there’s this flower- I have no idea what it is, but it was quite pretty, and fuzzy when seen up close:

birds outdoors travel

Birding at the Minnesota River NWR

Post author By Sonia Stephens
Post date July 18, 2011
No Comments on Birding at the Minnesota River NWR

On our Great Lakes trip, we did some birding at the Minnesota River National Wildlife Refuge near Bloomington. This spring’s flooding put a bit of a damper on it, in that several trails at the refuge were flooded out. But we saw some cool things anyway. Warblers, flycatchers, and woodpeckers at the visitor center, and more warblers, geese, and swallows elsewhere. There were also a fair number of mammals- including white-tailed deer and muskrats.

The muskrats were just concentrating on eating, and pretty much tolerated our presence.

After visiting the visitor center, we took a trail near the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge, unsurprisingly called that because it has been replaced by the new Cedar Avenue Bridge.

There’s a boardwalk on this path with a viewing platform in the river. The high water level made this a really interesting experience. I’m assuming that the water level is usually lower, and the area seems more marshy. There was no way to escape the feeling that we were actually walking through the river.

There were quite a few swallows flying around, as well as the ubiquitous red-winged blackbirds.

At the end of the boardwalk, the river had covered the path, making the observation deck seem very much like an island in all the water.

We were surrounded by slowly-moving water, with swallows and damselflies swooping around us constantly. The experience really reminded me of the sequence in Ponyo in which the sea floods a coastal village and everyone gets around by boating along over the roadways. However, we didn’t see any Devonian fish or trilobites coming up underneath us, like in the movie. Which admittedly was a good thing!

flood — The platform had obviously been used as a goose resting area recently...

On the way out, Yan stopped to take some photos of damselflies, while I was trying to identify a duck seen really far off. I’m not sure what species they are:

I do think they’re a male and female of the same species, though. Any suggestions?

damsel1 — Male damselfly? (Y. Fernandez)

Unfortunately, we had to cut our time there short because we had dinner plans (which turned out to be excellent, so we really didn’t complain). I will say that I had one of my weirder birding bathroom experiences on this excursion. Because the NWR visitor’s center closed while we were there, we stopped at a Nordstrom’s in the Mall of America to use their facilities. The juxtaposition of the muddy river and the biggest mall in the U.S. was a bit of a strange experience, but certainly more pleasant than the alternative.