Update from the Lake: Hornets' Nest

It's a beautiful thing, but has got to go.

And, AFAIK, it's gone by now. At this stage, it reminds me of a delicately spun, upside-down dreidel. I think you can just barely see a few of the little suckers up near the top: the black variety, not the more common (in our area) yellowjacket type.

Update from the Lake: Baby Robin Edition

It was MOH that first spotted the baby robin perched on a limb in the lilac bush. I took a few quick pictures through the screen door; the first photo reflects a funny blur and graininess that must be from the screen. I then went outside and carefully creeped [crept?] down the back sidewalk for a better view:

A peek-a-boo through the leaves.

After quietly moving onto the back deck, I found that one reason for the graininess and blur of the first photo was that I needed to use manual focus, an awkward process because the camera kept jumping back to an infinity setting, requiring refocusing between most shots.

I then got brave and zoomed farther using the digital zoom, while continuing to focus manually. I don't usually use the digital zoom because the blur seems greater than enlarging a photo made with max optical zoom.

A little baby robin gets fidgety.

Oh! Mom or Dad has come for a feeding!

Before the feeding, the little robin flapped its short wings in anticipation; I had the camera zoomed all the way out and was trying, in vain, to manually focus, so got this blurry photo:

Our baby robin catches just a tiny bit of air, with feet still attached to the branch.

MOH and I thought the robin was out of its nest prematurely, and we wondered how it would fare. Not long after I took these photos, the bird was no longer in the bush, but it likewise wasn't on the ground anywhere nearby. So we don't really know what happened.

Road Song: Stories We Could Tell

This song always reminds me of "the life" -- that is, the life of an exploration geologist. You may have to click through to YouTube to listen to this original version, which is the one I know best.

John Sebastian: Stories We Could Tell (lyrics)
Album: Tarzana Kid, 1974
John Sebastian website (has auto-playing music turned on)

Here's another version, with the pixelated pictures evoking the kind of traveling I'm thinking of when I hear the music. You may still have to listen to it on YouTube.

Jimmy Buffett: Stories We Could Tell
Album: A-1-A, 1974
Jimmy Buffett website

So if you're on the road a-trackin' down your every night
And singin' for a livin' neath the brightly colored lights
And if you ever wonder why you ride the carousel
You did it for the stories you could tell

(emphasis mine)

Things You Find in the Field: Fauna on and near Rocks...OR...on and amongst the Flora

Blue belly lizard near some foliated andesite (this is the Great Basin Fence Lizard, or Sceloporus occidentalis longipes).
(click any photo to enlarge)

The lizard was rather skittish, and I couldn't get very close.
Read more about blue bellies in an earlier post.

A lizard of unknown denomination running over a lichen-covered outcrop.

A very small gray and white bird perched on a gray rock
atop an iron-stained outcrop (upper right).

Two shining leaf chafers or "Little Bears."

AKA Paracotalpa granicollis, a kind of scarab beetle.

Ladybug!

And finally, a meadowlark atop a sagebrush.

I hear meadowlarks often, but am not always quite so lucky as to see them. This time, I was crossing a muddy little stream by a meadow, on my way to take the long way home (I didn't know it was *such* a long way, but oh well) when I heard this one singing.

Fault Breccia on Slickenside Ridge

Up above our last hiking stop on Slickenside Ridge, MOH and I came across this wonderful exposure of a breccia (hiking stick for scale).

Here's a closer view, showing massive and drusy quartz cementing  the breccia and filling vugs left in the rock.

This is a type of fault breccia — though I was so into my admiration of the breccia that didn't think to look for the fault  — and you can see hints of slightly oblique slickenlines on the smooth upper surface in the first photo.

In fact, it just occurred to me to show you what I mean, so here are two photos of that upper surface, one without drawings, one with.

Planar fault surface from the 1st photo, enlarged.

Same photo with some lines drawn in.

The possible slickenlines in the upper left are the ones I noticed first; the second possible slickenline direction shown in the lower right is vaguer, might be my imagination. More field work required!

A zoomed view of the "best" part of the breccia.

Looking northwest toward Winnemucca Mountain (hidden from view by my choice of framing).

Now I've walked back over to the spot where I left you in the last post, looking down Water Canyon toward the northwest. Just above the bright reddish orange dike rock on the right side of the photo, on the hill across the canyon, you can see the lower part of a rock wall first mentioned in this early post about the dikes.

Looking back down the hill and across the canyon.

And so now, as we turn to head back down the hill, we might think about investigating the rock wall on the far hill, the one we sometimes call "Dike Hill."