#Audubon Day events

[delicatelysublimeforester]

A Symphony of Songbirds: Audubon Day Launches City Nature Challenge

Spring is in the air, and on April 26, 2024, nature enthusiasts and bird lovers alike will have their binoculars and smartphones ready for Audubon Day – a celebration that spreads the wings of opportunity to enjoy the beauty of birds and wildlife. This year, Audubon Day coincides with the kick-off of the 2024 City Nature Challenge, a four-day blitz to discover the diverse wildlife that calls the…

[dandelionsresilience]

Good News - June 15-21

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $Kaybarr1735! And if you tip me and give me a way to contact you, at the end of the month I'll send you a link to all of the articles I found but didn't use each week!

1. Victory for Same-Sex Marriage in Thailand

“Thailand’s Senate voted 130-4 today to pass a same-sex marriage bill that the lower house had approved by an overwhelming majority in March. This makes Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia, and the second in Asia, to recognize same-sex relationships. […] The Thai Marriage Equality Act […] will come into force 120 days after publication in the Royal Gazette. It will stand as an example of LGBT rights progress across the Asia-Pacific region and the world.”

2. One of world’s rarest cats no longer endangered

“[The Iberian lynx’s] population grew from 62 mature individuals in 2001 to 648 in 2022. While young and mature lynx combined now have an estimated population of more than 2,000, the IUCN reports. The increase is largely thanks to conservation efforts that have focused on increasing the abundance of its main food source - the also endangered wild rabbit, known as European rabbit. Programmes to free hundreds of captive lynxes and restoring scrublands and forests have also played an important role in ensuring the lynx is no longer endangered.”

3. Planning parenthood for incarcerated men

“[M]any incarcerated young men missed [sex-ed] classroom lessons due to truancy or incarceration. Their lack of knowledge about sexual health puts them at a lifelong disadvantage. De La Cruz [a health educator] will guide [incarcerated youths] in lessons about anatomy and pregnancy, birth control and sexually transmitted infections. He also explores healthy relationships and the pitfalls of toxic masculinity. […] Workshops cover healthy relationships, gender and sexuality, and sex trafficking.”

4. Peru puts endemic fog oasis under protection

“Lomas are unique ecosystems relying on marine fog that host rare and endemic plants and animal species. […] The Peruvian government has formally granted conservation status to the 6,449-hectare (16,000-acre) desert oasis site[….] The site, the first of its kind to become protected after more than 15 years of scientific and advocacy efforts, will help scientists understand climatic and marine cycles in the area[, … and] will be protected for future research and exploration for at least three decades.”

5. Religious groups are protecting Pride events — upending the LGBTQ+ vs. faith narrative

“In some cases, de-escalation teams stand as a physical barrier between protesters and event attendees. In other instances, they try to talk with protesters. The goal is generally to keep everyone safe. Leigh was learning that sometimes this didn’t mean acting as security, but doing actual outreach. That might mean making time and space to listen to hate speech. It might mean offering food or water. […] After undergoing Zoom trainings this spring, the members of some 120 faith organizations will fan out across more than 50 Pride events in 16 states to de-escalate the actions of extremist anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups.”

6. 25 years of research shows how to restore damaged rainforest

“For the first time, results from 25 years of work to rehabilitate fire-damaged and heavily logged rainforest are now being presented. The study fills a knowledge gap about the long-term effects of restoration and may become an important guide for future efforts to restore damaged ecosystems.”

7. Audubon and Grassroots Carbon Announce First-of-its-Kind Partnership to Reward Landowners for Improving Habitats for Birds while Building Healthy Soils

“Participating landowners can profit from additional soil carbon storage created through their regenerative land management practices. These practices restore grasslands, improve bird habits, build soil health and drive nature-based soil organic carbon drawdown through the healthy soils of farms and ranches. […] Additionally, regenerative land management practices improve habitats for birds. […] This partnership exemplifies how sustainable practices can drive positive environmental change while providing tangible economic benefits for landowners.”

8. Circular food systems found to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, require much less agricultural land

“Redesigning the European food system will reduce agricultural land by 44% while dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 70%. This reduction is possible with the current consumption of animal protein. “Moreover, animals are recyclers in the system. They can recycle nutrients from human-inedible parts of the organic waste and by-products in the food system and convert them to valuable animal products," Simon says.”

9. Could Treating Injured Raptors Help Lift a Population? Researchers found the work of rehabbers can have long-lasting benefits

“[“Wildlife professionals”] tend to have a dismissive attitude toward addressing individual animal welfare,” [… but f]or most raptor species, they found, birds released after rehabilitation were about as likely to survive as wild birds. Those released birds can have even broader impacts on the population. Back in the wild, the birds mate and breed, raising hatchlings that grow up to mate and breed, too. When the researchers modeled the effects, they found most species would see at least some population-level benefits from returning raptors to the wild.”

10. Indigenous people in the Amazon are helping to build bridges & save primates

“Working together, the Reconecta Project and the Waimiri-Atroari Indigenous people build bridges that connect the forest canopy over the BR-174 road[….] In the first 10 months of monitoring, eight different species were documented — not only monkeys such as the golden-handed tamarin and the common squirrel monkey (Saimiri sciureus), but also kinkajous (Potos flavus), mouse opossums (Marmosops sp.), and opossums (Didelphis sp.).”

Bonus: A rare maneless zebra was born in the UK

June 8-14 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[hooked-on-elvis]

Elvis was sued for... being friendly (June 19th, 1956).

Okay, maybe too friendly? Judge for yourselves. That's a funny story! Just... unbelievable!

At the top is page 9 from "Elvis Presley Speaks!" magazine.

The first picture was taken June 19, 1956. That day is full of controversy. Beginning for Elvis attending the “colored night” black-only event at the Memphis Fairgrounds amusement park that evening, but that's a different story (another awesome one, btw!).

Back to the focus point here, that day Elvis was resting at his home (1034, Audubon Drive, Memphis, Tennessee), had just done a local radio show and then went to the Memphis Fairgrounds Amusement Park with his then girlfriend, Barbara Hearn, and some friends. He was being followed around/accompanied by photographer Robert Williams of the Memphis Commercial Appeal and columnist Robert Johnson. The pictures below show Elvis with Barbara at Audubon Drive and in the second one they are at the parking lot of the Memphis Fairgrounds, inside Elvis' car, that very day.

After the Fairgrounds, Elvis, Barbara, other friends, photographer Robert Williams and columnist Robert Johnson. went into the Gridiron Restaurant (Memphis, TN), and there something bizarre, depending on the point of view, happened.

On the picture below, at the restaurant, Elvis is beside the young girl named Robbie Moore (at his right). Photos taken by Robert Williams.

The pictures were published in the fan magazine "Elvis Presley Speaks!". Those pictures show the star laying his head on Robbie's shoulder and eating a burger next to her, while Barbara Hearn, his girlfriend, looks on. It looks harmless, right? But there's more to it. Maybe it can explain why Elvis was sued after all. Fortunately, we have a story about how that meeting happened. Columnist Robert Johnson recalled:

"Elvis spoke to her pleasantly as he entered and said something like, ‘How are you? I haven’t seen you in a long time.’ The girl didn’t say anything. Elvis seemed to be trying to be friendly. He was just teasing and having fun. He opened her purse, looking at her teasingly out of the corner of his eye, but snapped it back shut and put it on the counter (maybe purse-peeking moment is the picture below). He took a nibble of her sandwich and a sip of her milk. That was all. She still did not respond and Elvis laid his head on her shoulder as if to say, ‘Come on, let’s be friends.’ He was just acting in a boyish kind of way.”

Robbie Moore had remembered the event very differently. She certainly did not look very happy in the pictures about what was happening. It seems she was not asked permission to be photographed – and she was even annoyed about the sandwich.

The thing is, two months later, around September 1956, Elvis received a notification that he was going to be sued for $42,500 (around $415,000 in today's money) for invasion of privacy, and assault and battery. The case was settled out of court for $5,500 and widely covered in the press.

When the story went public Elvis said that they had known each other for some years and he had "no idea she would object to the picture." According to the account of that day Robbie gave to the Press-Scimitar, she had never met Elvis before their encounter in the Gridiron.

That's it! Elvis may have learned a lesson from that day, but the whole thing is just SO funny to me! Elvis was so innocent back then, so boyish, at ease. He was very much like an angel, or something close to one.

On Robbie Williams' defense (just because I believe everybody has their own accounts and individuals way of thinking and feeling and this needs to be put to consideration and be respected), even tho she sound like a cranky person, a real Grinch, and in some way opportunist, she was in her rights. Maybe she just didn't like being touched, having her food eaten or having her personal things being rummage by anyone without her permission (no matter who it was or if she knew that person or not), specially when she - not verbally but physically for sure - had shown very clearly (just look at the pictures, imagine her whole vibe that day!) how uncomfortable she was with Elvis' closeness to her.

Poor boy, EP. Learning how people can be... difficult sometimes.

"Elvis Presley Speaks" magazine, 1956: "Read his own story in his own words". There's more photos and many more stories inside that magazine (not only about that June 19th day). If you'd like to read the full magazine online, click here and download the file. ✨

To close this with, cool photos from the same those crazy things happened: Elvis Presley (age 21) in front of the fireplace at his 1034 Audubon Drive home in Memphis, TN on Tuesday, June 19, 1956. Taken by Robert Williams.

That story reminded me a quote, something under the lines: Be a nice person, even if people don't act the same to you. I guess EP knew plenty about that. Even after that episode, he was always the cutest pleasant little boy. ♥ My opinion on this law suit case is: ELVIS WAS JUST BEING HAPPY. A happy person is opened, friendly, nice to whomever comes their way. He wanted to share his happiness, his smile, be nice and make people feel welcomed and appreciated. It just didn't work quite as he expected.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Song of the Day - “A Change Is Gonna Come”

Today marks the 60th anniversary of Sam Cooke recording his great civil rights anthem “A Change Is Gonna Come” - January 30th, 1964, at RCA Studios in Hollywood, California.

Cooke wrote it in the Fall of 1963 when he and his band were turned away from a motel in Louisiana.

While it wasn’t one of Cooke’s biggest hits, it is considered his most influential and powerful composition, and has come to be called among the the greatest songs ever released. It was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress and the National Recording registry sa being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important”.

Besides the painful inspiration of being banished from a whites-only motel, Sam Cooke was also inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind”, which he saw as an example of how a popular song could move people positively. He was further inspired by Dr. King’s dream speech from August of 1963.

Cooke gave his frequent collaborative arranger Rene Hall free rein with the instrumentation and orchestration. Hall recognized the power of the song and decided to add a full orchestra and design the arrangement like a movie score.

It was organized to present the song for the first time on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” on February 7th, and a full orchestra was brought in to add to the Tonight Show band.

The tape of the performance wasn’t saved for some reason, and the planned bigness of the debut was completely overshadowed by the Beatles’ performance on the Ed Sullivan Show a day or so later.

Cooke decided that the song spooked him and reminded him of death. He would never perform it again.

The song was first released on Cooke’s album “Ain’t That Good News” in March.

A single version was cut and prepared for release in December of the year.

Sam Cooke tragically died just before it was released.

“A Change Is Gonna Come” got famously covered by Otis Redding, and the Fifth Dimension.

Spike Lee chose it as the music under the scene in “Malcolm X” where Malcolm is contemplatively driving himself to the Audubon Ballroom where he will be assassinated. Very powerful.

The song has been sampled by many rappers.

When Barack Obama spoke just after winning election in 2008, his first words, in reference to this song were, "It's been a long time coming, but tonight, change has come to America.”

Then, at his inaugural, the song was performed in duet by Bettye LaVette and Jon Bon Jovi.

It continues to be performed by many artists at events both political and tribute oriented.

Truly one of America’s best anthems.... and never doesn't give me chills...

[Mary Elaine LeBey]

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Every Friday afternoon, the Kingsland Wildflower Green Roof opens its doors to the local community. Tall grass and brightly-colored flowers greet visitors after their four-floor trek to the top of the building—a green oasis in Brooklyn, surrounded on all sides by heavy industrial activity.

Just across the street, the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant’s gargantuan “digester eggs” treat millions of gallons of sewage every day. 

Despite the visual incongruity of this scene, both the garden and the treatment plant work to stop contaminated water from flowing into the city’s waterways during heavy rainfall. 

The rooftop garden sits on a building on Kingsland Avenue owned by the production company Broadway Stages. Two well-tended sections contain a variety of plants and flowers native to the area, like strawberries and camassias. A garden on a lower roof is made up largely of sedum, a small succulent-type plant. 

The garden is under the purview of the Newtown Creek Alliance, a local organization that works to improve the environment around the creek, which is a tributary of the East River and forms the border between Brooklyn and Queens. 

Seven years ago, the green roof was born of a partnership between the Newtown Creek Alliance, the NYC Bird Alliance, formerly NYC Audubon, Broadway Stages and Alive Structures, a landscaping firm that specializes in roof gardens. The installation was funded by the Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund, a $19.5 million payment to the New York State Department of Conservation (NYSDEC) in a settlement with ExxonMobil over their contamination of Newtown Creek. 

In 1979, an investigation by the Department of Conservation found that ExxonMobil, which had historically operated oil refineries and fuel storage spaces along the creek, had spilled an estimated 17 million gallons of oil into the water—one of the largest terrestrial oil spills in the country’s history. Although ExxonMobil has been working for decades to remediate the problem through groundwater treatment, the creek remains an extremely contaminated Superfund site and is still on the National Priorities List of the nation’s most hazardous toxic waste areas. 

A former wetland, much of the creek’s natural borders have been reconstructed for industrial operations, like oil refineries and petrochemical plants. 

Much of the area surrounding Newtown Creek is located on a 100-year floodplain, which means that every year there is a 1 percent chance of an extreme flood event. Due to the weaknesses in New York’s sewage infrastructure, extreme rainfall constitutes a threat not just to the residents living near Newtown Creek, but also to the biodiversity within the creek and the flora that surrounds it. 

[little-parakeet]

ABOUT ME:

🦜Parakeet/Lily🦜

🎨 Artist/Writer 📝

Programs: Clip Studio Paint, Procreate

Mainly OC stuff

☀️🌙☀️🌙

👇 To see what we have in common 👇

Main Interests:

Pressure(Roblox) hyperfixated — Imaginary Friend’s wife, p.ai.nter’s mom, Sebastian’s no.1 hater for sure

Avatar: The Last Airbender — No ship in particular, Toph enthusiast, I WANNA BE AN EARTHBENDER

LEGO Monkie Kid — Dragonfruit CEO, FreeNoodles enthusiast, Silktea enjoyer

Undertale/Deltarune — Soriel enthusiast, lover of Alphyne as well as Alphys and Undyne individually

Pokémon enjoyer — Rocketshipping lover, the entire Ralts evaluation chain

Gore/Horror ENTHUSIAST — Paranormal Activity, Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor, Poltergeist Diaries, the Conjuring series, Mandela Catalogue, Final Destination series, Supernatural, Ring(all three movies)

BIRDS!! — Mainly North American birds, Audubon, Sibley, turkeys turkeys turkeys

🌙☀️🌙☀️

Music Taste:

In order of interest:

Fall Out Boy

CG5

Saint Asonia/Three Days Grace(Adam Gontier)

BoyWithUke

Glass Animals

Jack Stauber

Toby Fox(and Undertale/Deltarune Remixes)

TheFatRat

Avicii

Daniel Thrasher

Cavetown

☀️🌙☀️🌙

Games:

Pressure(ROBLOX)

Minecraft

Inscryption

Undertale/Deltarune

Assassin’s Creed(Ezio Edition)

Sky: Children Of The Light

Doki Doki Literature Club

Genshin Impact

Honkai: Star Rail

Cookie Run: Kingdom

World Box

🌙☀️🌙☀️

Movies and Shows:

LEGO MONKIE KID !!!!

Miraculous Ladybug

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Pokémon (Mainly XY/XYZ)

The Promised Neverland

Sonic(Underground, X, Prime)

Wakfu

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Monster High

Ever After High

Tales of Arcadia

☀️🌙☀️🌙

Books:

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Heroes of Olympus

Journey To The West

🌙☀️🌙☀️

Twitter

Instagram

Archive of Our Own

LMK Google Drive

Journey To The West PDF

Dragonfruit Fanart Google Drive

☀️🌙☀️🌙

COMMISSIONS:

Closed

[headedoutleft]

I saw a picture of a painted bunting and I thought of my childhood best friend’s little brother, probably eleven years old, coming up to us from the back of their property one day saying he’d shot a weird bird, maybe a parrot.

I knew many of our native birds because my aunt was a bird watcher. A thick copy of Audubon’s guide to birds sat next to binoculars in the window nearest the bird feeder at her house.

He held his BB gun in one hand and the lifeless bird in the other, it’s brilliantly colored feathers instantly recognizable.

“Why would you kill a bird like that?” I scolded him, as he stared sheepishly at its little body. I remember him looking so small and still, pondering his actions.

Their family felt very foreign to mine. My sibling and I weren’t allowed to even have toy guns lest we mistake the seriousness of a deadly weapon for play. We weren’t allowed to leave our tiny block unless the parents weren’t around and our grandparents let us walk to the convenience store, the only store for miles, and buy ice cream. But he spent hours by himself on that swampy property shooting things with his little gun without his parents even checking on him.

They ate canned ranch style beans and corn, without additional seasoning, as regular sides for their meals. It was strange to me, because I grew up in a world of cumin and chili powder and herbs. Their mother washed and folded and saved aluminum foil in a kitchen drawer expressly for that purpose. Shopping at garage sales was a family event, piling into the suburban to scour other people’s castaways. All of this austerity despite living in a beautiful house that had triple the square footage of my family’s home. Whereas our tiny home was packed with mess, theirs was a neatly organized hoard of antiques and junk. Their clutter was hidden in a finished attic or unused sunroom instead of scattered in full view across the floor and stacked into the hallway.

They didn’t have TV and, like many of us in the community, weren’t allowed to listen to secular rock and roll. I burned him CDs that got confiscated and thrown away, and then I burned some more. His parents never said anything to me about it, maybe he lied about where he got them. After a significant grounding he told me not to bother anymore. I always got the impression that their mother didn’t like me. Too loud, too opinionated, too worldly, too poor in my ways.

He passed away last year and they didn’t put a cause of death in the obituary. I didn’t call. His sister and I had a falling out as teenagers that widened into a gulf when she married a man that I despised for belittling everyone who disagreed with him. The last conversation he and I had was about how he thought Muslims in Iraq had earned the punishment of God acting through the US military. I told him that didn’t seem like a display of the love of Jesus to me. He wasn’t persuaded. The sinners deserved death. All I could see was her spirit wasting away, detaching itself from a reality I knew she would not and could not leave. So I let the friendship go - There wasn’t much left at that point.

Our mothers kept us updated through the years when they met incidentally at the grocery store or the cafe. Her little brother had felt like my little brother. When I heard over the years he was doing well, I was happy for him. Then he passed away suddenly, a heart issue was the rumor. At the time I pondered the connection to COVID, the likeliness that he hadn’t been vaccinated. He was in his early thirties.

I saw the picture of the bunting and thought, “I wonder how he’s doing?” Then I remembered he’s gone, and I was caught in the memory of a scrawny little kid with a gun killing a bird. I thought of his love of music, how he practiced kick flips in the driveway, his stoic kindness and sad acceptance of the authority that drove his life. I hope he was happy.

[whitepolaris]

Meteorite Hazard at Audubon Golf Course

At the northern end of the eighteenth hole fairway in New Orlean's Audubon Park Golf Club course is one weird hazard. An iron meteorite weighing in at more than fifteen tons juts out nearly six feet from the well-maintained grounds of the old course. The Picayune described the meteorite's arrival on March 31, 1891:

The terrific explosion and detonation which startled all of Carrollton just previous to daylight yesterday morning, shook houses and smashed panes of glass, proves to have been caused by the fall of an enormous meteorite. All people throughout the city who happened to be awake heard the noise and felt the shock. Indeed, the effects were felt as far away as Biloxi, and no doubt at more distant points.

The few who were on the streets or rushed to the doors and windows saw an immense glare of fire in the sky and the kissing of flames, which ceased as suddenly as they appeared.

Initial descriptions measured it at eight feet high and twenty-one feet in circumference at its widest point. But in the nearly 120 years since it slammed into the dark, rust, ground subsidence under its enormous weight and souvenir collecting have diminished the spectacle somewhat. In fact, after it was determined that it probably posed little or no danger to the park or its visitors, city officials soon realized that the greater danger was to the meteorite itself from the swarms souvenir hunters. Twelve lesser masses of space iron and thousands of smaller chunks and fragments scattered around the site were quickly carried away as mementos, many of which still grace mantals and curiosity cabinets throughout the region. By late afternoon on the day the interplanetary traveler arrived, a committee headed by the commissioner of public works, E. T. Leche, decided to post a guard of armed policemen around the site until an iron fence could be constructed to preserve it for future citizens to enjoy and admire.

It turns out the best way to preserve an intergalactic artifact is to tell a lie about it. A false rumor was started, claiming that the rock hadn't come from space at all. Instead it was touted to be a giant sample iron ore from Alabama's famous Red Mountain quarries near Birmingham. It purportedly had been abandoned in New Orleans after the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition of 1884-85.

This version of the origins of the meteorite gained momentum after readers realized that the original newspaper article had come out April 1, although the event itself had happened the day before. It did not explain, however, how such a big chunk of "iron ore" had completely escaped notice until then, or why, if Alabamans had thought it was so impressive before the fair, they had decided it was so worthless afterward. What is more, in a region with almost no outcroppings of solid rock at all, surely over the course of six years of supposedly sitting in plain view in a park surrounded by hundreds of daily visitors, someone would have noticed it, if it had really been there all along.

After the lake meteorite story began circulating, the public quickly lost interest. The Public Works office quietly canceled plans for the elaborate fencing as the meteorite sank into the mists of history. For decades afterward, unfortunate old-timers were branded as fabulists or lairs if they admitted that they'd actually heard the blast or seen the flames. Meanwhile, gawkers and curiosity seekers refocused their attention on the other wonder of that year, the great Ames Crevasse. A breach in the levees had flooded Gretna, destroying homes and creating quite a tourist attraction. The Audubon Park meteorite, on the other hand, crashed down in a party of the city with no dwellings, at a time when few people were awake, and on a day when almost no one would later believe it had ever really happened at all.

[marjaystuff]

Interview with Alyssa Maxwell

Murder at the Elms book 11 by Alyssa Maxwell published August 2023

Murder at Vinland book 12 by Alyssa Maxwell published August 2024

Kensington Pub.

Each of Murder at the Elms and Murder at Vinland by Alyssa Maxwell intertwines a mystery within an historical novel. The setting is the turn of the century Newport where during the Gilded Age there is vast income and a power disparity. The main character, Emma Cross, is the “poor Vanderbilt” having inherited some money from the famous family. But she is an anomaly because she is independent and a working journalist who owns the newspaper The Newport Messenger along with her wealthy husband, Derrick.

In Murder at the Elms one of the wealthy families, the Berwinds, invite those high in society to view their newly completed Bellevue Avenue estate. It is a modern mansion, that has been wired for electricity, generated by coal from Berwinds own mines. Yet, days before the party the servants go on strike, hoping to negotiate better working conditions since they work seven days a week with no time off.  They are all fired and replaced with new staff. At the party there is fine dining and music but the evening ends tragically when a chambermaid is found dead in the coal tunnel and a guest’s diamond necklace is missing.  Because Emma and Derrick were there, they are asked by the police to help in uncovering who is the murderer and what is the connection between the necklace and the murder.

Murder At Vinland is the most recent book in the series. Vinland is the Viking themed home of Florence Vanderbilt Twombly.  There she is having a fundraiser for the local Audubon Society attended by the wife of Theodore Roosevelt and Harriet Hemingway. The following morning one of the guests is found to have been poisoned. However, more poisoned desserts are sent to socially prominent women who had attended the luncheon, and tension increases even as the dangerous toxin used is identified. Asked her to help to find the person sending the poisons is Emma’s good friend, police detective James Whyte. Emma and Jesse must sort through possible motives because now more than the birds are in danger.

Maxwell brings turn-of-the-century Newport to life by taking readers into the mansions and how the wealthy lived. Combining mystery with real-life personalities and events from the Gilded Age makes for an entertaining and informative read.

Elise Cooper: What about the TV series?

Alyssa Maxwell: It is not a TV series.  Hallmark Mystery made the first book, Murder at the Breakers into a movie. We do not know if any new ones will be made.  They do tend to move a little slowly.  I have no say in anything.

EC: Why make your heroine, Emma, a woman journalist in the early 1900s?

AM: She is independent.  It is unusual, not the norm, but not out of the question.  There were other female journalists at that time and other women in other occupations. They did have their own business and made their own money. I always refer to Nellie Bly as the inspiration for Emma, a Gilded Age journalist who took a lot of risks. At the beginning of the series as a society journalist she was able to get into the balls and the wealthy activities in Newport. Now she is more of an investigative reporter. Jesse, her detective friend, relies on her insight because she knows the wealthy and the ordinary Newport people.  

EC:  Has Emma changed since she married?

AM: She has come to see there is still strength in depending on others. In the beginning she tended to be a lone wolf, that in accepting help there might be strings.  With her husband, Derrick, she realizes it is possible to be a team.  She is more confidant in herself and her relationships.

EC: Since Emma is pregnant will that jump the shark?

AM: Emma needed to settle into her married life and in the early 1900s that would include having a child. Nanny and Katie will help in looking after the baby as well as having her work from home. I think it is a natural progression of her life.

EC: Will Jesse ever get a love interest?

AM: I have hinted in an earlier book that Jesse and one of the maids of a mansion had met and were striking up a friendship. I need to get back to it, but have not since I have been so focused on Emma and Derrick’s relationship 

EC: What would you say is the historical part of Murder at The Elms?

AM:  The mystery and the historical wrap around each other in all my books. I do take some historical events and wrap them around the mystery. There was some backstabbing, with societal climbing but there was also female friendships and relationships that I explore. There is also yellow journalism with the sensationalism and embellishment. One of the journalists, Brown, uses it.  He did not care how his reporting might affect someone. He did not have a lot of scruples as evidenced when he covered the striking of the servants. At that time there actually was a service strike at the Elms where everyone was fired. 

EC:  In Murder at Vinland how did you get the idea for the story?

AM: This house has a Nordic and Viking design, which led me into thinking of nature. The archived newspapers of the period showed how Audubon Societies were springing up. 

EC:  How would you describe The Ladies of the 400?

AM: Many were smart, savvy women who if allowed would have been CEOs of companies. They were frustrated in their lack of choices.  This is why being on the top of society was so important to them, being like their business.  They could be set in their ways because their choices were limited, so they felt other women’s choices should be limited as well. They can be good and bad.  They were involved in altruistic projects and are philanthropists. They helped their communities but at the same time there was rivalry about who would be considered the most important one in society.

EC: What was the role of Jennie?

AM: She wanted to start up an Audubon Society.  She was passionate about the protection of birds.  At the time women were wearing hats adorned with feathers. She gets angry with these women and because of this Emma suspects her. By the 1920s, feathers on hats were out because of the efforts of the consciousness and education, but at the time of the story this was in the beginning.  I put in two historical figures, Harriet Hemingway who established the Massachusetts Audubon Society and Edith Roosevelt because of her husband’s activism in preserving the environment.  I thought they would be likely figures to attend a luncheon on the dangers to birds. 

EC: Next books?

AM: In the book that I am finishing now, the next Newport mystery there are fewer suspects than this book. The book is titled Murder at Arleigh, coming out this time next year. A societal couple believed to be madly in love has a wrench thrown when the wife comes to Emma and tells her she thinks her husband is trying to kill her. The couple is real, Harry and Elizabeth Lehr. Two Weddings and a Murder will be my next book in the “A Lady & Lady’s Maid” series. It begins with a marriage and that same day the chief inspector is murdered, coming out in February. 

THANK YOU!!

[naturecoaster]

Hernando Audubon Summer Activities: You're invited

Zoom Presentation on Red-Headed Woodpeckers in SWFWMD district Hernando Audubon is sponsoring a Zoom presentation on June 27 at 7 p.m. by Abby Reed, Hernando Audubon Conservation Leadership Initiative student. Abby conducted research on the status of Red-headed Woodpecker populations throughout the Southwest Florida Water Management District territory using Audubon Christmas Bird Count data and land cover changes over the past 30 years. She has some interesting results concerning the natural habitats of Hernando County. Please register to join Abby’s presentation here: https://www.mobilize.us/audubon-chapters/event/634751/ July Bird Walk in Withlacoochee State Forest McKethan Lake Day Use Recreation Area, Withlacoochee State Forest: Saturday, July 13: At 8 a.m. meet in the parking lot on the left, just inside the entrance. This park is at 15185 North Broad Street (U.S. 41), 0.5 mile north of Lake Lindsey Road (County Road 476), north of Brooksville.  We will walk and drive as we look for Swallow-tailed Kites, woodpeckers, songbirds, and Red-shouldered Hawks. There is a $2 per person park fee. The trip leader will collect the $2 fee from participants and pay Forestry a lump sum. Please bring exact cash. There are rest rooms and drinking water. Make reservations with Bev: bevalhansen@gmail.com or 352-686-0460. Image courtesy of Depositphotos.com Read the full article

[petnews2day]

Dawn Chorus: My Great Backyard Bird Count

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/rqDU9

Dawn Chorus: My Great Backyard Bird Count

The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is an event that occurs every year over the President’s Day weekend in February. The main sponsors are the Cornell Lab, Audubon, Birds Canada, and Wild Birds Unlimited. In a nutshell, it’s a calling-all-birders thing where birders all over the world go out and count as many bird species as is humanly […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/rqDU9 #BirdNews

[rabbitcruiser]

Morro Bay Harbor, CA (No. 10)

You can’t climb Morro Rock, but you can look for the peregrine falcons that nest there. And it’s not just there you’ll see birds: So many of them love the Morro Bay area that the Audubon Society has dubbed it one of the country’s best places for bird watchers. There’s even a birding festival every Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. Nature lives in the water, too, of course—check it out by taking a whale-watching cruise or stopping by the free Estuary Nature Center, a popular hangout for otters and other sea creatures.

The town is an ambulatory paradise as well: Beaches stretch north and south of town, perfect for strolling with a view of Morro Rock. Landlubbers can hike the area’s many trails or simply explore the Embarcadero, a waterfront street with shops and restaurants. Of interest to Half Ironman enthusiasts is the Ironman 70.3 Morro Bay event that happens annually in May, and consists of a 1.2-mile protected swim in Morro Bay, followed by the 56-mile biking section through rolling hills and vineyards, and finally a 13.1-mile run that finishes along the Embarcadero.

Source

[rjzimmerman]

Great Lakes piping plover Imani stretches his wings after helping to incubate an egg at Montrose Beach in Chicago on May 31, 2024. The Chicago Park District announced the presence of a new egg on the protected area at the Montrose Beach Dunes. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

Great Lakes piping plover Searocket looks for food near a nest where she laid an egg at Montrose Beach on May 31, 2024, in Chicago. The Park District announced the presence of a new egg on the protected area at Montrose Beach Dunes. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

Excerpt from this story from the Chicago Tribune:

Captive-reared piping plovers are making history as they guard two separate nests with eggs in Waukegan and Chicago.

Three plover eggs were documented Saturday in Waukegan, and 30 miles down the Lake Michigan shoreline, another egg was confirmed at Montrose Beach.

“This is an historic event for the Great Lakes Piping Plover Project,” said Brad Semel, endangered species recovery specialist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Three of the four parents-to-be, Blaze, Pepper and Searocket, hatched in a captive-rearing facility in Michigan last summer. They were released as chicks near Montrose Beach and Illinois Beach State Park in Zion last July, and have returned from their southerly wintering locations to start families.

The fourth plover is Imani, born in the wild at Montrose Beach to Monty and Rose, the famous plover pair that first captured Chicago’s attention in 2019.

Captive-reared plovers have never laid eggs in Illinois before, only in Michigan, Semel said.

Carolyn Lueck, a volunteer plover monitor with the Lake County Audubon Society’s Sharing Our Shore-Waukegan program has been visiting Blaze and Pepper almost daily since the plovers returned from two different wintering homes within a day of each other in May.

“By Saturday, we had three eggs and were anticipating a fourth,” said Lueck, a former Lake Forest and Chicago resident who now lives in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. If the captive-reared plovers can raise wild piping plovers, that will show the “great experiment,” to save the endangered shorebird species can be successful, she said.

“Blaze and Pepper have been very diligent,” Lueck said. “They never leave that nest unattended. They’re protecting it from the grackles and other threats.”

[tiktotees]

Chris Stapleton Sweet As Strawberry Wine Maroon shirt

According to the Chris Stapleton Sweet As Strawberry Wine Maroon shirt But I will love this National Audubon Society, Canada jays are “seemingly fearless” and can be found in human-inhabited areas such as “campgrounds and cabins, stealing food and nicknamed ‘camp bandits.'” The Canadian Jays also know how to steal the show, as Lilly pointed out in a personal Instagram post: “It’s not every day that the Whiskey Guys get to steal the show, because so let’s celebrate life’s little surprises.” Jack Bang Jake Bongiovi and Millie Bobby Brown attend the premiere of “Enola Holmes 2” in October 2022. Photo: MONICA SCHIPPER/GETTY IMAGES Millie Bobby Brown says it’s never too early to start celebrating the holidays, even if her fiancé Jake Bongiovi doesn’t agree. “My decorations are going to be done by Halloween. Jake is vehemently against it, but who cares?” the 19-year-old Stranger Things star told Tiktotees Fashion exclusively during a brief event for her new coffee line, Florence by Mills Coffee magazine revealed. Brown added that she also shares some of her own holiday traditions with Bon Jovi – to whom she announced her engagement in April – including when they opened their first Christmas presents. “My tradition is to open gifts, no matter how big or small, on Christmas Eve,” she explains. “Jake didn’t do it. I gave it to him and he still didn’t agree, but I said, ‘You have to open it.’ “And he picked the biggest one and I thought, of course you did.” She continued: “Christmas is my holiday. That’s where I thrive. I love the twinkling lights and decorations.”

Buy it: https://tiktotees.com/product/chris-stapleton-sweet-as-strawberry-wine-maroon-shirt/

Home: Tiktotees Fashion

[envr1301-lorienpartridge]

Activity 4.1 – US Environmental History and Major Regulations

As European settlers started colonizing North America, the continent seemed like a land of endless resources and unlimited growth. The burgeoning nation of the United States started to expand in population and urbanization at a rapid rate. Some of the first of what we could consider modern-day environmental policies started with how people tried to make farming practices more efficient. These new conservation methods quickly made their way into other fields such as the management of forests and other economically valuable ecosystems. Eventually, these fields grew into new societies and organizations for conservation. Such as nongovernment organizations like the Audubon Society founded in 1886 which focused on birds. As well as government-run organizations like the National Parks Service founded in 1916. President Roosevelt was famous for the strides he made during his presidency in helping to establish wildlife and ecosystem conservation in the United States. Helping to place over two hundred million million miles of land under the stewardship of the U.S Forest Service. He also helped to establish over thirty wildlife refuges and over a hundred national forests. In total this land accounted for a little over ten percent of the land in the lower forty-eight states. However, the industry also plays a substantial role in the history of conservation in the United States. At first, the industry had little to no interest in managing its waste and emissions, and the international government had few regulations to enforce any measures of managing waste and pollution caused by corporations and large-scale industries like agriculture, timber, and mining for example. However, going into the mid-twentieth century there began a renewed interest in protecting the environment, specifically pollution caused by industry and corporations. One important way that the government accomplished this is by making a new robust waste management system in the nation. Another issue that was addressed during this new time of reform was the horrendous air quality that was found in urbanized areas within the country. The air had gotten so bad that it directly led to people becoming ill and dying from breathing it in and being exposed to it every day. The water in many parts of the country had also become severely degraded, one of the most famous events surrounding how putrid water pollution had become in urbanized areas within the United States was the Cuyahoga River Fire that happened in Cleveland, Ohio. Many companies felt emboldened enough to dump toxic chemical waste wherever they thought was out of sight and out of mind despite the health risks that it caused those who lived around it. Like what happened to the residents of the Love Canal region around Niagara Falls, New York when “the discovery of buried hazardous solvent drums in a neighborhood of Niagara Falls, NY in 1978, a former waste disposal location for a chemical company” (Theis & Tomkin 32). Events like this helped to spur the United States government into passing many important acts and laws to help keep America clean not just for the sake of the myriad ecosystems across the nation, but also for the health and well-being of the citizens of the United States of America so that everyone can enjoy a higher quality of live no matter where they live.

Sources Cited

Theis, Tom, et al. Sustainability : A Comprehensive Foundation. Rice University, Houston, Texas, Connexions, [Victoria, 2013.