Tanana Observations 2025-05-07 and 2025-05-09 (publ. 2025-05-15)

A few notes of interest from my walks by the Tanana last week.

2025-05-07

11:33am

I am enjoying some especially striking and beautiful cumulus clouds off in the far distance, near the S and E horizons. The particular AZ and EL of the sun at the moment — the sun looks to be around 45° above the horizon — are making the tops of the clouds very bright white, and the bottom of the clouds dark gray. Many fine details, including many streaks of white, are visible coming down along the sides of each cloud.

2025-05-09

12:24pm

In one of the ponds on the south side of the dike road, I observe a large flock of ducks. It is difficult to work out an exact count, but I estimated about 200 ducks.

I frequently hear, coming from the reeds at the edge of the pond, a noise that sounds something like a cross between a quack and a croak. If I try to get close for a look, the sound stops.

A pond on the N side of the trail provides a memorable reflection of light blue sky, cumulus clouds, green spruce, and white trunks. Light water ripples blur the image a little. In the reflection, the bottoms (tops) of the clouds have a slightly purple color, which I suppose is a mix of the dark gray of the cloud with the blue color of the water ripples.

12:36pm

Grass and little plants are now visible along the sides of the trails, which I hadn't noticed on previous walks. One kind that jumps out at me consists of little sprigs or bunches of some almost fern like plant. The leaves are green but have a purple line around the edge of each leaf.

12:42pm

The edges of the catkins on the balsam poplar (cottonwood) are now covered — along their edges — in a red color, which is like the color of a strawberry, but darker, with a blue or purple tint to it. I think this is close to the color I saw:

colorhexa.com dark pink #85092c

Looking closely at the catkins, the red objects appear to be small stamens, having the shape of a narrow oval that has been cut in half, and squeezed back together.

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This work © 2025 by Christopher Howard is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

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