'Tis the Marbled Murrelet

I just couldn't resist.

Marbled Murrelets and Green Energy

Tonight at 7: Science Cafe of Olympia presents TIDAL ENERGY RESEARCH

Tidal energy shows promise as a resource for sustainable, renewable power generation. Research is underway on the technical, environmental and social challenges to its deployment, such as designing and engineering tidal turbines for power production on a utility scale; identification and mitigation of underwater sound and direct interactions between marine animals and marine energy converters; and the development of hydrokinetic turbines at the micro-scale to provide power for autonomous oceanographic instrumentation.

Underwater tidal and wave turbines have been identified as a potential threat to marbled murrelets, the diving seabirds that forage in the nearshore waters where these structures would be installed. I'll be posting here tomorrow on tonight's presentation by Dr. Brian Polagye.

Dr. Polagye, PhD, is the  Co-Director of the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center and Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington.

When:     7:00 pm, Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Where:    Orca Books (509 East 4th Avenue, Olympia)  Phone 360.352.0123

Thanksgiving Fungus and Poem

THE TURKEY, by Ogden Nash

There is nothing more perky

Than a masculine turkey.

When he struts he struts

With no ifs or buts.

When his face is apoplectic

His harem grows hectic,

And when he gobbles

Their universe wobbles.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And remember...Rare Bird is not a cookbook!

Dr. Dale Ireland--Cloud Chronicler

Fans of the sky, clouds, and the weather lost Puget Sound's finest chronicler--Dr. Dale Ireland who passed away suddenly in April 2012. I have posted links to his time-lapse videos of clouds taken daily, sunrise to sunset, from his front deck in Silverdale overlooking Hood Canal and the Olympic Mountains. "Dr. Dale" was a dentist, astronomer, and photographer with a passion for the clouds that enhanced our appreciation of the daily spectacle of the sky and clouds.

I used to watch Dr. Dale's videos daily--they are mesmerizing--but got out of the habit and then took up with the clouds above my own deck in Olympia...and the marbled murrelets in the sky elsewhere. Last night, a friend passed on a link to a two-minute time-lapse video over Discovery Bay. In exchange, I decided to find my way back to Dr. Dale's website to send her the link to his daily videos, but found, instead, meteorologist Scott Sistek's appreciation of Dr. Dale's work. Sistek, of KOMO News, often featured Dr. Dale's videos to illustrate certain meteorological phenomena during his broadcasts. Sistek posted a "best of" Dr. Dale's short cloud videos in his lovely "Remembering Dr. Dale Ireland."