Vaccine Interregnum

 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/opinion/owling-nature.html

 SoSo back and half-vaxxed. Here is an op-ed piece about owls. An author finding owls for her owl-obsessed son using a mouse decoy. "Owling teaches patience: Rarely do we actually connect with an owl." Having read about the extermination of passenger pigeons, this is probably of great benefit to owls. The article introduced me to the word "crepuscular", meaning active at twilight, which was not a good movie.  "When we owl we return to our truest selves."  This is great prose. Coincidentally, Soso will be volunteering to lead an owl watch this month. "To owl is to have an experience that cannot be bought, cannot be imitated."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/opinion/epidemic-invasive-species-trees.html

Still on the theme of the beauty of nature and sorrow at its loss or desecration, another op-ed piece from the NYT, this time about tree disease. I used to ask my students, "Which tree is dying of Dutch Elm Disease?" Invariably, the answer would be chestnut, oak or maple. The article is about diseases of chestnut, elm, ash and hemlock. Many of these trees are anchors of ecosystems. Rotting, sick trees release CO2 in the atmosphere at the same rate as wildfires do and they are thusly accelerating climate change. Trees cannot be immunized or move. They do have a sort of immune system, which explains how they can harbor many insect pests and still produce leaves. (I wish I could produce leaves.) And there is a lag period between the time tree plagues take hold and become noticeable. The spotted lanternfly, a non-native species of this area, has decimated orchards and vineyards.