PalmsNorth.com

They've headed to Palm Springs, visiting the Living Desert display:

<img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5051/545 ... 2096_z.jpg" width="600" height="418" alt="110218-Excellent_Adventure-Living_Desert_Entrance-600" />

<img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5137/545 ... 19ef_z.jpg" width="561" height="600" alt="110218-Excellent_Adventure-Living_Desert_Zoo2" />

<img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5100/545 ... f3b7_z.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="110218-Excellent_Adventure-Living_Desert_Zoo-600" />

<img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/545 ... 4677_z.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="110218-Excellent_Adventure-Living_Desert_Zoo-Cactus_Garden-600" />

<img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5139/545 ... b6d9_z.jpg" width="600" height="382" alt="110218-Excellent_Adventure-Palm_Springs-600" />

<img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5015/545 ... d45d4d.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="110218-Palm_Springs_Wind_Farm-500" />

The recent cold doesn't appear to have damaged palms yuccas or cactus...yet.

Barb

I like this last picture very much as a piece of art! But I rather prefer seeing the Washi's forest instead! Any data regarding the birds killed by these hydro windmills?

Igor,

However, a study[22] estimates that wind farms are responsible for 0.3 to 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fueled power stations are responsible for about 5.2 fatalities per GWh. The author's study therefore claims that fossil fuel based electricity causes about 10 times more fatalities than wind farm based electricity, primarily due to habitat alteration from pollution and mountain-top removal. The number of birds killed by wind turbines is also negligible when compared to the number that die as a result of other human activities such as traffic, hunting, electric power transmission and high-rise buildings, and the introduction of feral and roaming domestic cats

From here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmen ... wind_power

And years ago I read a report from a big big city (maybe New York?) where building custodians early each morning (before office staff arrived for work) would walk around the outside of skyscraper buildings, picking up dead birds that had hit windows overnight.

In the two years since my 10 kW wind turbine has been operating, we haven't seen so much as a feather on the ground near it. Individual wind turbines pose far less risk, I would think, than the huge wind farms where 200 turbines cover a large area of birds' flight paths. Recent legislation, based on input from the Audubon Society, has limited where wind farms can be built, i.e. away from historical migration paths.

Barb

Barb, no blames about a single standing mill. but if they are build as an industrial complex it means they are standing along (sorry I can't find right English words for expressing my thoughts) the main atmospheric flows that are using by migrating birds. I hope you understand what I mean.

lucky1 wrote: And years ago I read a report from a big big city (maybe New York?) where building custodians early each morning (before office staff arrived for work) would walk around the outside of skyscraper buildings, picking up dead birds that had hit windows overnight.

Barb

I think it was in Vancouver, one biulding was a major bird kill. Thousands of birds a year.

Love the pics Barb, thank you friends for us.

Igor, yes I understand what you meant perfectly.
Your English is much better than my Russian

Those wind farms ARE an industrial complex, that's true.
And naturally birds select the easiest (windiest) routes to help them along their migrations.
That's where the wind turbines are. Understood.

Aaron, holy cow Vancouver?
Possible, certainly, but building heights in Vancouver seem dwarfed compared to those that exist in much larger cities.

I remember as a kid in Vancouver looking up at the B.C. Hydro building, the tallest structure at that time.
Then as a teenager my parents took me to downtown New York City...
I doubted that the sun would ever shine on the streets below.

Thanks for the friends' pics comment, Aaron; I'll tell them.
I'm looking forward to their next installment when they attend the Date Festival this week in Palm Springs...
Oooooh, it'll be a Phoenix sp. overload

Barb

While waiting for the Date Festival pics, took a drive through Malibu.

I like this greenhouse...

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/33350784#comment

lucky1 wrote: Aaron, holy cow Vancouver?
Possible, certainly, but building heights in Vancouver seem dwarfed compared to those that exist in much larger cities.

I'm looking forward to their next installment when they attend the Date Festival this week in Palm Springs...
Oooooh, it'll be a Phoenix sp. overload

Barb

It was about ten years ago I read about it in a Smithsonian mag(I think). I could be wrong.
It was do to the area and the path the birds flew. I think it was an all glass building. People were being hit by dead birds, most birds dont fly that high. Been so long ago I am not sure where now.

The Date Festival in Indio/Palm Springs, I drove through once and that was going on. A good place for a date shake. My first date plam came from seed from there. After you eat the date flesh plant the seeds.

That could have been Vancouver's Bentall Centres One and Two...black glass top to bottom.
How sad.

Seeds...why didn't I think of that? Duh!

Will have to email them.
Thanks, Aaron!

Barb

New pics from the Date Festival:

<img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/547 ... db277d.jpg" width="500" height="420" alt="110223-Excellent_Adventure-Indio_Date_Festival-600" />

<img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/547 ... df528b.jpg" width="500" height="468" alt="110223-Indio_Date_Festival1-600" />

<img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5220/547 ... 6b8607.jpg" width="500" height="455" alt="110222-Excellent_Adventure-Downtown_Palm_Springs-600" /><

And, drumroll, ta da.....
<img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5219/547 ... e8cdb5.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="110222-Excellent_Adventure-Palm_Canyon-600" />

Had I known how cold it was going to get here at end of February, I would've stowed aboard their RV...
Barb

This farm was featured at the fair:

Cool...camels in California.
http://www.cameldairy.com/

Barb

Nice pics Barb.

Latest pic from RV-ing friends, laQuinta CA

<img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5020/549 ... 2602b1.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="110304-Excellent_Adventure-La_Quinta-600" />

ID -- Washy filifera?
Trunks too thick to be W.robusta?

Nice to see a youngster in the foreground.
That's what occurs to me in most of these desert photos...shouldn't there be seedlings and juveniles?

Barb

I wonder about that, too.
When I was down in McCurtain county last month, the striking thing (for the good) was that most of the Sabal minor populations were made up of strap-leaved juveniles. I see the same in Belize: most palms are young.
Maybe the "kids" just aren't considered photo-worthy? --Erik

Maybe the "kids" just aren't considered photo-worthy?

Could be, Erik.
Might also indicate changes to underground streams.

I felt the same way as you when I saw your McCurtain county pics...good to see youngsters growing so densely.
Bodes well for the future.

Barb

lucky1 wrote:Latest pic from RV-ing friends, laQuinta CA

ID -- Washy filifera?
Trunks too thick to be W.robusta?

Nice to see a youngster in the foreground.
That's what occurs to me in most of these desert photos...shouldn't there be seedlings and juveniles?

Barb

You are right they are filiferas

Very hard for a seedling to start in those conditions, also has competion from the adults and rabbits in the desert love palm seedlings. Saguaros seedlings also very hard to find.

they are filiferas

About time 50/50 chances went my way

Presumably, though, there were rabbits when the big boys were starting too.
Probably an indication that coyotes (predators) have been hunted (by ranchers?) to the point where rabbit population exploded.

Barb

lucky1 wrote:

they are filiferas

About time 50/50 chances went my way

Presumably, though, there were rabbits when the big boys were starting too.
Probably an indication that coyotes (predators) have been hunted (by ranchers?) to the point where rabbit population exploded.

Barb

Could be, but there is most likely other factors as well. There may not be much water source out of the grove? If I was to do a survey I would set up a grid and some record keeping and ground water test etc... The brush may have been thicker in the past and growing over the water hole, when the first palm seeds dropped they could have been protected by the brush that is no longer there do to shade from the now adult palms etc...

That's likely the best explanation.

Brush may also have been removed by native peoples for fuel.