More Early-Spring Tanana Adventures (publ. 2024-04-17)

I have been able to do some more walks along the Tanana, even though the snow has not melted yet. Last Wednesday, I noticed these two moderately-tall trees, which I believe are both the same kind of Willow tree, but with different gender catkins. My understanding is that the furry catkins are male.

willow tree (female?)

willow tree (male?)

It has been sunny and beautiful during some of my walks. I have been watching the Tanana slowly melting, with a channel of flowing water opening up in the middle, and some pools of water developing along the edges. I have had some fun also bringing out my astronomy binoculars to observe some far away trees as well as birds. On Monday I observed one bird flying away towards a very tall leafless tree - and when I trained my binoculars on it I was able to watch a small grey and white bird on the top branch, which was looking around here and there, and preening itself. This makes me think it would be nice to have a spotting scope with a built-in camera, if there is such a thing.