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Outdoor Report

Santa Clarita Outdoor Report: Beetle Voicemail

Thirty years ago, I was working in Silicon Valley for ROLM Corporation, one of the pioneers in voicemail telecommunications.  But recently, I learned that insects have been communicating with their version of “voicemail” for much longer than 30 years – more like millions of years. To leave a voicemail, you first need a telephone.   In 2008, researchers from Netherlands Institute ...

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Santa Clarita Valley Outdoor Report: Working Skunks

  This week’s Santa Clarita Valley Outdoor Report by Wendy Langhans explains how solitary animals, like skunks, and social animals, like meerkats, protect themselves.     I was talking with a friend a few days ago.  We engaged in the usual small talk, until I noticed the small skunk logo on his shirt.  I broke into a huge grin and ...

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Santa Clarita Outdoor Report: One Way Street

Breathing. It’s something we normally do 12-18 times every minute. But just for a moment – pay attention to the flow of air. Take a deep breath. Hold it for five seconds. Then slowly breathe out. You have what is called a bi-directional flow of air to and from your lungs. According to Dr. C.G. Farmer, associate professor of biology ...

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Santa Clarita Valley Outdoor Report: Contrails

Six seconds into this YouTube clip of John Ford’s classic western, “Cheyenne Autumn”, you can hear the narrator identify the date as September 7, 1878.  Meanwhile, as the opening scene fades from darkness into view, you can see a vertical contrail hanging in the sky.  This creates a slight problem – because contrails are made by airplanes and airplanes didn’t ...

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Santa Clarita Outdoor Report: Melting Snow

I’m not sure I can ask this question without smirking just a bit:  Cold enough for you?  That’s because I went to college in Minnesota; in St. Paul, the average temperature in December ranges from 27 (high) to 12 (low).  But last week, I discovered something that dimmed that smirk just a bit.  Something I thought I knew about snow ...

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SCV Outdoor Report Best Of: Juniper Berries

Earlier this year, my husband and I took a drive out to the eastern edge of the Santa Clarita valley.  It was a sunny morning, so we bundled up in our jackets and took the top down.  As we drove along Agua Dulce Canyon road, the junipers caught my eye – they were chock full of plump, greyish-blue berries.  But, ...

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Santa Clarita Outdoor Report: “Raspberry Red, Lemon Yellow and Orange Orange”

As we move into the beginnings of the rainy season, our sunsets are becoming more colorful.  They remind me of the early Twix cereal commercials, the ones with the “silly rabbit” singing “Raspberry red, lemon yellow and orange orange”?  As a child, I was drawn to those colorful Trix packages in the cereal aisle.  But as an adult, I’m much ...

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Santa Clarita Outdoor Report, Best Of: Collecting Dust

Thanksgiving is in two weeks…but for many people… the preparation has already begun. Inviting family & friends, menu planning, grocery shopping, cooking and CLEANING.  At our house, it’s time to do a bit of dusting.  It’s amazing how quickly dust can collect on the furniture. That’s also true for the dust that collects on other living things. Take butterflies, for ...

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SCV Outdoor Report Best Of: Twitter Principles

It was the pun that first caught my attention – “Twitter Principles of Social Networking Increase Family Success in Nesting Birds”.  OK, so it wasn’t a great pun.  But it does illustrate that since the first “tweet” was sent on March 21, 2006, tweeting (among humans, not just birds) has become so popular that now even scientists are making puns about ...

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Santa Clarita Valley Outdoor Report: Contrarian Wildflower

“Hoary Fuchsia” is a contrarian wildflower.  For starters, it’s a contradiction in terms – a combination of words whose meanings are in conflict with one another.  The word hoary means “having grey or white hair”, while fuchsia means “a bright reddish-purple color”.   What were those botanists thinking when they named that flower? But when you take a closer look, perhaps ...

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