B's Blog

 I am greeted every morning by the birds, mammals and plants of Baylands park. This park is located on the South end of the bay between the Santa Clara Amtrak train stop (near Great America theme park) and Moffet field. It has been recovering for the past 10 years (having been a landfill for many years) and is now an incredibly productive area for birdlife and some mammals. It’s amazing what Mother Nature can do when she is set up for success! I ride my bike everyday along the same path and see new things each time, it’s an amazing and wonderful way to start the day. It creates a great routine for me that I’ve been seeking for quite some time. This place is my “secret spot” and I am in constant wonderment of the surrounding habitat and it’s occupants. There are a number of birds that I see on a routine basis along the baylands trail. One of which I call the Peaceful Warrior. This Peaceful Warrior is a Ruby Throated Hummingbird that is nearly always perched on top of the same tree branch each and every day at around 8:30am. The reason he has earned my respect and such a powerful name is due to his courageous spirit. This could be said for most all hummingbirds but this one seems to have a unique amount of hummingbird bravery and wisedom. The reason I say most all hummingbirds deserve this title is the constant challenge that they face just to stay alive. During their waking hours they are caught in an absolute race for life to keep up with their speedy metabolism. The amount of food they need to take in is roughly equivalent to you or I eating all the food in our fridge, doing a huge grocery run and then eating all that food before the end of the day. In order to make it through the night without completely burning through their reserves they've stored up during the day, they must put themselves in to a torpor (sort of a mini-hibernation cycle) where they reduce their heart rate and drop their core body temperature to a level where they are hardly breathing and are not remotely conscious. Another reason I find hummingbirds so interesting is for their fearlessness. Have you ever seen a Hummingbird defend its territory or perhaps a hummingbird feeder? It doesn’t take much to imagine how precious of a resource their local energy sources are and why they will risk it all to scare anything away. My favorite hummingbird maneuver is the dive and honk. I’ve even been the victim of this once or twice! The D and H is when a hummingbird shoots straight up into the sky, stalls for a moment or two and then dives full throttle down towards it’s victim and pulls off a 90 degree swoop at the very last minute. I swear this thing had to have come within less than a foot of my head a few times. Pretty threatening when all I can see is an object that looks like a stear-able dart coming right for my eye. Evidently each hummingbird has a unique diving pattern that they consistently follow. For example, one type of Dive involves 3 zig-zags before shooting straight up then diving and another will zig, stall and then zoom. Cool! So, hats off to all the little hummingbirds out there that survive amongst all odds and aren’t afraid to risk it all in the name of a sustained energy source. Sometimes just seeing the Peaceful Warrior on my way in will make me will snap me into a good mood and bring a smile to my face. There are a number of other animals that I’m excited to write about but those will have to wait for now.

Posted by Billy Witort at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Location: Amtrak train near Hayward

Weather: Clearing skies, amazing sunrise this morning with bright pinks and purples, cold enough to not feel my bike’s brakes that well, probably about 45F.

I picked two beautiful oranges off of Nella the orange tree in my backyard this morning. I gave one of them to a fellow biker-guy on the train whom I’ve met recently. It always amazes me how much citrus grows in the Bay Area. On the train ride I get a sneak peak into everyone’s backyards: right now there are dozens of orange trees overflowing with oranges. It looks like most of the trees owners don’t know how to pick oranges because there are oranges dropping and not being used. This invokes a number of feelings in me:I feel fortunate to live in a resource plentiful area where things grow so abundantly and I feel saddened that the norm is to ignore the resources in our own backyards. I had an enlightening conversation with Eric Schnell’s (Kris’s Brother-in-law) parents not too long ago. They grew up in communist Germany and experienced a time which contrasts strongly to our current abundance. Food was so valued during this time of communist germany that there was not an unused part of the land that was not growing extra food to put on the table. It sounds like they had some staples: potatoes. They must have dressed up potatoes a thousand different ways but still they must have been thankful for what they had. They said it was a special treat to have anything fresh and meat was especially appreciated. So it is with that contrasting experience that I wonder what’s changed so much such that now we’ll go to the store and buy oranges or lemons when our neighbors orange trees are chalk full of fruit. I think one thing that contributes to this is money. If we have money, we’ll just go to the store and pick-up oranges and not think twice about meeting our neighbor and asking for them. Money has made it too easy to be independent! That’s where I’ll end this train of thought. While I’ve been writing this I’ve passed by I don’t know how many orange and lemon trees. I think I’ll make a special walk around the block this week sometime, gather unused oranges and lemons and hand them out to people who would enjoy them. It’s a great way to build community and to utilize an abundant resource!

Posted by Billy Witort at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi Y'all,
This is something that I've been wanting to do for a long time. A blog seems like an ideal place to keep a running diary of my day-to-day life. I think I'll mostly use it to document my daily curiosities and wonderment. I hope it to be a space where friends and family can come to read my stories and learn about the things i'm doing.

More soonly!
B

Posted by Billy Witort at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)