Tulip Tree in Dorsey Search

This tulip tree (more details about liriodendron tulipifera) in the Village of Dorsey Search must be one of the largest trees in Columbia, Maryland. Its circumference is 20 feet, and its height is about 175 feet. It is located just off the bicycle path about 150 feet NW of the intersection of Columbia Rd. and Ram's Horn Row. The insert in the lower right corner shows a typical leaf. Does anyone know of a bigger tree in Columbia?

AHS Girls Soccer Team Selection

The final selection for the Atholton High School 2007 girls soccer team was posted at the entrance to the school at 8:30 pm, Friday, August 17th. A total of 40 girls were chosen out of about 70 who tried out. My daughter, who trained all summer to make the goal of 7:15 for the mile run, was extremely happy to make the cut. There was a lot of screaming, hugging, and cell phoning for the girls who made the team (above photo).

Backyard Visitor

Yesterday morning this bird of prey was scanning my back yard from atop my daughter's practice net for lacrosse. The bird is about 10" long not including its tail. The photo was taken from inside my house at a distance of about 30 feet. Does anyone know what kind of bird this is?

Thanks to everyone who suggested identifications. I now think that it is probably an immature (because of the yellow eye) Cooper's Hawk. A detailed description of its breeding behavior is available here. It preys on small birds and rodents, which are plentiful in the neighborhood. Hopefully there will be another sighting to check for the expected bands on its tail.

No Mercy 2007

No Mercy, the co-ed team in the GSFC Slow-Pitch Softball Association that I play on, managed to live up to its ironic name for another season.

The end-of-year "tournament" on August 24th included both Monday night and Tuesday night co-ed teams. The games started early, and there were special rules to try to speed them up. No Mercy played as well as we had played all season, won our first two games (including a shutout win over the team that beat us 16-0 earlier in the year), and lost the third game in extra innings. We took another team photo (bottom left) to include several players not in the first team photo, and had three more celebrations of not being subjected to the "mercy" rule (bottom right).

Summer Intern at GSFC

My son spent six weeks this summer as an intern in GSFC's High School Internship Program (HIP). He was one of 19 students selected (press release) to carry out research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics with guidance from a NASA mentor. He worked in a small team to design and implement software to control a robot. The eventual goal is to develop self-healing robots to explore the Moon or planets as part of the Autonomous NanoTechnology Swarm (ANTS) program. It was a great opportunity to apply some of what he had learned in school to a real project in a work environment. The photo shows some of the hardware used in the program. The specific task was to locate a magnet (the dark, oblong object on the white, circular platform) and rotate the struts in the photo so that the magnetometer (the object dangling from the joint of the struts) was directly above the magnet.