Contributed photo / Dave
Gibson
From left, violinists Lia Hardy and Lea Fetterman perform during
last year’s Bainbridge in Bloom garden tour.
With July fast approaching, the Bainbridge Island Arts &
Humanities Council is putting a call out for musicians interested
in performing during its 26th annual Bainbridge in Bloom
garden tour July 11-12.
Folk, jazz groups and classical chamber artists are sought by
the Arts & Humanities Council to play hourlong sets from 9 a.m. to
5 p.m. on the Friday and Saturday of the event. Musicians can
also perform longer than an hour and more frequently if they’d
like.
Interested artists can contact, Bainbridge in Bloom music
coordinator Karla Zimmerman at karlajzimmerman@comcast.net
or (206) 979-9981.
U.S. News & World Report ranked
Bainbridge High School the sixth best high school in the state and
276thbest nationally in its recently
released eighth annual rankings of more than 19,400 public high
schools in 50 states and the District of
Columbia.
Last year, BHS was ranked seventh in the state
and 274thnationally in the magazine’s “Best
High Schools Rankings.”
Only 133
Washington state schools made the magazine’s 2014 list. Eligibility
for the list required school’s garnering a national gold or silver
medal; Bainbridge won a gold medal.
Kirkland’s
International Community School was ranked the top school in the
state, followed by Bellevue’s Community School, Bellevue High,
Newport (Bellevue) High and Interlake (Bellevue) High.
Des
Moines’ Aviation High, Seattle’s Roosevelt High, Seattle’s Garfield
High and Winthrop’s Liberty Bell Junior/Senior High rounded out the
state’s top 10.
Dallas’
School for the Talented and Gifted in Dallas, Texas, earned the top
honors nationally, followed by BASIS Scottsdale in Arizona and
Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology in
Lawrenceville, Ga.
Kirkland’s
International Community School was ranked the highest nationally in
the state at No. 13.
According
to information the magazine posted online, Bainbridge High has a 67
percent participation rate in Advanced Placement course work. Out
of its total enrollment of 1,309, 50 percent of the student body is
made up of males, and it has a total minority enrollment of 11
percent.
Are you
passionate about particular issues on Bainbridge Island?
Until 5
p.m. Friday, May 16, the City of Bainbridge Island will be taking
applications for residents who would like to volunteer their time
to one of nine citizen advisory groups.
Opening
are on the Design Review Board, Environmental Technical Advisory
Committee, Ethics Board, Harbor Commission, Historic Preservation
Commission, Non-Motorized Transportation Advisory Committee,
Planning Commission, Roads Ends Advisory Committee and Utility
Advisory Committee.
Advisory
group volunteers are appointed and receive no compensation for the
time.
“A Year of Birding in Bloedel” is a column that runs every
Friday in the Bainbridge Islander. The project is planned to
continue in 52 parts through 2014 to help readers find and
identify birds in the island’s garden sanctuary. Beginning
with this entry on the bald eagle, each column will also be
published here on the Bainbridge Conversation blog each
Friday.
The author, Ted Anderson, is a retired professor of biology,
having taught at McKendree University (Ill.) for 32 years and
for the University of Michigan’s summer biological station for
20 years, where he frequently taught the biology of
birds.
Anderson is also the author of “Biology of the Ubiquitous
House Sparrow, from Genes to Populations” (2006), and “The
Life of David Lack, Father of Evolutionary Ecology”
(2013). Ted and his wife Carol have been members
of Bloedel Reserve for seven years. They live in
Kingston.
In the Seattle area, April Fool’s Day, give or take a day, is
the date when the photoperiod-driven internal clock of the male
White-Crowned Sparrow (Zontrichia leucophrys) signals him
to begin singing. This year the resident male in my yard began
singing on March 31, and when my wife and I arrived at the gate of
Bloedel on April 3, a male White-crown was singing there.
The song of the White-Crowned Sparrow is a pleasing series of
notes that begins with a clear whistled note, followed by several
slurred notes, “see, ch-ch-ch-ch, chew,” the last note falling
slightly in pitch.
The songs of songbirds belonging to the order Passeriformes are
learned, and much of the pioneering scientific study of song
learning was done of the White-Crowned Sparrows. The studies
involved rearing sparrows in acoustic isolation, thereby completely
controlling all sounds heard by the developing birds.
In a nutshell the studies revealed that male sparrows must hear
their own species song during the first month of life if they are
to develop a normal song as adults. They have a hereditary ability
to recognize their own species song from among many songs they are
exposed to, and create a memory for that song.
Many months later, when they are stimulated to sing by rising
testosterone levels, this memory serves as a template for the
development of a normal song. Speaking of testosterone levels, I
recently took a checkup at balancemyhormones.co.uk to
see my hormone levels, and as I guessed, there was an imbalance,
which was treated.
Look and listen for this charming little brown songster with
white and black stripes on the top of its head near the gate at
Bloedel, or in your own backyard.
