Spider Web Drama

Earlier this week, I noticed a garden orb-weaver spider web under the eve of our covered deck. I could see it from above through the window from where usually I sit to create my blog posts. It was dusk and the spider was just completing a meal - the morsel tightly wrapped up in silk. I managed to get downstairs and outside to take a picture before the spider retreated to the cutter support above the web. By the next morning the bundle was gone and the web was repaired.

Earlier this week, I noticed a garden orb-weaver spider web under the eve of our covered deck. I could see it from above through the window from where usually I sit to create my blog posts. It was dusk and the spider was just completing a meal - the morsel tightly wrapped up in silk. I managed to get downstairs and outside to take a picture before the spider retreated to the cutter support above the web. By the next morning the bundle was gone and the web was repaired.

A few days later - again at dusk - I noticed a larger insect struggling in the web. It appeared that it had already been bound in silk but was still very much alive. I saw the spider come down from to the moving bundle. By the time I got outside, the struggling insect had torn away some of the silk and had grabbed the spider. I watched the struggle wondering whether the insect or spider would survive. It didn’t take long before the answer was known: a small bundle that was the remains of the spider fell away.

The aptly named assassin bug was the survivor.

Cicada Found in the Grass

I found a recently dead cicada in the grass beside the garden. I picked it up to exam more closely. It is an annual cicada - not one of the red eyed 13 or 17 year periodical ones. It got a little dirt from my grubby glove but is otherwise is good condition - a worthy object for photography.

There is a surprising amount of color. Behind the head is a black and orange pattern. The eyes are green and there is a lot of green in the head and on the upper parts of the legs.

The joint of the wing with the body is rimmed with green.

The wings have sturdy veins but are otherwise clear. They had collected some moisture from the grass.

Now that I’ve finished photographing it - back outside it goes. It will be a little jewel in one of the flower pots on the deck.

Leaves in August 2013

We have four types of trees growing in our yard that are abundant in our region: sycamore, tulip poplar, oak and maple.

The leaves are looking a little battered at this point in the season. The sycamore has tiny holes in its leaves.

The tulip polar has round marks where the leaf has died. It looked like they were higher density on the branches closer to the ground. 

The oak has some places where the green chlorophyll is already beginning to die…the harbinger of fall.

The maple leaves look the best this year. A few years ago that tree was the one with the round dead spots. The tree is recovered from a heavy load of grapevine that was cut a few years ago at the ground. The vine died but it held onto the tree and is only now beginning to break into pieces and fall to the ground.

In a few months the maple leaves will be red; the tulip poplar’s leaves will be yellow. The oak will look deep red when the sun is shining through them but look brown on closer inspection. The sycamore leaves will curl and fall - tough and leathery - some of them will last until the next season relatively intact. I’m going to do a leaf post each month through the fall…so stay tuned.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 17, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Distracted Driving Video - 35 minutes…three vignettes…the message: don’t text and drive

Fall in The National Parks: Some Other Park Fall Drives Not To Overlook - Some ideas for a fall foliage road trip

Why do we laugh? - James May with a very straight-faced explanation

Park Score Index - Compare ranking of cities based on parks

Photos from Restored Wetlands - From the Prairie Ecologist. My favorite is the paper wasp on the swamp milkweed.

Why aren’t more girls attracted to physics? - It’s all about seeing possibilities.

A History of the World: The 100 British Museum Objects - There are several images for each object and a narrative. Note the little symbols beside each thumbnail and click on the thumbnail to take a closer look; the images with a magnifying glass have annotations (I prefer to click on the thumbnail, go to full screen, then look at the annotations), listen to the short videos for the ones with the ‘play arrows.’ A bit longer audio (originally for a BBC radio program) is available as well.

How a 'Deviant' Philosopher Built Palantir, A CIA-Funded Data-Mining Juggernaut - The good and bad of the state of the art in mining information from huge amounts of data.

Great Blue Heron Highlights 2013 - From Sapsucker Pond in Ithaca NY. I didn’t watch much of the season ‘live’ this year but enjoyed these highlights.

Three Ways Cooking has Changed Over the Last 300 Years - It’s more than cooking….it’s the history of what people ate. Some ingredients are not common now…others are common but prepared quite differently.

Around our (Maryland) Yard in August 2013

August has been cooler and wetter than usual for us. The plants are growing vigorously. The butterflies enjoy the cone flowers and mint. Both plants will be in bloom for the rest of the season. I did a sequence of cone flower development from petals just unfurling to the beginning of seed pod development.

The blazing stars that were attractive to butterflies earlier in the season are developing seeds now. I’ve already seen a few goldfinches enjoying the earliest harvest.

The hydrangea is fading although some of the blooms will simply dry on the bush.

The chives are getting ready to bloom. In September they will be a highlight of the garden. There are some that came up too near the edge of the garden that I am pulling up and enjoying in salads.

And last but not least the dahlias. They are attractive in just about every way…large, robust flowers….glossy green foliage…there for butterflies and bees and wasps to enjoy.

Brookside Gardens - August 2013

Our stroll through Brookside Gardens this month was the shorter circuit - similar to last month - because of the construction around the large ponds and the tea house that wouldn’t be finished until sometime this winter. There was a still a lot to see. Like last month - flying insects were enjoying the garden. I photographed a dragonfly resting perched on some straw on stone edge of a pool and a tiger swallowtail feeding on a flower.

The rose garden is better than usual for August because the weather this year has not been hot for prolonged periods. I like the ones that are several colors the best.

Of course the larger views of the garden are lush this time of year. In this image - the sycamore towers in the distance with green hedge and plants with colorful foliage and flowers growing vigorously in raised beds.

I noticed the zinnias and realized that the ones I have in pots at home are hybrids that have gone native. They have a single row of petals rather than the dense rows on these flowers. I still like mine with their delicate color - different on the top and the bottom of the petal. And the butterflies and hummingbirds like them too.

The bloom time for the lotus is past and the seed pods are all that remains. Even the seeds are already gone.

The pendulous Angel Trumpet (Brugmansia) has many flowers and they sway with each little breeze. In past years these plants were primarily in the conservatory but they are in several of the outdoor beds this year.

I noticed some new looking shelf fungus on a stump visibile through the foilage. It will be interesting watching them grow and mature in upcoming visits.

And those are the highlights from the walk around Brookside.

Zooming in the Garden

Ordinary things become quite different with the ability of modern cameras to magnify. I’ve collected some recent favorites below.

Do you see the pollen on the bee?

What about the veins in the tiger swallowtail wing? They almost look like pleats.

The jumble of curves of pink lilies.

A glorious white on white of a gardenia flower.

The red hues of a hibiscus petal.

The fractures of a drying lotus seed pod.

The spiral of an unfurling rose.

The alien looking center of a water lily flower.

Cardinals in the Desert

A male cardinal survey the yard from a particular bush every morning we were in Tucson in June. He stayed around long enough to be photographed. The favored bush had seeds that the cardinal particularly enjoyed. One morning he was content to simply gorge.

The next morning he brought a female friend and proceeded to offer her part of the bounty.

The last morning he ate quickly then posed - back and then with upraised tail - before he flew off for the rest of his day in the desert.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 10, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Giant Maya Carvings Found in Guatemala - There are traces of red, blue, green and yellow paint; at some point they should be able to create an image of what it looked like before it became part of the buried foundations of a rectangular pyramid.

Women in Space: A Gallery of Firsts - Historical perspective. The first was way back in 1963….and from the Soviet Union.

Length of Human Pregnancies Can Vary Naturally by as Much as Five Weeks - Previously everyone assumed the variability was from not knowing exactly when ovulation and then implantation of the fertilized embryo occurred …. But this study revealed that even using technology to determine precisely when these events occur, there is still significant variability.

Hot Lava Hits Seawater and Forms Black Sand Beach - Images from Hawaii

Healthy Cooking Oils: 8 New Picks To Try - I’m going to try avocado oil at some point….once I come to terms with how much it costs!

Top 10 College Towns 2013 - These places have appeal to more than just students! Also take a look at the Cost of Living calculator provided by nerdwallet.

Cactus-inspired material cleans oily water - Deep understanding of how nature works can be quite useful - in this case, a potentially new type of filter. It turns out that it may work for aerosolized oil as well.

Baby Owls Sleep like Baby Humans: Owlets Spend More Time in REM Sleep Than Adult Owls - This study confirmed that the generally held notion that birds, like mammal, spend a lot of their sleep time in REM sleep when they are first born and that it declines over time. The correlation of sleep pattern with other aspects of the owls ‘growing up’ was also studied. I particularly liked that the observations in this study were made with sensors on wild owlets that were not harmed at all by the study and the potential the findings have for understanding the impact of sleep patterns in our own species.

Top US States For Solar Energy - The top 5 are: California, Hawaii, Arizona, Maryland, and Delaware. The article provides the criteria used to assess the states.

The Science of Mummies - Technologies applied to studying mummies….many of them non-invasive and non-destructive.

Swimming Pool Surface Images

Sometimes the camera captures more than we can see with our eyes. Both of the images in this post are in that category.

The wasp landed on the surface of the pool and bent to get a drink. The surface tension of the water held it out of the water although the picture above shows the slight indention of the surface where it touched the water. It took off again quite easily.

On another day - wind blew small pieces of nearby vegetation into the pool. When it calmed, aggregates of the debris collected into mats that floated about together. This is my favorite because of the variety of shapes - pine needles, the old flowers, leaves.

Cactus in the Morning

As I was out and about my Maryland yard early this morning, I thought about the most pleasant time of day in Tucson back in June - the early morning. We got up for sunrise twice. The sunrise is spectacular but the morning light on the plants of the desert is even better. There is color and clarity that is dimmed in the blaring late of the more direct sunlight of other parts of the day.

Legumes are probably as prevalent as cactus in the Sonoran Desert. The seeds inside the pods in the above image are clearly bulging. The curling pods are a contrast to the pale green of the leaves - highlighted with red. Would they have been as noticeable at mid-day? Probably not.

There was a grouping of plants near the pool that drew my attention again and again; on the last day we found out that a gila monster den was just to the right of the yellow cactus in this image! I took pictures of the grouping from many different angles but my favorites are the close up shots of the two types of cactus in the morning light.

The colors seem to glow. I have tried to decide whether the yellow or red are my favorite…and I can’t. The yellow one seems so robust and perfect…it has the smaller cactus growing with it.

The red on looks tough and the spines have a delicate variation in their color along the spines.

Today - I am savoring the June time in Tucson - again.

Hummingbird at the Cardinal Flower

A few days ago - l looked out onto the deck from my kitchen window and saw a hummingbird enjoying our cardinal flowers. The bird stayed there long enough for me to sit in the breakfast area and take pictures through the window.

Ruby throated hummingbirds spend the warm months in Maryland and I was pleased that the bright cardinal flower had attracted the attention of this female. She was a blur of activity - holding still at each flower for a very short time before moving to the next one. After making the complete round of the flower spike, she flew up to rest for a few a seconds on an empty plant hanger then flew off into the cloudy day.

There are more spikes of the cardinal flower forming so I am looking forward to her return.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 3, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

The electric car is here to stay - Infographic showing the history of electric cars.

New Rockies GigaPannery - 8 geology related panoramas from the Rockies allowing zoom in to the various parts of the image. One is a road cut (a typical stop on a geology field trip!).

Kid Friendly Dyeing - Making your own play silks - My daughter and made tie-dyed silk scarves many years ago with Kool-Aid. We didn’t achieve the really bright colors but I still have some of the pastel creations. One is tied to the handle of my purse this summer!

Dew on Dandelions - Turning weeds into things of beauty. I’ve always liked the puffs of dandelions but I haven’t caught them with dew (see my ‘best’ photo to date to the left).

What do supernovae and salad dressing have in common? - Watch the video!

What can we do to make cities less lonely for the elderly? - Use the arrows to bring up annotations on the city scenes. Many things that make is less lonely for the elderly also make it better for everyone else too!

Inca Children Got High before Death - Mummies of three children sacrificed about 500 years ago and discovered in a high altitude cave in 1999. The hair analysis showed consumption of alcohol and coca in the year before their deaths. That consumption spiked dramatically in the weeks before their deaths.

Boys with Autism or ADHD More Prone To Overuse Video Games - Technology is a mixed blessing. There is a challenge that all people have to use it effectively - rather than becoming addicted or overwhelmed. Evidently autism and ADHD make the challenge even higher.

Living Longer, Living Healthier: People Are Remaining Healthier Later in Life - This is certainly what we hope is happening and will continue.

8 tips to make your life more surprising, from Tania Luna, Surprisologist - Cultivating the ‘surprise’ in life is well worth the effort. I wrote down my answer to ‘What surprised you today?’ for several years and then transitioned to recording the ‘little celebrations.’ There is definitely an overlap between the two!

Butterflies on the (Blooming) Joe-Pye Weed

The Joe-Pye Weed at the Robinson Nature Center is blooming and full of insects right now here in Maryland. The most noticeable insects are the butterflies: Easter Tiger Swallowtail and Spicebush Swallowtail.

There are so many of them it is quite easy to get some excellent photographs of the insects!

Great Blue Heron

There was a Great Blue Heron that seemed to be posing on a platform in the small lake at Clark Gardens. At first it was a still as a statue. 

I sat down on a bench to watch. The heron moved its neck slightly then turned toward me as if acknowledging my presence - a silent communication that seemed to say ‘be still.’ 

About a minute later, the heron went to alert. He’d seen a fish in the water. About 30 seconds later, he jumped into the water - went completely under. He got his fish and was back on the platform very quickly. The slide show below shows the heron recovering his good grooming while swallowing the fish. This is a time when I wished - after the fact - that I’d been using the video feature on the camera rather than just taking pictures!

Tucson Botanical Gardens

I am just now finding a day to post about my visit to the Tucson Botanical Gardens in June. In looking back through my photographs, I found it very difficult to select a small enough number for this post.

The Gardens are an oasis in a heavily populated part of Tucson. It is obvious that they have been getting better and better as the many years of their existence have gone by. One of my favorite features was a water fountain that had water coming out of a yucca pod shaped sculpture.

There was a dinosaur garden complete with dinosaur figures and types of plants that existed during that time period.

I’ve never seen so many art bird houses. I took many pictures of the creations. The one to the left is one of my favorites.

The Japanese rock garden looks right at home in Tucson. It works well in a desert and looks as soothing as it would in a totally different climate.

There were plenty of lizards - doing pushups and eying the people in their space too. This one looks quite haughty.  

Decorative tile is used on benches and for some signage. It too fits the desert - durable even in high heat. 

The best of the rest are in the slide show below. I realize now that these gardens will be on my list of ‘things to do’ every time I go back to Tucson.

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 27, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

A New Check-Up on the Health of U.S. Rivers - An article from National Geographic prompted by the recent release of a report from the USGS available electronically here. A lot of progress has been made in recent years to clean up our rivers….but there is still a lot to do.

Researcher Digs Into the Contested Peanut-Allergy Epidemic - We know surprisingly little about how widespread peanut-allergy is … but there are extreme measures to limit exposure.

16-foot dinosaur tail unearthed in Mexico is in perfect condition - Does every child think they want to grow up to discover something like this?  

See The 10 States With The Fastest Internet Connections - They are all in the northeast….with the exception of Utah.

Collaborative Origami Installations by Mademoiselle Maurice - A different kind of community project - temporary but beautifying collaboration.

New Key to ‘Switching Off’ Hypertension - Looking at the way that the body controls blood pressure…and ways that drugs could use the same pathway could lead to treatment without the serious side effects of current antihypertensive medications

The great global food gap - I saw some of these pictures in the nutrition course I took via Coursera - but this is a more extensive set of images of families’ weekly groceries. There is quite a range of cost and of foods.

In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters - A map of the US that shows the change a child raised in the bottom fifth rose to the top fifth.

Exploring National Parks through The Lens of Steven Bumgardner - The article includes an interview and several videos. My favorite video is the one about Frazil Ice.

Breathtaking Monochromatic Photos of Iceland - Sometimes the addition of color would not add anything at all.

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum - June 2013

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum was already getting warm by the time we got there on a morning back in June. The barn owl (picture to left) held by a volunteer at the entrance was a popular for stop for everyone. Behind the volunteer was a display of plants - and lizards doing pushups.

There was a desert spoon (picture to right) in bloom as we made our way toward the animal exhibits. We got to the bear’s enclosure just as it was being released from its night quarters. It went to the waiting pile of food - gobbling the watermelon first and leaving the apple and peanuts for later snacking.

The saguaros were displaying their bright red fruit but several of the barrel type cacti were blooming. Butterflies were enjoying the bird-of-paradise flowers. The teddy bear cactus did not look at all cuddly. I only managed one good picture in the hummingbird house; they were moving too fast most of the time but the one with the iridescent purple throat stopped to pose.

This museum is an easy place to enjoy. There is always something that has changed since the last time - a new blossom, an animal or bird doing something different. Post from the same place back in March 2013: birds, plants, seahorses

Saguaro National Park - East

The eastern section of Saguaro National Park was not far from our rental house when we were in Tucson in June. We got up early and headed over before the day got too hot. There is a loop to drive around that climbs a little ways into the Rincon Mountains.

The nature trail and lookout from some rocks were along the drive but we stopped at most of the turnout points as well. The high point of the nature trail was finding the cicada that was singing in the tree beside the trail. The saguaros were past the peak flowering but that made it even better because we were able to see the fruits in various stages of ripeness. Looking down into the canyon from one of the higher turnout points showed the deep erosion from the water pouring down from the mountains although it was very dry when we were there since the monsoons had not started. The bright green of the lichen on some of the rocks was starting; most of the other desert plants are a duller shade.

Enjoy the slide show of the park below! 

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 20, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

The world likes the US slightly more than China - Infographic displaying data from recent Pew Research Group poll. Is it any surprise that the Middle East views China more positively than the US?

Intricate Hand-Cut Leaf Designs Reflect Wonders of Nature - I’ve always liked the delicate cut-paper art. Using leaves rather than paper is an interesting idea…and the leaves themselves add another shape to the work. My favorite is the owl in the tree.

12 Tips for Staying Optimistic in Tough Times - From Marlo Thomas

HD Video of Niagara Falls - Awesome! Shot via a remote control device hovering over it all.

Ice Chalk - Doesn’t this sound like a fun project for summer?

Family Resemblances - A series of images created with half the face from one person and half from a near relative (brothers, mothers/daughter, fathers/sons). The images show the similarities and also highlight what happens as faces age.

Sea Level Rise in Maryland - Sea level is rising 2-3 times faster in the Chesapeake Bay than the global sea level rise. Includes interactive maps.

Road of the Future - Infographic. There are some that are already being used in a few places (dynamic paint, glow in the dark road markings, and anti-icing).

Solar Prominences put on a strange and beautiful show in the Sun’s sky - From the Royal Astronomy Society

The Abominable Frogman - From the Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique.