Gleanings of the Week Ending December 27, 2014

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.

How the Ancient Romans Made Better Concrete Than We Do Now - Article include the ‘how’ plus some information about how the scientists worked out the details. Roman concrete is ‘better’ in terms of durability and its production releases a lot less carbon into the atmosphere.

The Greenland Ice Sheet: Now in HD - The article is a story from Ohio State University. Some of the imagery is available here.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #74 - As usual - I can’t resist looking through these collections of bird pictures.

The Complete History of Earth in One Tidy Infographic - As usual for infographics…lots of data packed into one page. It is worthwhile to read the text then expand the infographic to take a closer look. I am taking the Origins course so it was a nice coincidence that this graphic came out recently.

Top 10 Public Health Stories of 2014 - We are getting to the end of the year and a number of sites are compiling top stories. This one is about public health.

Over two hundred interesting new species in 2014 - We are still finding a lot of new species in the world - even while we know species are going extinct too. How will we ever know the magnitude of the extinctions when we don’t even know all the species on Earth?

Mosaic Design Gets Assist from Robotics and Enterprise Software - I’ve always enjoyed mosaics and now it appears that robots are being used to create them. Will that make them less expensive (and thus more popular)? I hope we see more mosaics in public places - and in homes too. I’ve noticed several airports with mosaics (one of the newer terminals at DFW and Tucson).

Photography in the National Parks: Looking Back On 2014 - So many good places to take pictures…

2014’s Big Advances in (Biological) Science - A list from The Scientist.

A Video Tour of Yellowstone National Park - A 5 minute video about the geysers of Yellowstone.  It’s a reminder to go back to Yellowstone - soon.

White Throated Sparrow

It was a cold and cloudy day when I walked around Brookside Gardens earlier this week. My plan was to spend most of my time inside the Conservatory but I made a quick walk around the gardens surrounding the building. There were a lot of small birds that were very active in the rose garden. I should have brought my monopod and bundled up better. It was too hard to get close enough to the birds to get a good image. I managed to get close enough and then zoomed to 20x to get one good picture of one bird…figuring out when I got home that it was a white throated sparrow once I got home.

I’ll have to go back prepared to sit on a cold bench for a time and get many more good pictures of birds finding food in winter.

Centennial Park - December 2014

I visited Centennial Park between rain showers yesterday and photographed the Canadian Geese. They were conveniently at the lake shore close to my favorite parking lot.

It is fun to title pictures…give the geese people-like personalities. What do your think of The Orator (below)? The geese in the water look like they are paying attention!

There always appears to be one Guard Goose in the flock.

When one decides to leave - there is often a Follow the Leader exodus.

And what about the strategy of the Big Stretch when they first get out of the water?

Chincoteague Egrets

This is the last post about our weekend trip to Chincoteague back in November. I enjoyed photographing the egrets too much to not include a post about them. They were not as plentiful as the Great Blue Herons or cormorants. The yellow bill and dark legs distinguish the birds as Great Egrets.

It was a very cold day but evidently the fishing was still good. Most of the birds were standing in water - or at the edge of the water - actively looking for their next meal.

Look at those long toes! The angle of the light shows how fluffed the birds feathers are against the cold.

This one has fluffed feathers too - and that primordial looking kink in the neck that egrets and herons share.

Most of the bits they caught were quite small.

This scene with the mallard and two egrets speaks of communication between species - but what exactly are they communicating?

Right after the encounter one of the egrets flew off into the sunset. And that was the end to our egret observations at Chincoteague.

Chincoteague Kingfisher

Kingfishers are usually too fast for me to photograph but there was one that had a favorite place along the road to the beach at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge (in November). He kept a close watch on the cars that parked along the road but evidently realized that the narrow band of water between him and the road was enough security. He kept his perch while protesting.

What a photogenic bird!

Chincoteague Cormorants

The cormorants were plentiful at Chincoteague when we were there in November.

The first day we saw them in several wet places along the main rode

And then a group on the mudflat just before we reached the beach area. They were preening in the late afternoon sun - unfurling their wings.

One swam way from the group and then flew off low over the water. I like the light on the wings showing the ways the feathers spread as the bird first leaves the water.

The next day we found the birds in the same spots although I didn’t realize it at the top. Doesn’t the post this cormorant is on look the same as the post in the first picture?

Chincoteague Herons

The Great Blue Herons at Chincoteague seemed to be everywhere and were concentrating so hard on fishing that they stayed put for photographs.  I took over 100 pictures and have selected 9 for this post.

This bird was standing on one leg on the shore. It was a very chilly afternoon and his neck feathers appear to be slightly fluffed to keep him warm.

A very determined bird walked along the bank - intent on finding dinner.

A very cold looking bird standing in shallow water. He moved his head a little (the better to see us) but otherwise did not move at all.

Another actively hunting bird but in a tangled mess of branches

Using those branches to survey the possibilities for dinner

Perhaps mistaking his reflection for something edible.

A bird on the move.

A bird hiding

And emerging.

The look in the herons’ eye make it is easy to imagine the relationship of birds and dinosaurs!  

The Zen of Jellyfish

On the way back from Newport RI, we stopped at the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk Connecticut. I particularly enjoyed the tower tank of jellies with LED lights. It is in an area that is dimly lit otherwise so the jellies glow as they move gracefully through the water. I sat and watched them…letting the outside noises and strains of the day fade into the background. I took quite a few pictures and selected some for the slide show below.  Even with their motion frozen, the forms are soothing. Enjoy!

The aquarium has a Jellies Web Cam here if you want to see the jellies in motion.

Bluebirds

There are a lot of bluebird boxes in our area of Maryland. Sometimes they house swallows or other birds that are similar size and nesting habit to bluebirds - but it is probably true that there are a lot more bluebirds around these days than before the nesting boxes.

I was on a walk along a long driveway recently - and managed to get a picture of a male and female bird on a telephone wire looking out over a grassy field with mowed edges.  There were many others about but I was not coordinated enough to get close enough to capture better images with my camera.

A few days later I saw more of the birds but was guiding a nature walk at the time…..no time for photography.

On another walk with a group we started finding blue feathers - three in all. The color of the feathers changes as they are moved. It turns out that almost all blue feathers are produced with structural color rather than pigment!  The Cornell AllAboutBirds site has a page about it.

I am celebrating the beauty of bluebirds today!

Zooming - September 2014

Late summer and early fall is a time of transition…lots of changes to capture in photos. There are seed pods

And seeds.

Insects going about the business of feeding,

Mating and growing large enough to move to the phase of their life to overwinter.

The birds are through their nesting and getting ready for migration. There was a bright yellow mold that emerged from a knot in our deck railing after a rain.

And - last but not least in this collection of zoomed images - the bright colors of flowers and chard stems.

Tiger Swallowtail - 2014

There have not been as many butterflies in our area this summer so I was delighted to photography two enjoying my deck garden in August and this week. In August, the butterfly weed and marigolds were the big attraction. Note how battered the edges of the wings look in this view of the feeding insect (with the butterfly pot decoration overhead).

I’m always surprised at how hairy the area where the winds and body overlap looks…at the powdery blue…at the delicacy of the whole wing.

From the side, the body looks robust compared to the legs and the proboscis. This insect spent quite a lot of time with the marigolds - so maybe the flowers will produce a lot of seeds.

This week the draw for the tiger swallowtail was the zinnias. When the wings are held vertically they are folded a little as well. Their ribs show more.

It was a breezy day so the insect would flatten itself to maintain its stance on the flower. The wings look very symmetrical when they are fully extended.

Notice that the edges of the wing are battered in this one too. This butterfly spent quite a long time at with the zinnia - flying away for a few seconds and then returning - and I’ll keep the seeds that develop over the next few weeks.

Complaining Robin

There is a robin that flies to the sycamore beside my deck and complains with the same style vocalizations every time I walk out onto the deck. I think its nest is underneath the deck. Why is it so alarmed? On the positive side - it is easy to get pictures of the bird while it vocally defends its turf!

Now that I’ve viewed the pictures on my larger monitor - it is easy to see that it is a female. She is quite insistent about keeping me away from her nest. I supposed she feels like there is an earthquake when I walk on the deck since her nest is on one of the support beams. But why is it that the nest is so important in August? Surely it is past the time for a new clutch of eggs and young.

And the bird seems to recognize me. It makes eye contact. If I stay out long enough it flies to the maple and continues to stare even if the vocalization stops after a few minutes.  And then I go back inside and the robin - apparently - has what it wants.

A Juvenile Swan

There was a bird at the Josey Ranch Lake (Carrollton TX) that was between an ‘ugly duckling’ and a beautiful swan. On shore the bird looked as large as the adult swans.

Both parents kept watch as the juvenile took to the water with the ducks.

On a longer swim on the lake, one of the parents kept close while the other stayed further away on watch. 

The big excitement of the outing we witnessed was the juvenile chasing a duck - almost running over the other bird. Afterwards, the duck bobbed about looking stunned while the young swan made a lazy loop around the fountain in the center of the lake as if nothing had happened.

Then the young swan followed the parent at a sedate pace and distance to the far end of the lake for a snack of lake greens. It was easier to see that the young bird was somewhat smaller than the adult…but not much.

Green Heron

My topic for today is another bird I saw at Josey Ranch Lake in Carrollton TX: a Green Heron.

The first time I saw a Green Heron was at Brookside Gardens many years ago. I didn’t know what it was. It didn’t look like a heron as it moved along the shore and shallows of the pond.  The same was true in Florida last fall and in Carrollton last week.

Having learned to identify the bird from that long ago experience - I have not been as surprised recently when the bird extends its neck and begins to look much more like the heron that it is!

I’ve always wondered what the bones of the neck look like for this particular bird. Do muscles pull the neck vertebrae further apart when the neck is extended or are there a lot of folding of the vertebrae when the head is held close the body?

Dragonflies at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

The lotuses are blooming profusely at the Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens in Washington DC; I’ll post about them later this week. The dragonflies are the focus for today. There were so many of them when we were walking around the ponds yesterday that I managed to capture quite a few images. They like to perch on dried seed pods,

Folded lotus leaves and

The tips of lotus buds.

The sun reflects off their wings giving them a metallic gleam.

Sometimes their color is jewel like: powder blue, deep green, black veined gossamer.

Sometimes their thorax looks muscle bound

And sometimes it looks it has sub-segments.

This one has droopy wings.

This last picture is my favorite - the color of the uncurling lotus and the dragonfly perching for a few seconds before flying out again over the water.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 28, 2014

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.

Enjoy the Wilderness of Saguaro National Park through This Video - I’m remembering the vacation to Tucson last June --- which included a morning at this National Park. Another blurb in the feeds this week about one of my favorite places: Longwood Gardens Unveils 86-acre Meadow. I’m already beginning to think about return visits!

Timeline of Emerging Science & Technology (2014 to 2030+) - From Richard Watson and the Imperial College of London. If you want to look at an enlarged version of the graphic - a PDF is available here. One of my favorite technologies is autonomous cars - and there was a new item on that topic this week too: Demonstrating a driverless future: Promise of driverless cars. Computerworld posted 8 technologies that are on the way out - and one that we’ll never be rid of.

Reproduction later in life is a marker for longevity in women - Hurray! I fit this marker for longevity in women (I was 35 years old!).

Connectivity is Critical: 33 Ways Broadband Boosts Learning - There are lots of positives about connectivity but it takes a level of maturity to not experience the negatives. Like most technology - advocates think only of the positives first; hopefully eventually there are objective perspectives.

Architecture of signaling proteins enhances knowledge of key receptors - The Preventing Chronic Pain course I am taking was focused on the systems biology aspects of pain last week - so I noticed this article more than I might have otherwise. The progress being made in the systems biology arena is gaining momentum now that the technology is available to research questions.  Another systems biology type article: about creating viruses that naturally home in on tumor cells while boosting the body’s immune system was posted by The Scientist.

Interactive Model Skeletons - Free Technology for Teachers has a blurb this week about eSkeletons, from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas. The site is focused on primates. What a wonderful way to learn about skeletons!

Mysterious 'magic island' appears on Saturn's moon Titan - Something new on Cassini’s mission radar of Ligeia Mare…a ‘transient feature.’

Do the Rumble-Rump with Peacock Spiders - I’d seen pictures of these spiders before but had not realized how small they are….and the videos (here) are worth a look too!

Few Doctors Warn Expectant Mothers about Environmental Hazards - I hope this change.

Distributed Renewable Energy under Fire - How electric utilities are fighting local renewable energy in 19 states. It’s a frustrating situation. I’m glad Maryland is not one of the 19.

Robins’ Nests

Almost every year a robin nests on the cross beam that supports our deck. Our two cats look down through the deck boards from the half of the deck that is covered - with keen interest but unable to disturb the nest at all.

This year we have 5 nests! Maybe the second and fourth one look a little scruffy - might be left over from last year. But that still leaves 3 that look freshly constructed. The fifth one is the one is on the corner of the deck nearest the garden…so the robin frequently leaves in a hurry and noisy complaint whenever I am gardening.

We are quite a few robins in our neighborhood. The trees in the yards are now 20+ years old and the trees in the forest that extended down to the river behind the neighborhood has trees that are older still. The robins seem to increase in number every year but this is the first time I’ve seen the increase so tangibly: more nests means more robins in the next generation!

Goslings at Brookside

We had just parked at Brookside Nature Center when my daughter commented that there were goslings in the woods near the stream. Sure enough, by the time we got to the boardwalk and bridge to walk toward Brookside Gardens, the Canadian goose and the goslings were in the stream!

They went under the bridge and kept going. Well - the mom kept going. The goslings were challenged by a riffle in the stream. In the slide show below you can see the mom coming back to give them some encouragement (image 6). They responded with much flapping of stubby wings and managed to get over the barrier!

They swam up stream for a short distance before the mom led them to a small beach.

The goslings paused in the shallow water - probably a bit tired from their adventure.

And then they followed the goose back into the forest. There is one gosling that appears to be a bit more adventuresome…not exactly following the mom.

Crane Fly Images

The crane flies were so numerous when I was in Dallas in late March that one somehow got inside the house where I found it on the carpet in the den - motionless. I got out my loupes to take a closer look at the insect.

The whole insect fit in the cup of the 8x loupe. The spindly legs and clear wings looked fragile. They were not quite the same as the insect would have been flying low over the grass alongside many more of its kind.

The 22x loupe showed more detail. Next time I’ll try with a brighter light. The flatter the specimen - the easier it is to focus. That is why the wing is better than the upper body.

Narcissus

Narcissus and spring ---- they go together. The flowers in this post were in my parents’ garden in Dallas but the flowers are frequent sights in Maryland this time of year as well. As I write this (back home in Maryland) I see a patch of daffodils that a neighbor planted at the edge of the forest; they started out in a smaller area 20 years ago and have multiplied - and seem to be in sync with the red blooms of the maples.

I used my 8x loupe to capture images of the central flowers from different perspectives.

And there was a tiny spider that was very still on his flower while I captured his portrait.