some of my photos taken this deer season.
the two at the bottom are from last night’s moonrise. the colors in the photo don’t do it justice.
a Bald Eagle landed at the pond outside our house this morning while we all ate our eggs. She got a pretty decent video.
It was a decent sized catfish!
the Killdeer is a rather commonly seen bird in North America. people that live in more populated areas might not see them as often, and I wanted to share a video I took yesterday while mowing.
When nesting, Killdeer mothers will protect their eggs by first trying to scare off potential predators. They will make themselves look larger, and advance slowly towards the perceived threat. If that does not work, the mother Killdeer will then drag a wing on the ground and walk away from the eggs. They pretend to be injured and in distress to lead predators away from their nests.
These are her eggs - I made sure that they were undisturbed.
This is the Momma Bird, pretending to be in distress:
If you noticed, the nest was created on the side of a gravel road. And the eggs themselves blend in with the gravel quite well. When the babies hatch, they will be able to run around and fly within a day or two.
These birds are an absolutely fascinating example of evolved survival instincts. And the opportunity I got to film some of that behavior yesterday afternoon was just too good to pass up.
I am sorry if the video is at times a little shaky, and I lose track of her movements at times as well. The birds are rather quick in general - they constantly scurry across the gravel and the lawn.
Anyways, this is just a small snippet of the stuff I see almost every day in what I do for a living. I know it’s a bit of a departure from my usual offering of comic booky goodness, but I figured at least a couple of you guys would appreciate it.
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This is the kind of thing that I hope gets referenced in the next season of Archer.
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“the wonderful thing about tiggers is tiggers are wonderful things.”
the clouded leopard is the most ancient type of cat alive today, with all other living cats sharing their genetic blue print. it is from them that all other cats inheriting their razor sharp canines, heightened senses, extreme agility and climbing skills. but they are no so rare that little is known about them, including just how many are left in the wild.
what we do know than that they continue to live high in tree tops like their ancient cat ancestors, using their long tails for balance. and that they, like all cats, are one of the few animals not to have a fear of heights. but unlike a typical house cat which can get stuck up a tree, the clouded leopard can rotate its paws to climb down head first from atop a tree.
Source: nubbsgalore
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Source: didyouknowblog.com
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illustration by Maginel Wright Enright, c1907
That’s way ahead of its time, nefowls… WOW.
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the Fibonacci Sequence is a ratio of increase. It is a mathematical concept that is effectively the growth rate of life.
0, 1,1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55…
Each number is the sum of the two previous numbers. This is a pattern that repeats itself over and over and over in nature. It is found in the measurements of the human body in the growth rate of plants, and in the spiral pattern of a sea shell. It is that math equation from the Da Vinci Code. Leonardo da Vinci drew the Vitruvian man in accordance with “the golden ratio”. For example, the average across humanity is that the distance between your ears to your nose is greater than the distance between your nose and your upper lip. The measured difference is greater by a ratio that conforms to the Fibonacci Sequence. If you go out and measure it, it might not be exact, but it is close.
Now, here is the trippy part: The Human Body is 60% water. We live and die by the presence of fluid in our bodies. You can go without food for more than a week. If you do not drink water, you will die of dehydration. To protect that fluid in your body, you have certain types of cells that prey on weaker, damaged cells. They repair dead tissue by removing it. Antibodies are the Sharks of the Human Body.
Extrapolated out from that statement, it can be inferred that this means that Sharks are the Antibodies of the Ocean. Which, if you think about it, is kind of true. Granted, Sharks are predators that attack what they can to feed, whereas Antibodies are medics for the human body. The reality is, antibodies aggressively attack any foreign or decaying organism or cell structure. It is why AIDs is dangerous: it attacks your immune system, and then your immune system aggressively propagates virus to the rest of your body by responding to every threat it normally does.
Imagine what the ocean would be like without sharks, killer whales, or any other predatory organism. When fish died, they would rot. Overtime, the ocean would be overrun with the things that sharks and predators usually eat. Those organisms would eventually become an invasive presence that would cause a lot of problems in the ecosystem.
Google the Chinese Carp in the Mississippi River videos. Someone introduced them into the river, and they have effectively devoured everything that could eat them. I watched a documentary that showed two guys in a Boston Whaler, going down the river while it is quite literally raining Chinese Carp.
The point I am making is that there is a repeating pattern. antibodies and sharks versus chinese carp and diseases.
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The Struggle by Philip R. Goodwin, 1914
Goodwin was another Brandywine School graduate and a devout disciple of both N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle.
an albino sea turtle.
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it is a mistake born of Human Arrogance. a mistake to think that our buildings and inventions remove us from nature. nature is everything, and we exist within its embrace. not in spite of or outside of nature. we live within nature.
the North American Arctic Hare. Latin name: Cuteious Maximus-Whitefurricus.
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Turkish Halfeti Roses are incredibly rare. They are shaped just like regular roses, but their color sets them apart. These roses are so black, you’d think someone spray-painted them. But that’s actually their natural color.
Although they appear perfectly black, they’re actually a very deep crimson color. These flowers are seasonal – they only grow during the summer in small number, and only in the tiny Turkish village of Halfeti. Thanks to the unique soil conditions of the region, and the pH levels of the groundwater (that seeps in from the river Euphrates), the roses take on a devilish hue. They bloom dark red during the spring and fade to black during the summer months.
The local Turks seem to enjoy a love-hate relationship with these rare blossoms. They consider the flowers to be symbols of mystery, hope and passion, and also death and bad news.
Seeing a black rose in full bloom is a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing. Don’t miss it if you ever happen to be in Turkey during the summer.
(via Oddity Central)
Source: odditycentral.com
Hawaiian Octopus. These are the smartest critters in the ocean, BTW. Smarter than dolphins. There's a video online of an octopus that picks up two halves of a coconut, carries them a short distance and then proceeds to clamshell itself inside the coconut. The predator passes, and the octopus comes back out. The octopus used tools. Think about it.