Photo of the Week--1/23/12

It's finally cold here in Michigan, so we're all thinking thoughts of warm places—especially Florida, where so many snowbird like to escape to in the winter months. We took a visit down to a snowbird last winter and took a drive through the Big Cypress National Preserve. We thought these alligators had the right idea: sit out and soak up the sun. And maybe eat a few unsuspecting tourists.

My work here is done...

Like a lot of people, I'm fascinated by the weird and wonderful wildlife found around our planet. So I was really interested when I heard/read a story about a recent survey of deep-sea creatures and the new species they had found. I love reading about new species—it's a reminder that there's always something left to discover, even if you think you know it all—and besides, new species are usually some of the freakiest-looking creatures you've ever laid eyes on.

I was really impressed by this recently discovered hydromedusa jellyfish, Bathykorus bouilloni, that they had nicknamed the "Darth Vader Jellyfish." (I'd reproduce the photo here but it's copyrighted, so here's a link to the National Geographic pic.) This critter was a jellyfish that looked like Darth Vader's helmet, round on the top with that crazy flared brim at the bottom. I shared this fact with Boy, since I thought he might find it amusing (and yes, I'll admit I'm desperate to have a conversation with him that elicits more than a grunt).

ME: "Oh, did you hear about that new jellyfish they're calling the Darth Vader jellyfish? It kinda looks like his helmet."
BOY: "Is it black?"
ME: "No, it's white, but it really has the same shape."
BOY: "If it's white they should call it a Stormtrooper jellyfish."
ME: "Stormtrooper helmets aren't the same shape. They don't have that flared thingy at the bottom."
BOY: "But the Vader helmet is based on Stormtrooper helmets."
ME: "????"

Every parent hopes that some day their children will grow up to share their interests and values. Yesterday I had a pointless, nerd-tastic argument with my son involving science fiction trivia. I think I've done my job!

Photo of the Week--6/7/10

Not many pigeons in Gibraltar in January, but there were plenty of the famous and misnamed Barbary Apes, which are actually monkeys, specifically macaques. As you can see, they are not afraid of humans at all, so we got quite a few shots up close—but not too close, for safety's sake. We didn't try chasing them, since that's not the safest thing to do and besides, they were more liable to chase you. I wish I could have gotten a shot as we were walking from the top of the rock, where several of the monkeys were riding atop a van ... maybe they thought we were the vermin who needed to be chased out of the picture!

Bird Nerd Alert!

I think I've admitted before that I'm a total nerd in many ways. I get lost in the dictionary; I'm making sure Boy sees every episode of Monty Python and Star Trek (original and Next Gen); and I spend way too much time looking up into trees and saying, "Hey, what kind of bird is that?"

Now, I'm not a true bird nerd. I don't buy books listing birds of every area I visit and check them off when I see them, like the gentleman I met during our Antarctica trip. (Although to be fair, I think he was a retired professor of natural resources, if not an actual ornithologist.) But I can tell a house finch from a house sparrow, a grackle from a cowbird, and a mourning dove from a rock dove (aka skyrat er, pigeon). I have a well-thumbed copy of Birds of Michigan Field Guide, which is helpfully organized by color and size for ease of looking things up. I think I've mentioned before that although we live in the middle of suburbia, we see all sorts of wildlife around us. Egrets and blue herons make use of local retaining ponds and wetland projects, and I often see raptors on the road between here and Ann Arbor. (And occasionally in my yard, thanks to my birdfeeders.)

So when I hear a strange tapping sound nearby, my ears prick up. This weekend was not the first time we've had a visitor to our corkscrew willow tree; besides strewing branches over our lawn at the slightest wind, it has a really nice hollow branch that woodpeckers really love. I've learned to look there when I hear drumming, so it doesn't take me five minutes to catch a glimpse any more. This time I found the little guy within a few seconds, and with my binoculars and field guide handy, I tried to figure out what kind of bird he was.

White front, black-and-white back, red tonsure: it had to be a male woodpecker of the Picoides genus. But a downy woodpecker (Picoides pubecens) or a hairy woodpecker (Picoides villosus)? Luckily, my field guide has a "compare" section that suggests how to tell them apart. The downy woodpecker is 3 inches smaller than his hairy counterpart, and has a shorter bill and black spots on his tail. I took a picture so I could zoom in and look more closely. Unfortunately, I can't see this guy's bill or tail very well, but from a distance I thought he was more likely the larger size woodpecker.

I tried checking pictures online, but except for the tail and beak, the two species are almost identical. I tried listening to bird calls for the two, but all I discovered was that playing bird calls on your computer is an awesome way to confuse and torture a cat that's walking across your desk. So I'm going to trust in my ability to judge size from a distance and tentatively say this picture is of a hairy woodpecker. But I could be wrong.

Look Ma, no heads!

I think the top half of this picture was the very first "Photo of the Week" I posted on this blog: A gentoo penguin (left) and an Adelie penguin (right) just emerging from a nice swim. What I didn't include was the shot I took immediately afterwards, when both penguins decided to take an after-bath preen at the same time. It reminds me of how cats groom themselves in a similar position after doing something embarrassing. It's like these two caught themselves looking at each other, then were embarrassed into hiding their heads. It's one of my favorite pictures from the whole Antarctica trip.

Elephant Seals

On our second day of cruising the Antarctic peninsula, we stopped at Neko Bay, where we found these elephant seals among a colony of gentoo penguins. These are likely immature males, practicing their fighting skills against each other. Their loud, burping barks made it sound like Thanksgiving at my folks' house.

King Penguin

During our lectures while sailing across the Drake Passage, our wildlife expert told us we would likely only see three kinds of penguins: chinstrap, gentoo, and Adelie. Others weren't really native to the area. At our first Antarctic stop on Aitcho Island, however, we found this resplendent king penguin all by his lonesome, looking pretty lost. He most likely got caught in a southern current and landed here. He was the only one we saw all trip, a lucky sign that presaged a great trip.

The Word Nerd Sez: H is for ...

hiatus

First of all, I've got a deadline staring me in the face, so I have to take a little break from writing in this blog. So I like this word over "interruption" or "break," because it implies I'll be back. (And I will be back soon.)

Second, I like this word because of one of its alternate meanings: "the occurrence of two vowel sounds without pause or intervening consonantal sound," like in the words reality, naive, or ... hiatus.

Last, I love the etymology of the word: from the Latin hiare, which according to the Webster's site means "yawn." That's something I do a lot of, especially in days like today, when I'm trying to adjust to school schedule after enjoying vacation hours.

But don't worry, I won't ignore the blog entirely. Instead of writing, I'll be posting some of my favorite wildlife pictures from my Antarctica trip last year. It was exactly one year ago today we began our trip back from the Antarctic peninsula, and while at sea we saw a lot of sea birds like this one, a giant petrel I was lucky enough to snap mid-flight. Enjoy the pretty pictures, I'll be back writing soon.

Yes! In my backyard!

I'm continually amazed by the variety of wildlife I'm able to see in my little corner of suburbia. It's not like we live in an area away from the town that backs onto a forest—no, there's a strip mall one block away, and we're half a mile away from a major road that has department and grocery stores, all known fast-food chains, and of course the only IKEA store within several hundred miles. So I'm not kidding when I say we live in the middle of suburbia.

I try to do my part, of course. Besides the corner gardens, I maintain a few bird feeders year round. We get loads of house sparrows and mourning doves every season, and plenty of robins and grackles in the spring. The seed feeders bring in house finches and goldfinches (although the latter have been sparse this year), and the occasional dark-eyed junco. Our huge corkscrew willow tree attracts woodpeckers every once in a while. My favorite birds are the cardinals. Not only are they pretty, they have interesting songs. They are sassy birds; they love to tease our cats by perching near the window, seemingly within reach. I'll see whole families by our feeder; red males, brown females, and the juveniles with their brown feathers and beaks that are starting to turn red.

We get some interesting guests every once in a while. At least once every spring, we get a pair of mallards in our yard. The female will quack and quack, as if nagging the male: "I told you we should have stopped and asked for directions!" Of course, the cats find our duck visitors extremely interesting.

Earlier this spring, the term "birdfeeder" took on an added dimension when we saw a raptor visit. We were attracted by the cat staring into the back yard, as usual; then Boy asked, "That's not a mourning dove, is it?" I looked up and saw something similar in color to a mourning dove fly off with a sparrow in its claws. Checking my bird book, I decided it was either a sharp-shinned hawk or a Cooper's hawk, both of which have rusty chests and gray backs. The next week I saw more evidence of a raptor visit: the remnants of a grackle, including beak, claws, and a few entrails left behind when I closed my window and scared off the visitor. I think the raptors may be nesting near our subdivision's clubhouse, a few blocks away; they have a stand of trees next to the road and there are several skeletal ash trees which give perfect views for a raptor. I took a walk earlier this week and saw three perched in the top branches, but unfortunately I didn't have my camera. I won't make that mistake again.

I have to give a lot of credit for the variety of suburban wildlife in our area to our township government. Although there has been an astounding amount of development in this area over the past 15 years, they have made an effort to retain some natural areas. There are a couple of wetland areas preserved in between subdivisions; these and several catch ponds in the area attract great egrets and great blue herons. We often see these huge, graceful birds flying around, or fishing in ponds. The township just opened a walk/bike trail they're developing around the local river network, and there are yearly events to clean up and monitor local creeks. Here is the creek that runs through our subdivision, behind the elementary school, and through the large commons area that's a great place for a morning walk. You can see the manicured lawns in the distance, but there's also a long portion that's allowed to grow naturally—the source of our duck visitors. When I went for a walk this morning, I took my camera, hoping to catch the raptors perched in their tree. What I saw instead, while passing the culvert that passes under the main road of our sub, was a very startled (and too quick to be photographed) muskrat!* I guess life will find a way, even in suburbia. Lucky for me—yet more ways to avoid Chapter 17 ... I'm doing research, yeah, that's it. If I'm going to build my own world, I need to observe the natural world around me. At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

*So I was checking Wikipedia to make sure it was a muskrat and not some other kind of aquatic mammal, and came across this nugget in the entry: "Lenten dinners serving muskrat are traditional in parts of Michigan." What the?!?!? What part of Michigan is that?!? I know Wiki can be unreliable, but this sounds too weird to be true. Looking at their sources, though, they cite an article from the Michigan Catholic in which the Archdiocese of Detroit confirms that "there is a long-standing permission—dating back to our missionary origins in the 1700s—to permit the consumption of muskrat on days of abstinence, including Fridays of Lent." (The reasoning: muskrats swim, therefore they are like fish.) I guess muskrat does not taste like chicken, however, but like duck. There's my weird fact for the day.