Archive for the 'Nature' Category

This is Roger’s geode collection that he has amassed over the last couple of visits to Missouri.

Well, three geodes and one bit of pasta for scale.

Geodes are an interesting bit of geological product in that they are effectively little pockets — bubbles really — of gas and minerals that form

The geode fragment in the back was likely a part of a much much larger geode. Size of a basketball kind of large. It has an interesting crystalline structure not apparent in the photo.

The softball thing at the left is the most perfectly round geode I have ever seen. It has fossil inclusions in the surface, but is otherwise just perfectly round. Might be interesting to slice it open, but it is just so… perfectly round and magnificent as is.

The last geode is kinda small. Really really small. I had no idea geodes could be that small.

But, as Roger often teaches me, discovering small is often just a matter of paying attention.

It is actually quite a spectacular little bit of crystalline geological product.

The image at the right is a close-up of that really tiny geode.

Quite the surprisingly complex bit of crystalline structure in a very, very small package!

Not surprisingly, this image was shot with the Canon 65mm 1-5x macro lens.

To take this kind of picture with this lens requires a tripod, a stand for the subject and a really good light source.

All of which I happened to have, though some of which was a bit hacked. Click through for details.

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Our neighbor, Ron, gave us a couple of these ball cactus that had sprouted off of a cactus he has had for year. Ron said it had really pretty flowers, but it had only bloomed a few times in the decade plus that he has had it and it probably wouldn’t bloom for a while.

Apparently, this particular cactus has other ideas. Or maybe it just didn’t like Ron (just kidding, Ron!). It bloomed once last year, impressive tall pink bloom.

This year, it set two buds prior to WWDC and, of course, bloomed during WWDC when I was in San Francisco. Bummer. I figured i had missed the blooms for the year.

Not so!

In the spring, the cactus covers itself in about a dozen little hairy potential blossoms. Most of these will fall off and, typically, all of the remaining ones will fall off after the cactus blooms once in the season.

Not so this year!

The week after WWDC, two of the remaining hairy buds turned into bloom stalks and, sure enough, the cactus bloomed again!

The bloom stalks shoot up to that height over the course of just a few days, literally growing an inch or two per day.

Then they pause for a moment with a bit of pink showing at the end before bursting into the flowers seen at left that only last for 2, maybe 3, days.

Awesome flowers, too. Beautiful pastel pink, with a deep deep throat. These blooms evolved to be pollinated by very large moths (hummingbird sized moths) or bats, apparently.

Our neighbor has an epiphyllum — a night blooming dessert plant (not a cactus) that is pollinated similarly.

When it bloomed a year or two ago, I took a handful of photos.

While taking some long exposure photos, I was buzzed by something that sounded an awful lot like a hummingbird. Of course, it wasn’t.

It was actually one of the moths coming in to consume whatever the plant had to offer. It doesn’t appear to eat the pollen, but douses itself in pollen as it climbs all the way into these deep blooms.

I even managed to capture some photos! I can affirm that it is, in fact, very difficult to take a picture of a rather large, very fast moving, insect in the pitch of night.

Just like the cactus.

I keep hoping that such a pollinator shows up for the cactus blooms, but so far it hasn’t happened. The blooms have faded since the above photo was taken and I suspect this will be it until next year.

I have always had a soft spot for cactus. They are really quite remarkable plants, after all.

A plant that has figured out a way to exist in some of the harshest climates on the planet while also producing massive growth.

Even more impressive, cactus often produce just flat out stunning blooms.

I have one barrel cactus that is less than 10 inches in diameter that still produced a bloom that was well over 1 foot tall and a good 4″ in diameter! All from what looked to be some little fuzzy growth nubbins in the spring. Better yet, it looks like this cactus is going to do the same again this year!

Like orchids, Cactus often rely upon non-bee pollinators and, thus, it isn’t altogether surprising that their blooms are not really optimized to making the pollen as accessible as possible.

I found this particular cactus on someone’s yard clippings pile while driving home one day. I stopped and grabbed a big chunk.

I figured that I would throw it in the ground and it would either take root or turn to compost.

Take root it did! Last year it didn’t do much, but it didn’t rot either. Apparently, it was setting down roots.

This year, though, it decided to grow what I thought were a bunch of new leaves.

It turns out that they were, in fact, buds and the cactus was going to flower!

This cactus is some kind of prickly pear (Opuntia) and the flower buds are very likely growing on top of what will turn into fruit. All the better because prickly pear is quite delicious with a unique flavor.

And, if the spine are not obvious enough, prickly pear is often one of the more painful fruits to clean unless you are very very careful.

The blossoms are compact, but just loaded with pollen. I haven’t seen anything visiting them yet, but they may be a flower optimized to some kind of night flying pollinator — typically a moth or bat.

The prickly pear (Opuntia) is one of the few cold tolerant cactus species. They are commonly found throughout the southwest US and Mexico.

Given that they grow very quickly, it is common to see piles of prickly pear cuttings at the side of the road. They sprout easily and, thus, it is trivial to start your own pear garden.

I have another species of prickly pear at the other corner of the house. It looks like it is setting blooms, too, which amazes me given that I just dropped cuttings — found on the side of the road — in the ground last fall!

The two that I have aren’t particularly spiny, but their looks are misleading. The little tufts of what look to be hair on the pads are actually needle sharp, hair thin, spikes that will get into your skin and are quite irritating.

Definitely to be handled with gloves! Or just leave ‘em alone and enjoy the interesting growth and occasional flowers!

Full size. Desktop works well.

In the forest, the various bugs common to the leafy undercover were waking up, too.

This is a red velvet mite (Trombidiidae).

They play a critical, if slightly surprising, role in the health of the forest. Namely, the larval stage is parasitic and effectively controls populations of locust, grasshoppers and other plant destroying insects.

As adults, the red velvet mite is a ferocious predator that will take out mites and insects many times it size. In particular, the mite seems to favor insects that eat bacteria and fungus.

Thus, the mites help ensure that fungus and bacteria remain abundant within the forest and, by doing so, help ensure that the decomposition process remain high.

While the red velvet mite is related to chiggers and ticks, they do not bite humans and are quite the sociable little bugs.

I have no clue what this bug is other than “beautiful”.

It has gigantic jaws for its size, clearly designed for biting and ripping.

The bug really is that brilliant color of metallic blue. Even more amazing, the bug flew a few feet and landed on a tree. When the sun strikes it at a different angle, it turns a gorgeous metallic green.

Unfortunately, it moved too quickly for me to snap a photo, but I’ll definitely be keeping a lookout for these on our next visit.

More bugs on the click-through….

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Of course, any time we spend a while visiting my parents in Columbia, Missouri, Roger looks for any and all wild creatures.

Within minutes of arriving, Roger had already found one of these cute little Ringneck Snakes (Diadophis punctatus). Two more followed shortly thereafter.

They are each well less than a foot long, don’t bite and are quite calm.

One did get out of the cage. Of course, it crawled about 15 feet across the floor and onto Roger’s foot. After that, though, the snake cage stayed on the outside porch

More critters on the click through…

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Roger and I (and Christine, for most of the week) have spent the last week in Columbia, Missouri visiting my family

In other words, Roger and I have spent most of the last week hiking around the land that surrounds my parent’s house every day.

I took a handful of photos of water tumbling over the rocks in the creek below the house. To capture that “blurry moving water” essence, I cranked the aperture to maximum and used a nearby rock as a tripod to keep the shutter speed open as long as possible.

I specifically positioned the camera such that it would catch the reflecting sun off the surface of the water. As the sun was acting as a point light source, I figured that it would be interesting to see the sun traverse the water surface over the course of the exposure.

Certainly was! Surprisingly so! The end result looks like someone scribbled with a light pen on the surface of the water!

Detailed explanation (for my seester Ann): I used the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro Lens to capture these 2″ tall waterfalls. They were taken in very bright afternoon sunlight. I cranked the aperture to f/32 to achieve as long of an exposure as possible. For these, the shutter was open for all of 0.2 seconds (1/5th of a second). To keep the camera steady, I propped the camera on a [somewhat muddy, oh well] rock and held the shutter button down to take multiple exposures, hoping at least one would be steady.

Given the angle of the sun and the water, the water was acting as a mirror for the sun. Reflecting a point of light directly into the camera lens. Unlike a mirror, water is… well… fluid and, thus, the surface is ever changing and the point from which the sun is being reflected changes constantly as the shape of the surface changes.

The key to the squiggles, though, is that this particular waterfall is moving at just the right speed such that the surface tension of the water is never broken in the primary flow. The surface remains smooth as it flows over the small fall.

Neat! I suggest clicking through to the largest size to get the full impact of the light scribbling on water.

Now, this little tumble of water was not exactly natural…

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During the first weekend in April 2008, Roger and I headed to Castle Rock State Park for a bit of a walk in the woods.

Castle Rock State Park is located about 20 minutes from downtown Saratoga, CA off of Skyline Boulevard.

The park has lots of trails and there is an excellent high resolution PDF map made by a third party. Roger and I hiked a 3.5 mile loop.

The terrain is quite rocky and the trails hug the mountain side.

This is actually a photo of the trail we hiked along from the distance. You can sort of see it carved into the side of the mountain.

While it looks treacherous, the actual trails are quite nice. Generally fairly level and wide with only a few areas where you need to scramble over some rocks.

While the 3.5 mile loop we took dropped and climbed several hundred feet, yet we spent the entire time near the top of the mountain.

Thus, the views are often spectacular. On a clear day, you can easily see all the way south to Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay.

Looking north, you can see the Pacific in the direction of Half Moon Bay.

Rarely, though, is it that clear.

There is typically a bit of fog rolling off of the Pacific ocean that obscures the view.

You can see the haze in this photo. Instead of the dirty brown of heavy pollution, it is a bluish fog off the Pacific.

While the haze limits the ability to take sweeping landscape photos, it makes for some very interesting flora and fauna.

Which is what the rest of this post is about. As the fog rolls in each evening, the lay of the land guides the fog in very specific areas more than others.

Thus, a simple 3.5 mile hike led us through 4 different micro-climates. Given that it was early spring, there were tons of early blooming spring flowers out — the little ground hugging flowers that try to get out and bloom first in their competitive efforts for the attentions of the various pollinators in the area.

So… for a photo tour of the flowers (and a few critters) of the area, click on through….

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On Tuesday of our Easter Florida Adventure, we visited the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine, Fl.

It was actually a really neat zoo with a real focus on alligators and crocodiles from around the world.

Though, it does stink. I mean, it smells really really bad. Not surprising given that the entire place is basically built on natural swamps surrounding manmade swamps of some of the core exhibits.

But, alas, if you are going to visit nature, you gotta deal with the stench.

More critters on the click through…

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We are in Florida for Easter, visiting family.

Roger, of course, captured a couple of toads and a frog within the first 5 minutes of being here.

On closer inspection, we have found that there are tons of critters in the area.

This was a lizard that Roger caught on the back porch. We let it go and watched as he hopped from branch to branch for a bit.

Beyond this photo — my favorite — I also snapped a neat photo of the lizard on saw grass and another of the lizard walking on a bit of tree branch.

There is a bit of a swamp in the backyard, so this really isn’t much of a surprise.

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