Category Archives: Fauna

Indiana Images Last Weekend

Posted on by
1

The Indianapolis Art Museum has a travelling treasure show of 700 year old exquisite Ife copper cast heads found only 70 years ago in the grounds of a Nigerian royal palace. They left no written record at all – not to be missed if they come to your local museum:

Ife Copper Casting

Dashing out to get to the Norville wedding we passed an eyecatching sculpture and I neglected to note the artist’s name.No problem – back in Ohio my free “Google Goggles” ap for my phone scanned my photo and in no time at all told me it’s “Mobius Ship” by Tim Hawkinson from CA. A good play on “Moby Dick” and “Mobius Strip”.  Technology gets better all the time.

And then back by night on US highway 24 just in time for deer hunting season. They suddenly appear out of the dark. I’m still recovering from the shock. This one was worth $3000 damage to our insurance company. Quick braking and a small swerve right probably brought the impact speed down to around 55 mph and perhaps prevented it coming in the window.  Everyone in Ohio and Michigan has their similar story. Worst is when it comes in the window and is still kicking!Even though the road was wide open with no trees it was very hard to see until a large head appears trotting across front of you. The only answer I can imagine is to restrict our driving to daylight hours, or at night at least use high beam lights as much as possible.

Halloween, 2011. Bring Out Your Dead.

Posted on by
Reply

It started at the Hatteras shore where many Horseshoe crab lay dead last week from some unknown cause. Not just empty shells as is normal from their molting.

We stopped on the way home for BBQ chicken in a little North Carolina restaurant with 3 bullet holes in the windows in what should have been peaceful cotton country where the crop grows in sandy soil right up to the side of the road.

Driving through the night we saw one Orion meteor streak through the darkness ahead in a blaze of dying glory.

Now in Ohio it is cold and the worker bees (females) are starting to pitch out the apparently useless male drones to die. (They would otherwise eat the hive’s winter honey)

The tiny Varroa mite can carry a wing deforming virus which does this to one of my drone’s wings:

Good housekeeping bees will bite the mite and hopefully keep them in check as I don’t want to put any pesticides in the with the honey.

 I didn’t see any bite marks on this upside down one. These mites are only 1 or 2 mm wide.

These bee photos were taken with a $4 macro camera “App” for my Android phone – which already has a camera. I don’t understand it but the resulting close-ups are amazing.  Check your camera-phone. It may have a built-in macro option.

Dead drone.

Happy Halloween

 

 

 

 

 

Cape Hatteras, North Carolina

Posted on by
Reply

The island is slowly recovering from hurricane Irene at end of August. Bridge to Salvo is only open again this week. Much debris – including large propane tanks – and many mosquitoes in the bushes. Fortunately they are not out on the beautiful water.
The twisted dock (just visible in the bushes on the left) was 4 ft lower when we used it 2 years ago.

On the ocean side shore waders eat the sand fleas, but the little crabs are too swift for all except Nat.


The crab was happy to be returned home

 

Meanwhile back on the Sound, thanks to Jim’s magic waterproof cameras:

 

The barometer crashed down bringing rain and big wind. Then it shot up:


bringing sun with the same big wind: Glen took this great shot of my 3.2.sq.m. ‘Pin-Head’ storm sail (with Ron close astern) that I’d bought from Karen M about 26 years ago.

If every picture is worth a thousand somethings then this one cost me even more when I dashed off to Andy’s Sail NC to convert my rigs to the current era. The improvement in sail stability & control is startlingly significant. Notice the 3 very short battens in my old green sail vs. Ron’s 5 full length ones and you can imagine how the green sail wobbled when the wind was 30 + mph.