Category: Nature

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Saturday/ 14,000 feet under the sea 🌊

‘Alien-looking lobsters, sponges, urchins, sea stars and sea lilies are among the creatures deep-sea explorers found off the coast of Chile.
Deep-sea explorers searching below the waves off the coast of Chile may have found more than 100 species completely new to science.

The potential discovery of the new creatures across 10 seamounts in the southeast Pacific does more than just add to the depth of understanding of the sheer diversity of ocean life. For the researchers, it shows how ocean protections put in place by the Chilean government are working to bolster biodiversity, an encouraging sign for other countries looking to safeguard their marine waters’.
– From a report by Dino Grandoni for the Washington Post of Feb. 24.
– Pictures are stills from a video by the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

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Saturday/ sea and sun 🌊

Here are today’s pictures— from the Del Mar area north of San Diego.

Nala the house cat posing for us since it is Caturday.
Hawaiian Red Anthuriums at Swami Seaside Park in Encinitas.
Daisies at Swami Seaside Park in Encinitas.
Koi in the pond at Swami Seaside Park in Encinitas.
Blue skies and palm trees outside Swami Seaside Park in Encinitas.
It was a perfect day for surfing off the beaches at Encinitas.
On the beach at Fletcher Cove State Park. The sand behind us has been moved there by a huge dredging and pumping operation, funded by money from the Biden Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2023.
And here is the sunset that we came to see, from the beach at Fletcher Cove State Park.
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Monday/ on the ferry ⛴

I took these pictures from the Tacoma ferry today, during her 2.05 pm crossing from Bainbridge Island to Seattle.

Double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) at the Bainbridge ferry terminal.
Here we go .. departure from the Bainbridge ferry terminal on the Marine Vessel Tacoma. Her maiden voyage was in October 1997.
Plying the waters of Puget Sound on the way to Colman Dock, also called Pier 52, the primary ferry terminal in Seattle.
Here’s the Marine Vessel Suquamish, the other ferry servicing the Seattle-Bainbridge Island route. She started service in 2018 and is Washington State’s newest ferry, capable of carrying 144 cars and 1,500 passengers.
The first of five new hybrid ferries was supposed to roll off the line in 2022, but the contract with long-time ferry builder Vigor, previously Todd Shipyard, fell through. Why? The bid to build the boats was double what the state had expected. The ferry system is now about to put out the bid for these five vessels again, but it will be at least 4 years before any new ferry will go into service.
[Reported by Chris Sullivan on mynorthwest.com]
The Seattle city skyline, in shades of gray.
The Brant geese (Branta bernicla) skimming the waters of Puget Sound are migratory birds that spend winters in lower latitudes such as the Pacific Northwest, and nest in summer in the high Arctic (the north of Canada).
The new pedestrian bridge to Colman Dock looks great. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will stay graffiti-free the way it is right now.
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Caturday 🐆

Posted @MAstronomers on X.
‘Your shadow is your best friend.
The black panther is the melanistic color variant of the leopard (Panthera pardus), so these are not two different species, but a leopard and her melanistic partner’.
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Friday/ 324 years ago 🌊

Happy Friday.

Exactly 324 years ago today— on Jan. 26, 1700, at 9 pm—  the Juan de Fuca plate slipped an average of 20 meters (66 ft) along a fault rupture about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) long in the Pacific Ocean.

The magnitude 9 earthquake caused a tsunami which struck the west coast of North America and the coast of Japan.

Source: ‘The Orphan Tsunami of 1700’ by Brian F. Atwater, published in 2005
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Wednesday/ Paracas National Reserve 🦀

We arrived at the cruise terminal on the Paracas peninsula near Pisco this morning at 7 am.

Our excursion was to nearby Paracas National Reserve, an area with protected desert and marine ecosystems.
Most of the area is a moonscape with no vegetation.
It is really part of the Atacama Desert— the driest nonpolar desert in the world.

At our first stop there was a trail with an overlook to Supay Beach.
Please do not collect fossils (of shells imbedded in stones).
Here is Supay Beach.
The rocky outcrop on the left full of seabirds and guano is called La Cátedral (The Cathedral).
This stop in Paracas National Reserve provided a great view of Playa Roja (Red Beach).
Looking in the other direction, one can see dunes and the soft pastel colors of the sand and the soil.
This beach is called Playa La Mina Pisco.

The blackish oystercatcher is a species of wading bird in the oystercatcher family Haematopodidae. It is found in Argentina, Chile, the Falkland Islands and Peru, and is a vagrant to Uruguay. [Wikipedia]
I caught this one digging a little crab out of the sand at the edge of the surf.
The grey gull, also known as garuma gull, is a medium-sized gull native to South America. Unusual among gulls, it breeds inland in the extremely dry Atacama Desert in northern Chile, although it is present as a non-breeding bird along much of the Pacific coast of South America.
[Wikipedia]

These little gray geckos scurry along on the dry seaweed. I have a little research to do to find out the name of the specie.
Almost time to leave Pisco, at about 5 pm this afternoon. The anchoring ropes are still in place but the dock workers are standing by to loosen them. 
Here is where we were at about 8 o’clock tonight: leaving the shores of Peru behind and sailing south towards the coast of Chile.
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Saturday/ the coast of Peru 🏜

That green dot that we are headed for is the port town of Salaverry.
The Peru-Chile Trench on the ocean floor is nearby.
From Wikipedia:
The Peru–Chile Trench, also known as the Atacama Trench, is an oceanic trench in the eastern Pacific Ocean, about 160 km (99 mi) off the coast of Peru and Chile. It reaches a maximum depth of 8,065 m (26,460 ft) below sea level in Richards Deep (23°10′45″S 71°18′41″W) and is approximately 5,900 km (3,666 mi) long; its mean width is 64 km (40 mi) and it covers an expanse of some 590,000 km2 (230,000 sq mi).

We spotted the coast of Peru this morning.
The Norwegian Sun is on course to arrive at the port town of Salaverry early in the morning, after three days at sea.

We found this banded sphinx moth (Eumorpha fasciatus) on the promenade deck two nights ago. Adults are on wing year-round in the tropics.

 

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Tuesday/ Cólon, Panama 🇵🇦

We reached the seaport of Cólon early this morning. Cólon is at the northern end of the Panama Canal.

After breakfast, we went on our excursion for the day: an aerial tramway tour through the Gamboan forest canopy.

At the top of the tramway― called Cerro Pelado― there is an observation tower with panoramic views of Soberania National Park, the Chagres River and the Panama Canal.

Our tour included stops at a sloth sanctuary, an orchid house and a butterfly enclosure.

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Monday/ blame it on the beetles 🐦‍⬛

The invasive beetle first arrived on the U.S. East Coast in 1940, and has moved as far west as Michigan. It was spotted in British Columbia in the early 2000s — presumably transported along with freight — and is now spreading rapidly in Washington.
– Sandi Doughton reporting in The Seattle Times of Jan. 10, 2021

My neighbor and I are pretty sure it was an invasion of European chafer beetles (Amphimallon majale) that had attracted the crows to come and tear up the lawns here.

There are no easy solutions to the problem, but most invasive insects enjoy a boom period when they move into new areas, but eventually, ecosystems adjust and natural predators and other factors combine to impose a type of equilibrium, says Todd Murray, director of Washington State University’s Puyallup Research and Extension Center.

It’s the larval grubs of the beetle (2), that the crows are after. They are less than an inch long, pearly white, and irresistible to wildlife.
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Wednesday/ wreaking havoc 🐦‍⬛

The soil is now very soft everywhere, after all the rain.
Who or what could it be, turning up whole pieces of grass sod, from my lawn and the grassy edge by the street? .. I had thought for several days.
Today my neighbor and I caught the culprits red-handed: crows digging for worms.

 

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Monday/ Earth’s rarest rhinos 🦏

I look at the eyes and head of this Sumatran rhino, and I think: surely some dinosaurs that roamed Earth 100 million years ago looked exactly like this.
The Sumatran rhinoceros once inhabited rainforests, swamps and cloud forests in India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and southwestern China but today fewer than 50 of these animals remain, in Indonesia.

The female Sumatran rhino named Delilah is seen after recently giving birth to a calf at Way Kambas National Park, Indonesia. 
[Photo courtesy of the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry]
Veterinarian Zulfi Arsan tending to the newly born Sumatran rhino calf at Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary at Way Kambas National Park, Indonesia.
[Photo courtesy of the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry]

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Sunday/ a murder of crows 🗡

A wake of buzzards
A confusion of chiffchaffs
A chattering of choughs
A commotion of coots
A murder of crows
An asylum of cuckoos
A curfew of curlews
A trembling of finches
A swatting of flycatchers
A prayer of godwits
A crown of kingfishers
A parcel of linnets
A cast of merlins
A conspiracy of ravens
A worm of robins
A parliament of rooks
An exultation of skylarks
A murmuration of starlings
A hermitage of thrushes
A volery of wagtails
A museum of waxwings
A chime of wrens
An orchestra of avocets
A mural of buntings
A water dance of grebes
A booby of nuthatches
A quilt of eiders
A mischief of magpies
An aerie of eagles
A wisdom of owls
A quarrel of sparrows
A wisp of snipe
A kettle of swallows
An invisibleness of ptarmigans
A committee of terns
A descent of woodpeckers
A pitying of turtledoves
A banditry of titmice
A circlage of house martins
A scold of jays
A charm of goldfinches
A fall of woodcock
A deceit of lapwings
Source: countrylife.co.uk/nature

The corner of Galer Street and 16th Avenue East on Capitol Hill this afternoon.
Maybe the earthworms came out for some air after the rain had stopped. There are more than fifty crows in this picture, and at least fifty more further down the street  that I did not get into the frame.
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Monday/ no to circus lions 🦁

A circus lion escaped and was seen roaming around heavily populated streets for hours in a suburb of Rome on Saturday, before it was sedated and captured by authorities.
– Reported by NBC

Sadly, a great number of many different types of animals are still forced to perform in circuses every day, all over the world.

In the USA, the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 is the main federal law that regulates the treatment of animals in research and exhibition. It has been amended eight times, most recently in 2013. Even so, it still falls short of adequately protecting animals that perform at shows and in circuses.

My lion figurine from my collection of wild animals (Lion, No 14812, released 2018 by German toymaker Schleich).