Bird in the magnolia tree
Late afternoon sunlight dappling the scuppernine grove
The next magnolia to bloom will be this one
Mathematical perfection in the magnolia seed structure. Perfect proportion. Beauty too
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Backyard beauty
Later I'll post some shots of the inside, cats galore, lounging and relaxing.
Bird in the magnolia tree
Late afternoon sunlight dappling the scuppernine grove
The next magnolia to bloom will be this one
Mathematical perfection in the magnolia seed structure. Perfect proportion. Beauty too
Bird in the magnolia tree
Late afternoon sunlight dappling the scuppernine grove
The next magnolia to bloom will be this one
Mathematical perfection in the magnolia seed structure. Perfect proportion. Beauty too
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
FMI on Ida from a Christian perspective...
Read two Christian apologetics essays essays over at The End Time:
"Christian response to Ida" here
"Will Ida the (alleged) missing link impact your Christianity? She shouldn't"
"Christian response to Ida" here
"Will Ida the (alleged) missing link impact your Christianity? She shouldn't"
I need a bird blind...and a clue
So, you guys know I'm fascinated with birds. My apartment property has a wealth of trees so it has a plethora of birds, so many congregated in one place I've never seen before. Wild birds that hoot, sing, chirp, soar, coo, fly, squabble, and charm.
I am challenging myself to take good nature photos, and specifically ones of birds in natural habitat. Not just the snaps I get when they congregate around the feeder, that's too easy. But photos where they are doing real daily bird life.
I recently discovered that all the birdhouses on the property are working birdhouses, there are peeps emanating from each and every one. I've begun to notice a routine with some of the birds, particularly the mourning doves: they coo in the early morning and late afternoon, and call to each other from atop the phone poles. Only the biggest doves get to perch on top of the pole.
So last night I went to the granite bench and table under the Magnolia tree. I sat still and waited. Soon some of the braver birds flocked back to the densely covered branches, and I heard the usual squawks.
I noticed one bird (which I have not identified yet) had a large insect in its mouth, mangled worm or dessicated spider, I could not tell which. I walked around the tree to where there was a slight opening in the leaves and saw it more clearly. I raised my camera and snapped away, settling on one good, non-blurry photo. Yet this bird squawked, and hopped and yelled the entire time. "Boy, this bird is mad," I thought to myself. I waited to see what else it would do.
It stalked and hopped up and down the branch, yelling the whole time. "Gee, why doesn't it just eat the spider?" I wondered.
Then it hopped from the branch to the hanging bird house roof for a moment and then hopped back to the branch. As it landed on the roof, in that brief second, I heard a chorus of peeps, which immediately silenced when the momma bird went back to the higher branch.
"Ohhhh..." It dawned on me, "She wants to get to her babies but won't as long as I'm standing here." Duh.
I moved away to the corner of the shed and she immediately went to the house again. Again the chorus of peeps welled up from inside. I snapped, using the zoom, but the day had slipped into dusk and the photo came out grainier than I wanted. Boy I wish I had a 12X zoom. Oh, well, back to the bird. I guess she told me, and next time I'll focus on the nature as much as I'm focusing on the photograph!
Here are the scenes:
I am challenging myself to take good nature photos, and specifically ones of birds in natural habitat. Not just the snaps I get when they congregate around the feeder, that's too easy. But photos where they are doing real daily bird life.
I recently discovered that all the birdhouses on the property are working birdhouses, there are peeps emanating from each and every one. I've begun to notice a routine with some of the birds, particularly the mourning doves: they coo in the early morning and late afternoon, and call to each other from atop the phone poles. Only the biggest doves get to perch on top of the pole.
So last night I went to the granite bench and table under the Magnolia tree. I sat still and waited. Soon some of the braver birds flocked back to the densely covered branches, and I heard the usual squawks.
I noticed one bird (which I have not identified yet) had a large insect in its mouth, mangled worm or dessicated spider, I could not tell which. I walked around the tree to where there was a slight opening in the leaves and saw it more clearly. I raised my camera and snapped away, settling on one good, non-blurry photo. Yet this bird squawked, and hopped and yelled the entire time. "Boy, this bird is mad," I thought to myself. I waited to see what else it would do.
It stalked and hopped up and down the branch, yelling the whole time. "Gee, why doesn't it just eat the spider?" I wondered.
Then it hopped from the branch to the hanging bird house roof for a moment and then hopped back to the branch. As it landed on the roof, in that brief second, I heard a chorus of peeps, which immediately silenced when the momma bird went back to the higher branch.
"Ohhhh..." It dawned on me, "She wants to get to her babies but won't as long as I'm standing here." Duh.
I moved away to the corner of the shed and she immediately went to the house again. Again the chorus of peeps welled up from inside. I snapped, using the zoom, but the day had slipped into dusk and the photo came out grainier than I wanted. Boy I wish I had a 12X zoom. Oh, well, back to the bird. I guess she told me, and next time I'll focus on the nature as much as I'm focusing on the photograph!
Here are the scenes:
Monday, May 25, 2009
Flags, a reminder of what's behind them
Thank you soldiers who fought for our flag and everything the flag means means, and thank you for fighting for what is behind the ideals of red-white-blue!
North Yarmouth, Maine
Gray, Maine
New Gloucester, Maine
Eastport, Maine (USS McFaul)
Lubec, Maine
Comer, Georgia
Comer, Georgia
North Yarmouth, Maine
Gray, Maine
New Gloucester, Maine
Eastport, Maine (USS McFaul)
Lubec, Maine
Comer, Georgia
Comer, Georgia
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Well, alrighty, then
In a sobering holiday interview with C-SPAN, President Obama boldly told Americans: "We are out of money."C-SPAN host Steve Scully broke from a meek Washington press corps with probing questions for the new president.
SCULLY: You know the numbers, $1.7 trillion debt, a national deficit of $11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?
OBAMA: Well, we are out of money now.
full interview here. Start at 13.20 for this piece
-------------------------------
Well, the First World was fun.
Friday, May 22, 2009
School's Out!
I was interrupted from composing an e-mail to go to the window and laugh. See, I live across the street from a local elementary school, and the last day of school is today at 12:30. I heard an enormous cheer as the buses roared to life, and I laughed in joy, completely charmed by the kids' enthusiasm for the start of summer.Though, we know from experience, once the kids reach home in a few minutes, they will drop their bags at the door, look at mom and say, "Now what?" LOL
**Note, photo is not the actual school nor is actual depiction.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
So THAT'S why they call it grandiflora magnolia!
The magnolia tree started blooming. The blossoms are a foot across! Here are three photos, one with a early bloom, the next with one about to pop, and a third that has opened. The last photo are of petals that had fallen from blossoms gone by. The petals are very white but leathery and thick. I put a quarter on one for scale.
The Magnolia is gorgeous and now the addition of the blossoms dotting the tree with more to come has just made me love it even more.
The Magnolia is gorgeous and now the addition of the blossoms dotting the tree with more to come has just made me love it even more.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Overwrought about Ida
The world had gone ga-ga over a recently revealed fossil named Ida, which, aside from the marketing around a book release and a documentary, is being touted as the bridge between man and apes, the "missing ink" in evolutionary science. Is it?
As a Creationist of course I remain amused and skeptical that a lemur skeleton looking much like today's lemur skeletons is a bridge to anywhere. As David DeWitt said in a Washington Times article, "Where did the genetic information come from that produced that skeleton in the first place? It's not random chance"... That is the basic question that science has never answered.
But back to the fossil. The fossil itself is not a recently uncovered specimen. It was discovered 26 years ago and promptly split into two pieces, one going to a museum in Wyoming and the other to a Museum in Oslo. Much wrangling ensued. In Law & Order evidence such as that would be tossed out due to a breakdown in the "chain of custody."
Just because scientists say this is the missing link of course does not mean that it is. Remember the Piltdown Man? The Cardiff Giant? Johann Beringer's fraudulent fossils? The Sokal Scientific Hoax? A single fossil does not "finally confirm" Darwin's theory, as there are too many branches in his theory to affix the entire ball of wax on one specimen.
No doubt Ida is likely a real fossil and not a hoax. It is a remarkable find on its own, interesting in natural history, but remember with the above examples and many others, that just like everything else, science is subject to fallibility and human quality of interpretation, much of which is done through the filter of preconceived notions, perception, and tradition. Theories precede facts, and the longer a theory has been in existence the firmer the scientist becomes attached to it, eventually (perhaps) fitting the facts to fit the theory, as the above examples demonstrate.
The process that includes merciless peer review of this specimen has not undergone anything like rigor yet, the hype is purely the scientifically illiterate media making pronouncements and sweeping generalities. Other scientists will now question the findings, debate it if is another already existing species, or the naming of a new genus, and so on. Anything gleaned in the arena of media and emotion at this juncture is suspect and likely hype.
As Ewen Callaway wrote today on the science news blog NewScientist, "Science bloggers put some needed cold water on the claims that the Darwinius masillae fossil conclusively determines which group of mammals gave rise to apes and monkeys, as well as the media blitz."
And also: "Brian Switek on Laelaps, an evolutionary biology blog, says: "I have yet to see the paper, but I am skeptical of this conclusion. First, one of the main authors of the paper is Philip Gingerich, who has been maintaining the evolution of anthropoid primates from adapids for years despite evidence to the contrary."
The evolutionary descent of man through the line of anthropoid primates from adapids is hotly debated among scientists. Did you know that there is a debate raging among scientists that is equally as controversial as the one between evolutionists and creationists? It is regarding the origin of the earliest primates and which branch therein man might have arisen: adapids vs. omomyids. They cannot come to any sort of verifiable conclusion.
And this nugget shows that scientists, longing perhaps to be in the same league as pop stars and athletes with the same level of marketing, media hype, and attention, have decided to roll out scientific news in the same way as they do when athletic managers complete coup of a signing deal or a when a rock group presses a new CD:
As a Creationist of course I remain amused and skeptical that a lemur skeleton looking much like today's lemur skeletons is a bridge to anywhere. As David DeWitt said in a Washington Times article, "Where did the genetic information come from that produced that skeleton in the first place? It's not random chance"... That is the basic question that science has never answered.
But back to the fossil. The fossil itself is not a recently uncovered specimen. It was discovered 26 years ago and promptly split into two pieces, one going to a museum in Wyoming and the other to a Museum in Oslo. Much wrangling ensued. In Law & Order evidence such as that would be tossed out due to a breakdown in the "chain of custody."
Just because scientists say this is the missing link of course does not mean that it is. Remember the Piltdown Man? The Cardiff Giant? Johann Beringer's fraudulent fossils? The Sokal Scientific Hoax? A single fossil does not "finally confirm" Darwin's theory, as there are too many branches in his theory to affix the entire ball of wax on one specimen.
No doubt Ida is likely a real fossil and not a hoax. It is a remarkable find on its own, interesting in natural history, but remember with the above examples and many others, that just like everything else, science is subject to fallibility and human quality of interpretation, much of which is done through the filter of preconceived notions, perception, and tradition. Theories precede facts, and the longer a theory has been in existence the firmer the scientist becomes attached to it, eventually (perhaps) fitting the facts to fit the theory, as the above examples demonstrate.
The process that includes merciless peer review of this specimen has not undergone anything like rigor yet, the hype is purely the scientifically illiterate media making pronouncements and sweeping generalities. Other scientists will now question the findings, debate it if is another already existing species, or the naming of a new genus, and so on. Anything gleaned in the arena of media and emotion at this juncture is suspect and likely hype.
As Ewen Callaway wrote today on the science news blog NewScientist, "Science bloggers put some needed cold water on the claims that the Darwinius masillae fossil conclusively determines which group of mammals gave rise to apes and monkeys, as well as the media blitz."
And also: "Brian Switek on Laelaps, an evolutionary biology blog, says: "I have yet to see the paper, but I am skeptical of this conclusion. First, one of the main authors of the paper is Philip Gingerich, who has been maintaining the evolution of anthropoid primates from adapids for years despite evidence to the contrary."
The evolutionary descent of man through the line of anthropoid primates from adapids is hotly debated among scientists. Did you know that there is a debate raging among scientists that is equally as controversial as the one between evolutionists and creationists? It is regarding the origin of the earliest primates and which branch therein man might have arisen: adapids vs. omomyids. They cannot come to any sort of verifiable conclusion.
And this nugget shows that scientists, longing perhaps to be in the same league as pop stars and athletes with the same level of marketing, media hype, and attention, have decided to roll out scientific news in the same way as they do when athletic managers complete coup of a signing deal or a when a rock group presses a new CD:
As the first stop in a coordinated, branded media event, orchestrated by the scientists and the History Channel, including a film detailing the secretive two-year study of the fossil, a book release, an exclusive arrangement with ABC News and an elaborate Web site. “Any pop band is doing the same thing,” said Jorn H. Hurum, a scientist at the University of Oslo who acquired the fossil and assembled the team of scientists that studied it. “Any athlete is doing the same thing. We have to start thinking the same way in science.”Hype anyone? ;)
More backyard stuff
Taking a walk the other day out my backyard yielded surprises. I inspected microscopically, down, beneath my feet at the blades of grass hiding tiny mushrooms, as well as macroscopically, up, at the leaf patterns of the towering trees above my head.
Living here cracks me up, actually. I am a mile from town, yet folks have large yards, hayfields even. It is quite rural. One person has free range chickens and a rooster walking around on the lawn. They are pretty to look at, the rooster is a rust color and contrasts with the green grass and the pale hayfield behind him. As I return from the Post Office, I drive by the farm stand with pink neon cardboard posters announcing the latest produce for sale. Yesterday it was "Turnip greens," next to signs announcing "Open" and "Check it out!"
At night, as the windows are open and the little traffic we get during the day dies down, I hear dogs, chickens, roosters, the train, owls, birds and an occasional car. Sometimes someone laughing in the distance.
So the spring has progressed and I wandered out to the back corner of my yard and drifted near the hedge. I was interested in the part of the yard between the stand of apple and pecan trees and the mowed line where the hayfield begins. There is a line of birdhouses on posts, and standing on tiptoe I saw that they were all occupied with chicks. Well, I'll be dogged! I could not see them but I heard teeny little peeps and was completely charmed.
I could not get the blue jay to turn around for me. A zoomed picture taken dark at dusk was the closest I could get. He is a fat boy, isn't he!
Ah, the culprits of the pollen explosion. Spring is great, but the resulting yellow dust that grits everywhere is not.
The regularity of this pattern reminds me of the Fibonacci sequence. There is mathematical harmony in growth. In my opinion of course, it is Designed.
I love wood. In this case, the differing colors caught my eye, from gentle tan to slate gray to green mossy lichen. The tree was still stately despite losing a branch.
Later dusk now, it was this little guy who got me outside to see what the ruckus was. He is standing about 15 feet from my bedroom window cawing up a storm. When I got out there and saw it was just a baby cardinal tweeting as the sun went down, I laughed and chided him gently. He paid me no mind and went right on calling. Such a huge sound from a little guy! I dubbed him my Sundowner Bird.
Living here cracks me up, actually. I am a mile from town, yet folks have large yards, hayfields even. It is quite rural. One person has free range chickens and a rooster walking around on the lawn. They are pretty to look at, the rooster is a rust color and contrasts with the green grass and the pale hayfield behind him. As I return from the Post Office, I drive by the farm stand with pink neon cardboard posters announcing the latest produce for sale. Yesterday it was "Turnip greens," next to signs announcing "Open" and "Check it out!"
At night, as the windows are open and the little traffic we get during the day dies down, I hear dogs, chickens, roosters, the train, owls, birds and an occasional car. Sometimes someone laughing in the distance.
So the spring has progressed and I wandered out to the back corner of my yard and drifted near the hedge. I was interested in the part of the yard between the stand of apple and pecan trees and the mowed line where the hayfield begins. There is a line of birdhouses on posts, and standing on tiptoe I saw that they were all occupied with chicks. Well, I'll be dogged! I could not see them but I heard teeny little peeps and was completely charmed.
I could not get the blue jay to turn around for me. A zoomed picture taken dark at dusk was the closest I could get. He is a fat boy, isn't he!
Ah, the culprits of the pollen explosion. Spring is great, but the resulting yellow dust that grits everywhere is not.
The regularity of this pattern reminds me of the Fibonacci sequence. There is mathematical harmony in growth. In my opinion of course, it is Designed.
I love wood. In this case, the differing colors caught my eye, from gentle tan to slate gray to green mossy lichen. The tree was still stately despite losing a branch.
Later dusk now, it was this little guy who got me outside to see what the ruckus was. He is standing about 15 feet from my bedroom window cawing up a storm. When I got out there and saw it was just a baby cardinal tweeting as the sun went down, I laughed and chided him gently. He paid me no mind and went right on calling. Such a huge sound from a little guy! I dubbed him my Sundowner Bird.
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