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John (bird whisperer)

John (bird whisperer)

I post a lot about birds, nature, and politics, along with some other interests. Also active on Flickr and Twitter, and I have a blog.
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Norway Spruce: young needles and inflorescence http://flic.kr/p/ekgQ4g
Norway Spruce: young needles and inflorescence http://flic.kr/p/ekgQ4g
jenn2d2: These delicate folds and strands of glass make up the Blaschka collection of glass invertebrates at Cornell, of which I am the curator — enchanting and impossibly rare jellyfishes of the open ocean; more common but equally beautiful octopus, squid, anemones and nudibranchs from British tide pools and Mediterranean shores. They are the... - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
jenn2d2:
  
These delicate folds and strands of glass make up the Blaschka collection of glass invertebrates at Cornell, of which I am the curator — enchanting and impossibly rare jellyfishes of the open ocean; more common but equally beautiful octopus, squid, anemones and nudibranchs from British tide pools and Mediterranean shores. They are the work of an extraordinary father-and-son team, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka.
 
Leopold Blaschka (1822-95) was a Czech immigrant to Dresden, in what is now Germany; on a trip to America in 1853, his ship was becalmed and he was enchanted by a spectacular display of bioluminescence from a type of jellyfish called a siphonophore.
 
He decided to study the jellyfish more closely and create their likenesses in glass. His first works were a set of anemones for the Dresden Natural History Museum in 1863, inspired by the naturalist Philip Henry Gosse’s “British Sea-Anemones and Corals.”
 
Leopold’s son, Rudolf (1857-1939), was a keen natural historian in his own right, and an ardent aquarist, or aquarium keeper. He followed his father’s lead, expanding in biodiversity to reach the edges of the animal kingdom. (And beyond: Later they created a comprehensive collection of flowers that is now on display at Harvard.)
 
To restore Cornell’s vast collection — bought from the Blaschkas themselves in 1885 — a glassworker, Elizabeth R. Brill, has painstakingly cleaned each piece and glued back fragmented gills and wayward tentacles. The collection is on view at several galleries and the Johnson Museum of Art on the Cornell campus, and restored pieces can be seen in an online gallery. (via Blaschka Glass Menagerie Inspires Marine Expedition - NYTimes.com)
oakapples: Colour chart used by Austrian botanical illustrator Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826) for his field observations. His technique was to sketch a ‘painting-by-numbers’ in situ, which we he could later add colour to after returning from whichever botanical expedition he was on. The example of his painting shown here is a depiction of Grevillea... - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
oakapples:
  
Colour chart used by Austrian botanical illustrator Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826) for his field observations. His technique was to sketch a ‘painting-by-numbers’ in situ, which we he could later add colour to after returning from whichever botanical expedition he was on. The example of his painting shown here is a depiction of Grevillea banksii, named for the great Sir Joseph.
motherjones: smithsonianmag: Delivering a dinosaur to the Boston Museum of Science - Arthur Pollock - 1984 via atlasobscura !!1 - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
motherjones:
  
smithsonianmag:
  
Delivering a dinosaur to the Boston Museum of Science - Arthur Pollock - 1984
 
via atlasobscura
  
!!1
Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River. Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked... - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.
 
Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom.
 
And no one knows quite what to do about it, except Koch Carbon, which owns it.
 
The company is controlled by Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists who back a number of conservative and libertarian causes including activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change. The company sells the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste, usually overseas, where it is burned as fuel.
 
The coke comes from a refinery alongside the river owned by Marathon Petroleum, which has been there since 1930. But it began refining exports from the Canadian oil sands — and producing the waste that is sold to Koch — only in November.
 
“What is really, really disturbing to me is how some companies treat the city of Detroit as a dumping ground,” said Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan state representative for that part of Detroit. “Nobody knew this was going to happen.” Almost 56 percent of Canada’s oil production is from the petroleum-soaked oil sands of northern Alberta, more than 2,000 miles north.
  
(via Mountain of Petroleum Coke From Oil Sands Rises in Detroit - NYTimes.com)
Eastern Phoebe on Flickr. - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
Eastern Phoebe on Flickr.
mudwerks: (via Five-Tube Chassis: 1937 [detail] | Shorpy Historical Photo Archive) March 1937. “Camden, New Jersey. RCA Victor. Five-tube chassis assembly line.” Photo by Lewis Hine. View full size. - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
mudwerks:
  
(via Five-Tube Chassis: 1937 [detail] | Shorpy Historical Photo Archive)
 
March 1937. “Camden, New Jersey. RCA Victor. Five-tube chassis assembly line.” Photo by Lewis Hine. View full size.
nationalgeographicdaily: Penguin, South Georgia Island Photo: Max Seigal - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
nationalgeographicdaily:
  
Penguin, South Georgia Island
Photo: Max Seigal
operation-migration: Photo credit: http://www.gerylmortensen.com/DallasW... May.6,2013 LA WHOOPING CRANES SPOTTED NEAR DALLAS Last Thursday the Whooping Crane Conservation Association received a Whooping Crane sighting report from birder and photographer Geryl Mortensen. Geryl photographed two whooping cranes at Lake Ray Hubbard near... - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
operation-migration:
  
Photo credit: http://www.gerylmortensen.com/DallasWhoopingCranes
 
May.6,2013
 
 LA WHOOPING CRANES SPOTTED NEAR DALLAS 
Last Thursday the Whooping Crane Conservation Association received a Whooping Crane sighting report from birder and photographer  Geryl Mortensen. Geryl photographed two whooping cranes at Lake Ray Hubbard near Dallas, TX on May 2nd.
 
To confirm the sighting, Geryl was able to photograph them from 2,000 feet away. Lee Ann Linam from Texas Parks and Wildlife confirmed the sighting and added “They are two banded birds from the reintroduced (non-migratory) population in Louisiana. Texas Whooper Watch is recruiting volunteers to help supplement the data that their radio-transmitters provide. Anyone with subsequent sightings can report through our website: www.tpwd.state.tx.us/whoopingcranes/
mystic-revelations: Banff, Canada (by OliverCui) - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
mystic-revelations:
  
Banff, Canada (by OliverCui)
danlophotography: On the way to Gorak Shep, Nepal - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
danlophotography:
  
On the way to Gorak Shep, Nepal
insectlove: markhortonphotography: A couple of days of firsts in the garden this week, first honey bees, first mason bees, first Brimstone butterfly, and first bumble bee. This is a Buff-tailed Bumblebee, I believe? Possibly a white-tailed (Bombus lucorum) - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
insectlove:
  
markhortonphotography: A couple of days of firsts in the garden this week, first honey bees, first mason bees, first Brimstone butterfly, and first bumble bee. This is a Buff-tailed Bumblebee, I believe? Possibly a white-tailed (Bombus lucorum)
joshwool: Home - Brooklyn - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
joshwool:
  
Home - Brooklyn
hesito: Vermilion River, Kootenay National Park (by jspierry) - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
hesito:
  
Vermilion River, Kootenay National Park (by jspierry)
jtotheizzoe: The Evolution of Tyrannosaurus rex The terrible lizards of your childhood have changed quite a bit, despite having been dead for millions of years. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in ol’ Sharptooth: T. rex Many folks without strong paleontology backgrounds (which, let’s face it, includes most people … including me) don’t... - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
jtotheizzoe:
  
The Evolution of Tyrannosaurus rex
 
The terrible lizards of your childhood have changed quite a bit, despite having been dead for millions of years. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in ol’ Sharptooth: T. rex
 
Many folks without strong paleontology backgrounds (which, let’s face it, includes most people … including me) don’t appreciate how little we really know for sure about these prehistoric forms. We go to a museum, we see a fossil reconstruction of an immense dinosaur, and we assume that’s how it came out of the ground. That’s not the case.
 
While the Field Museum’s famous T. rex ”Sue” was 80% complete upon excavation, the first specimen ever constructed was done so with just a suitcase’s worth of bones. See the shaded regions in the upper left drawing? That’s the 108-year-old first reconstruction of T. rex done by W.D. Matthew. And it’s very wrong.
 
Even into the 1940’s, when Rudolph Zallinger painted The Age of Reptiles mural (top right) for Yale’s Peabody Museum, T. rex was still a clumsy, chubby, upright tail-dragger that looked more like a drunk Godzilla than king of the dinosaurs. By the 1970’s it was clear to scientists that T. rex could not have have held its body that way, and instead moved holding its head and tail nearly parallel to the ground.
 
But the tail-dragger myth persisted, and in 1988’s The Land Before Time (which, let’s face it, is where most of us first formed our images of dinosaurs) Sharptooth was frustratingly upright (see middle left). Combine that with the ridiculously impossible, ninja-like aerial assault on Littlefoot’s mom, and we have a real dino science stinker on our hands. Stan Winston’s Jurassic Park finally got the head-down pose right (middle right). Yet children and college students still overwhelmingly draw T. rex as upright.
 
Modern paleoartists (like Raul Martin, lower left) get it consistently right, but the public doesn’t. It shows you just how important it is to deliver good science to kids, because even today I can feel the upright pose of my T. rex dinobot calling me back to wrongville.
 
And as we continue to learn more about Tyrannosaur relatives and the feathery frills they sported, we are beginning to see many artists add them to the great hunter (lower right, by pheaston). Plumage rarely shows up in fossils, and scientists and artists have to be careful not to make errors of incompleteness like we saw 108 years ago. But considering how good Velociraptor looks with that fancy outfit on, I think we’ll see more and more feathery fury on T. rex in the future.
 
At least none of YOU will ever draw it incorrectly again, right? :)
 
For more cool dino illustration, check out Fuck Yeah Dino Art.
grayflannelsuit: New York City of the 1940s and 1950s, as seen in a vintage View-Master reel dated 1950. Shown here are the Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Square, Coney Island, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, lower Manhattan, and Park Avenue. - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
grayflannelsuit:
  
New York City of the 1940s and 1950s, as seen in a vintage View-Master reel dated 1950. Shown here are the Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Square, Coney Island, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, lower Manhattan, and Park Avenue.
peregrineinastoop: Western Capercaillie by Alan Mcfadyen - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
peregrineinastoop:
  
Western Capercaillie by Alan Mcfadyen
hydrogeneportfolio: Minimal Posters -  Five Great Mathematicians And Their Contributions. - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
hydrogeneportfolio:
  
Minimal Posters -  Five Great Mathematicians And Their Contributions.
My pantheon of mathematicians would also include Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, Kurt Gödel, and Alan Turing, George Boole, and Georg Cantor. - Victor Ganata
With Security, Trade Center Faces New Isolation The Police Department has proposed encircling the site with a fortified palisade of guard booths, vehicle barricades and sidewalk barriers. And neighbors and planners worry that the trade center will once again feel cut off from its surroundings, a place where security credentials prevail, traffic is... - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
With Security, Trade Center Faces New Isolation
  
The Police Department has proposed encircling the site with a fortified palisade of guard booths, vehicle barricades and sidewalk barriers. And neighbors and planners worry that the trade center will once again feel cut off from its surroundings, a place where security credentials prevail, traffic is unwelcome and every step is scrutinized, as at the New York Stock Exchange or 1 Police Plaza security zones.
 
The police plan calls for nine guard booths, each about 6 by 12 feet in area and 11 feet tall. Eight street intersections would be restricted by a double barricade system known as a sally port, from 30 to 160 feet long. The trade center site would also be bounded by bollards, the barrier posts that have cropped up around many important structures since 2001.
 
This appears to depart from the expansive vision for Lower Manhattan offered by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in December 2002. “We can examine innovative ways to manage streets and traffic downtown, reinforcing the feeling that this is one place,” he said at the time. “Getting around easily means community, and that’s what we’re trying to create.”
 
… But the Police Department argued that the measures allow for plenty of public access. “The campus security plan will not isolate the World Trade Center from the Lower Manhattan community,” said Richard C. Daddario, the deputy police commissioner for counterterrorism. In fact, he said, it would make the site a more desirable for pedestrians and bicyclists, who will be able to pass freely. That, in turn, might knit it more seamlessly into the fabric of downtown.
  
(Read more at NYTimes.com)
kileyrae: So…. Republicans are editing emails to create false scandals, wasting paper and everyone’s time to vote to repeal Obamacare for the thirty-something-th time, blocking common sense gun reform, this bullshit, doing anything and everything they can to make sure absolutely nothing gets done, but President Obama’s the problem? Right. Okay. - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
astronomy-to-zoology: African Striped Weasel (Poecilogale albinucha) Also known as the white-naped weasel, the African striped weasel while it may look like skunk is indeed a species of mustelid native to sub-Saharan Africa. Like other mustelids the African striped weasel is a carnivore and feeds mostly on small birds and mammals and the... - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
astronomy-to-zoology:
  
African Striped Weasel (Poecilogale albinucha)
 
Also known as the white-naped weasel, the African striped weasel while it may look like skunk is indeed a species of mustelid native to sub-Saharan Africa. Like other mustelids the African striped weasel is a carnivore and feeds mostly on small birds and mammals and the occasional reptile. They are generally solitary and hunt at night, however some individuals have been observed sharing burrows with other animals. While it is not a true skunk or a polecat the African striped weasel does posses anal glands and can emit strong smelling fluids when distressed.
 
Phylogeny
 
Animalia-Chordata-Mammalia-Carnivora-Mustelidae-Poecilogale-albinucha
 
Image Source(s)
That data is interesting, because it describes the labor market before any immigrant workers are recruited. That, as Clemens says, “allows us to assess the willingness of native workers to take farm jobs before they can even be offered to foreign workers, meaning that this study does not miss any impact caused by people who self-select out of an... - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
nevver: I’ll take Manhattan - http://dendroica.tumblr.com/post...
nevver:
  
I’ll take Manhattan
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