Wings and the ability to move on currents of air have always been a fascinating thing to me. Man is still unable to duplicate the awesome design of a bird’s wing that allows it to navigate through seas of clouds, glide, and hover with such precision and grace. It is a wonder of nature that…
Snowflake Watching
Snowflake watching is an inexpensive, easy, and simple pleasure that anyone who lives in a cold climate can enjoy. All you need is a low-cost, fold-up-magnifier. Every snowfall is different and, in some, you can see gorgeous displays of snowflakes, with each snowflake being different. This exciting activity takes you outdoors searching for inconspicuous treasure…
Butterflies
My butterflies, Ornithoptera priamus poseidon, Priam’s (Priam was the son of the king of Troy.) green bird-wing butterflies. If nothing changed, there would be no butterflies. 🙂 These were a gift from my husband when he went to Australia.
Sandbox Tree
The sandbox tree (Hura crepitans and H. polyandra) has pumpkin-shaped seeds that explode. They have poisonous seeds, bark, and leaves. It’s trunk is also studded with short, conical prickles. These trees can be found throughout tropical America and the seed capsules were once used by the British as sandboxes for blotting ink.
The Beauty of Math
Math is a beautiful thing. People just don’t tend to understand it well. Mathematical relationships can be found everywhere, especially in nature. One of my favorite examples of math in nature is fractals. Fractals are fragmented geometric shapes that can be split into parts that are a reduced copy of the whole. There is also…
Wooly Giant Rats
Kunsia tomentosus from Brazil. It’s really kind of cute!
Nature and Trust
Penguins face the crystal desert and look as though they are holding fins and staring into each other’s eyes in Port Lockroy, Antarctica. They often mate for life. Penguins are so inspiring!
Gestalt, Ninja Principles In Nature
Gestalt psychology was based on the work of 3 psychologists, Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kӧhler, and Kurt Koffka. It is based on the observation that we often experience things that are not part of our simple sensations. Wertheimer pointed out that we perceive motion where there is nothing more than a sequence of rapid sensory events,…
Sweet Gum Trees
I remember playing with gumballs from a gumball tree as a kid, but didn’t pay a lot of attention to their stages of development then. Have you ever looked at a gumball up close in all of its stages of development? They are very interesting. They go from being a small, yellowish-green gumball that is…
Owls Hunting
Owls hunt by homing in on the tiny noises that their prey make. They do this by triangulating on the animal’s location with its ears. They create a “sound picture to navigate through the forest. This picture includes noises made by animals, leaves blowing across the ground, and wind moving through the trees. The owl’s…
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