Nature « MaryElizabethThompson.net

New Tabs and Other Helpful Things

You can see at the top of the page that I’ve rearranged my tabs and added a couple new ones. Under “Downloads” there is already one PDF available for colored pencil portrait artists. There has been a lot of interest in my review of Kullberg’s Portrait book, so I hope my CP color chart is also helpful. I have other things in progress to add soon, too.

Under “Art & Nature,” there’s a calendar listing Northern Virginia Art & Nature Events (it only extends to about 1 month into the future so far) and also a listing of Northern Virginia places to go birding, wildlife watching, and plein air painting. I’ll be adding to both of those as time goes by, too, including my reviews of those places, and eventually a map of all the locations.

So enjoy these new features and leave a comment below if there’s anything specific you’d like me to add.

Written on February 20th, 2012 , Art, Miscellaneous, Nature Tags: Updates

Creature Feature: A Squirrel of a Different Color

Squirrels are mammals in the order Rodentia, the same as not only mice and rats, but also porcupines, beavers, capybara, and dormice. All in all, there are over 2000 species of rodents.

The defining feature that unifies the order Rodentia is that their front teeth grow continually and have to be worn down by near-continuous gnawing. If they didn’t gnaw, their front teeth would grow until digging into some other part of the face or mouth and disable or killing the animal.

Typical Rodent Teeth (Image from Wikipedia)

Squirrels live on every continent except Australia and come in 200 species. Our most common squirrel around Northern Virginia is the Eastern Gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). However, there is another species that lives here: the Black Squirrel.

Black Squirrel in DC (image from the DCist)

The first time I saw a black squirrel, I did a double-take. I hadn’t known there was such a thing. I looked it up first chance I got. Apparently they were brought to the DC area from Canada in the early 1900s and the population survived.

I like squirrels as much as any other animal. Until they raid my birdfeeders. Most of my feeders are squirrel-proof, but I still end up feeding them since birds aren’t the neatest eaters and some feed ends up on the ground.

When I can count seven or more squirrels in my yard at once, even I might think all squirrels should die. I joke around around buying a bee-bee gun and having squirrel stew for dinner, but that won’t ever happen.

But if I saw one of these purple squirrels, I’d wouldn’t be running for my gun. I’d be running for my camera.

Purple Squirrel (Image from MNN)

Written on February 12th, 2012 , Nature Tags: animals, squirrels

Doing What’s Meaningful

This new background photo was taken at Occoquan Bay NWR. I actually take a lot of photos of tree branches against the blue sky. I think it’s one of the prettiest combinations of colors there is. Just like I love when the bright white moon is up during the day in front of a clear cerulean sky. Gorgeous.

Sometime taking photos of tree branches includes Bald Eagles at Pohick Regional Park.

To me, beauty is meaningful. As is the grotesque. As is oddness. And living things of all species. So I am easily motivated to take photographs of things I find beautiful, grotesque, odd, or alive. (Which encompasses almost everything, which accounts for the outrageous number of photos I take.)

And the grotesque includes the dead fish that eagles leave uneaten on the shore.

Humans are hard-wired to find meaning. It’s part of our nature to puzzle out why things are, to learn about them, to find (or invent) meaning for them. This is part of the intelligence that evolved along with creativity, language, art- and tool-making, and everything else that sets up apart from other animals. Our curiosity about the world, our ability to figure out patterns, discover their meaning, and plan for the future – all this has made extremely adaptable and therefore successful.

I don’t believe that the universe as a whole has any meaning. There is no absolute, over-riding purpose to anything… at least, not one we can be privy to. (Although that doesn’t stop people from inventing them and trying to impose their invented meanings on others.) But we each have the ability to decide or discover for ourselves what is meaningful to us, and to pursue that meaning.

And it is pursuing what is meaning to us that keeps us motivated to get up in the morning, to go out in the cold or the heat or the rain or the snow, to take photos, or make art, or plan for the future. If you don’t find what you’re doing meaningful, then why bother? Why are you doing it? What is motivating you?

When we lose sight of what is meaningful in our own lives, though, we lose motivation. We’re simply going through the motions. And sometimes that’s unavoidable. We all have to do things from time to time that seem pointless, but are required to get to some other goal we’re trying to achieve. But no one should live their whole life in pointlessness.

It is your responsibility – your duty to yourself – to find something that gives your life meaning. What motivates you? What makes you feel good about yourself and the work you’re doing? What are you holding on to? What are you protecting? What are you creating?

Written on February 9th, 2012 , Art, Goals, Nature, Philosophy, Photography Tags: birds, fish, goals, meaning, motivation, photography, psychology

Creature Feature: Birds

I learned of a new bird yesterday and decided that I wanted to do this week’s creature feature about our flying feathered friends. I reserve the right to do a whole future blog about the equally fascinating birds that don’t fly (and, of course, future blogs about birds in general), but today is about the ones who do fly.

First off, a few stats. There are about 10,000 bird species in the world. Only one person that I’m aware of has ever come close to seeing them all, and that was Pheobe Snetsinger whose own book is entitled Birding on Borrowed Time. Another book written about her is Life List by Olivia Gentile. Snetsinger’s story is one of courage and persistence, but it’s also one of Captain-Ahab-style obsession which ultimately caused friction in her personal life.

Because birds are relatively large, terrestrial, easily visible creatures (compared to, say, worms or deep-sea oddities, of which new species are being discovered all the time), and because people have been studying them… well, since there have been people…. it’s unusual that we come across unknown species.

It’s even more unusual if the unknown species is found in a museum collection rather than in the wild. But that’s what happened last year when a new species of shearwater was recognized in the United States.

New birds do get discovered, however, especially in the forests of Central and South America. Like this Antipitta. And this Oilbird.

Fenwick's Antipitta (borrowed from the DailyGreen.com)

If you want to know about the biggest/smallest, fastest/slowest, and more extremes in the bird world, I found this interesting list.

However, nowhere in the wild world are you going to find a bird like this next one that I just learned about yesterday. You have to see it to believe it, so click on the link watch the video, and be amazed. (I should mention that this is where the robots come in.)

Watch it here.

Written on January 29th, 2012 , Nature Tags: animals, birds, technology

Creature Feature: Carnivorous Plants

For a while now, ever since I moved my tropical fish into a larger aquarium, I’ve wanted to build a terrarium in their old 10 gallon fish tank. I wanted to create a little mini ecosystem in which a couple of interesting plants and a couple of small animals – perhaps a little lizard of some sort and/or some tiny frogs or a turtle – could all live in symbiotic harmony.

In particular, I wanted a carnivorous plant, so that I could name it ‘Audrey 2’ and sing songs about it stubbornly refusing to grow.

After a period of unsuccessful Googling for information, I even wrote to Dr. Barry Rice, who runs a website about carnivorous plants (among other things) to find out what sorts of other plants and animals would work well in a terrarium with meat-eating plants.

Turns out my whole premise was flawed. Apparently the reason I couldn’t find any information on how to do it was that it couldn’t be easily done. Carnivorous plants are carnivorous because they evolved in nutrient poor soil. But animals excrete nitrogen in their waste. The excess of nitrogen the animals would deposit would poison the plants.

What’s good for the daisies ain’t good for the fly traps.

And that’s on top of the fact that the animals would tend to fight or eat each other in such a small space, which is why zoos have so many exhibits instead of tossing them all into the same big cage.

Alas, another great idea laid waste by reality.

But the idea of getting a carnivorous plant or two has stuck with me. And I’ve learned a lot by researching them.

For example, there’s an International Carnivorous Plant Society. They put out a newsletter and everything. Their website has oodles of information.

Another great source for information is the Botanical Society of America. They detail all the different types of carnivorous plants, which they say runs to 600 species in 9 plant families. That was a lot more that I expected.

I was also surprised to learn that the ordinary Venus Fly Trap was native to the sandy Coastal Plains of North Carolina, and that it was North Carolina’s Official State Carnivorous Plant. I thought that such a strange and interesting plant would be native to the jungles of South America or Australia, but it turned out we had one right here in the U. S.

And most recently, I’ve been reading about these newly discovered carnivorous plants that trap tiny worms underground using subterranean leaves. (Click here for the scientific article.)

And btw, there are also carnivorous fungi. Which, for some reason, I find significantly more disturbing.

Written on January 22nd, 2012 , Nature Tags: fungi, music, plants

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