Nature – Page 10 – Geeky Girl Engineer

Weird Sign

Posted on December 29, 2013 by geek

I saw this weird sign today that I am hoping someone can explain to me. I know it is a joke, but I am fairly sure I am not fully grasping the joke. I know Agapanthus is derived from Greek to mean love flower, and I know it is a genus of flowers that includes what is commonly called the lily of the Nile. Thus clearly, Agapanthus is not going to be attacking anyone. I still feel like I am not fully getting this joke. Can anyone elaborate on it?

Edited to add: This has been proposed as a possible explanation. If anyone can confirm or knows something different, I would love to hear it.

South Texas Birding

Posted on December 29, 2013 by geek

I spent the day birding in south Texas. The area around the Rio Grande has some amazing birds to see, birds that you won’t see anywhere else in the United States. Below are a few highlights of what I saw, including some pretty plants.

White-tipped Dove

Red-winged blackbird

Prickly pear

Northern cardinal and Great kiskadee

Green jay

Plain chachalaca

Northern cardinal and green jay

Cactus

Altamira Oriole

Agave

USBG Holiday Exhibit

Posted on December 7, 2013 by geek

The United States Botanical Garden has an annual holiday exhibit that consists of fantasy model trains running through, by, and over various bridges, tunnels, and model structures. They also have models of numerous DC structures and buildings. All the models except the trains are made of natural materials and are built with amazing detail. They are simply gorgeous and the use of natural material is just genius. The model train exhibit also smells wonderful due to all the cedar in the room. Definitely worth the visit.

: Three bridges at model train exhibit

: Railroad support

: Blimp at model train exhibit

: Train exhibit pavilion

: Seattle Space Needle

: Model train on truss bridge

: Ferris wheel at model train exhibit

: Model train tunnel

: Unisphere at model train exhibit

: Hot air balloon at model train exhibit

: Model train exhibit

: Jefferson Memorial

: Library of Congress

: Library of Congress

: Library of Congress

: Lincoln Memorial

: National Museum of the American Indian

: Smithsonian Institute The Castle

: US Botanical Garden

: US Botanical Garden

: US Capitol

: US Capitol

: US Capitol

: US Capitol

: US Capitol

: US Supreme Court

: US Supreme Court

: US Supreme Court

: Washington Monument

: White House

Prospect Park in Fall

Posted on November 16, 2013 by geek

I spent part of the day wandering through Prospect Park in Brooklyn. I had never been there before, but I think I could spend much more time there. I saw several birds, but they alluded photographs. While many of the trees had lost their leaves, some trees were still in their glorious fall color.

Theodore Roosevelt Island

Posted on October 19, 2013 by geek

I spent a little time on Theodore Roosevelt Island National Park today. It is a nice little park in the Potomac River. Visually, it is hard to believe that this wilderness area is right in between the congested areas of Washington, DC and the Rosslyn area of Arlington, VA. However, as it is in the flight path of National Airport, and I-66 actually runs over the southern section of the island, you can hear how close you are to the urban areas. It is still a nice area, and as fall has come, many of the leaves were starting to show beautiful color. It also has lovely views of Arlington and the surrounding bridges over the Potomac. Also, I finally got some good photographs of double-crested cormorants.

Cattails

Red oak

Poison ivy

Mushrooms growing on a tree

Marsh area

Rosslyn

Key Bridge

Crowdsourcing Bird ID

Posted on October 7, 2013 by geek

Are you a birder? I need your help. I’ve been uploading photos that I have taken of birds to my website for a new section called appropriately enough Birds. In the course of organizing the photos, I’ve found I have some photos of birds that I never identified, mainly because I could never figure out what they were. So if you know birds, could you help a fellow, but admittedly very much novice, birder out? If you can identify any of the birds, please let me know by leaving me a comment. I have included the date and location the photo was taken with each photo. THANK YOU!

Mystery bird 1: Gull, I’m assuming a juvenile, but what species? Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, June 27, 2008 [update: this has been tentatively IDed as a great black-backed gull]

Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, June 27, 2008

Mystery bird 2: Gull, I’m assuming a juvenile, but what species? Bodie Island, North Carolina, June 28, 2008

Bodie Island, North Carolina, June 28, 2008

Mystery bird 3: My best guess is this is a semipalmated sandpiper. There was a small flock of them. My main concern with this guess is that I took the photo June 30, 2012 on Caladesi Island in Florida, and this seems a bit early for a semipalmated sandpiper to be in Florida.

Mystery bird 4: I’m at a loss with this one. Some exotic game bird perhaps? Taken September 23, 2011 near the Nature Conservancy’s Great Salt Lake Shoreland north of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Mystery bird 5: I’m guessing juvenile red-naped sapsucker. Taken July 13, 2011 at Kootenai Falls near Libby, Montana.

Collecting Acorns

Posted on October 5, 2013 by geek

This morning I joined several other members of Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment (ACE) to collect native acorns and other nuts in Lubber Run Park. The nuts are given to Growing Native which then donates them to state nurseries in the area to grow and plant to restore watersheds. That was the plan at least. Most likely due to the weather, there were not that many acorns, and those that had fallen had already been claimed by squirrels and other animals. Most of us ended up picking up a bunch of trash as we wandered through the park. In fact below is my haul. I make a much better trash collector than a squirrel. I found one viable acorn, a bunch of trash and recyclables, and one archeological find (sort of), a vintage Pepsi bottle.

My haul after an hour in the park

Luckily other participants did much better than me. Overall, we had a pretty nice haul.

Nut sorting

Then all the nuts had to be sorted though. It was a group effort to try to identify which type of oak tree produced the various acorns. Even consulting the books, we were still sort of guessing at some of them.

Consulting reference material to identify the acorns

We sorted them as best we could, then bagged the various type acorns and other nuts separately to give to Growing Native.

Bagging the nuts

Hopefully at least some of the collected nuts will be viable and produce saplings. At the very least, it was a nice couple of hours spent in a nice park, and we removed a bunch of trash.

The nut and trash collecting volunteers from ACE

Boat Ride from Chincoteague Island

Posted on August 10, 2013 by geek

I took a two hour cruise around the waterways of Chincoteague Island and Assateague Island today with Chincoteague Cruises and Nature Tours. It was a lovely day for a cruise, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Unfortunately we didn’t find any dolphins, but we did see some birds, Chincoteague ponies, horseshoe crabs, and jellyfish. We saw lots and lots of jellyfish in fact, such that I would never swim in the area where we cruised. The area is just beautiful, and the beauty becomes more clear when you can get away from all the tourists.

Assateague Island

Chincoteague Ponies with Cattle Egrets sitting on top of them

Chincoteague Ponies

Assateague Island Lighthouse

Jellyfish

Female and male horseshoe crabs

Female horseshoe crab

Dead horseshoe crab

NASA Wallops launchpad

Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge

Posted on August 9, 2013 by geek

Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is lovely, but it really should just be called mosquito paradise. If you go here and want to walk on any of the trails, insect spray will be necessary. I hate bug spray, but the mosquitoes are so bad, even I resorted to using it. However, the walk around the swamp was nice except for the mosquitoes. There were more swamp rose mallowes (Hibiscus moscheutos) in bloom than I have ever seen. I saw a few birds, but not that many. I would guess however that this is a great area to bird during migration season.

Swamp

Swamp with swamp roses

Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos)

grass

ferns

Common Cattail (Typha latifolia)

Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus)

Greater Yellowlegs, Semipalmated Sandpiper, and another shorebird

Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca), Semipalmated Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla), and another shorebird

Shenandoah National Park

Posted on August 4, 2013 by geek

I spent the day hiking and driving in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It is a beautiful park, and the weather was perfect. I was also treated to many insects going nuts on the flowers. The park has wonderful views of the area, including views that make it clear how the Blue Ridge Mountains got their name. I have identified the insects that I can. If anyone who happens to read this can identify or correct my identification, please contact me. I love to get the identifications correct. Edited to add: Thanks to Derek and friends on Twitter who have helped me identify the animals on this page!]