Nature – Page 2

Reflections on a Stormy Sky

May 6, 2019May 5, 2019 equipsblog4 Comments

Reflections on a stormy sky

Does the appearance of grey clouds

Reflect the storm of emotions that lie within

Or does the glimmer of sunshine

Better indicate what is really happening?

baleen If you do not have teeth and you need to eat tons of food each day, how do you get your food? If you are a whale, you may use baleen to filter the small plankton, shrimp and fish that flow into your mouth, along with the sea water. The sea water flows out through the gaps in your baleen while the food gets trapped within the baleen. One flick of your enormous tongue gathers up the trapped food and transfers it into your throat.

Although I knew about baleen from volunteering at the

Tide pool table — Note the California Grey Whale in the bin on the left hand side. Grey Whales are also baleen whales.

Tidepool Information Table at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, I learned even more during a recent dolphin watch adventure at the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach. Between April and September, the Atlantic Explorer takes guests out of Owl Creek, through Rudy Inlet into the Atlantic Ocean for a 90 minute trip to see juvenile Humpback Whales, Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins, perhaps some sea turtles and maybe some rays.

DSG_9828 Lady in krill costume in blue whale jaw

I knew that baleen was made from keraton, the same material that makes up your fingernails and hair. (It look sort of like the bristles in a push broom.) What I did not know was how the whale got the left-behind seafood from its baleen into its gullet. I also did not know that the Humpback Whale (49-52 foot female or the 43-46 foot male) had a throat the size of a grapefruit.

From Wikiepedia

Depending on the species, a baleen plate can be 0.5 to 3.5 m (1.6 to 11.5 ft) long, and weigh up to 90 kg (200 lb). Its hairy fringes are called baleen hair or whalebone-hair. They are also called baleen bristles, which in sei whales are highly calcified, with calcification functioning to increase their stiffness.^[1]^[2] Baleen plates are broader at the gumline (base). The plates have been compared to sieves or Venetian blinds

humpback whale

Follow the Sunset Path

April 27, 2019April 26, 2019 equipsblog6 Comments

Path ro Sunset.JPG

The path is well lit

Golden and glowing

How do I follow it?

I can’t swim to the sun

Like a mirage

No matter how hard

Or how fast

Or how far I travel

It keeps receding in the distance.

Yet as I drive along the water

The path to the sunset remains beside me.

Until it disappears into a whisper of darkness.

Happy National Park Week

April 24, 2019 equipsblog7 Comments

Get in you car and just for a lark

Drive to visit a National Park

From cities to country, the Parks cover them all

There is even a Park on the National Mall

If you have children, they need not be strangers

Most parks have a program for Junior Rangers

Each day of this week has had it’s own theme

Today is Wild Wednesday, do you have a scheme

To drive to a park and see what is there?

You might find a deer or maybe a bear.

Four hundred and eighteen national park sites

Each one is unique in its very own right.

Which ones have you seen? Which is the best?

Don’t get complacent. Go visit the rest!

Where Two Worlds Overlap

April 21, 2019April 20, 2019 equipsblogLeave a comment

Tidepool — Rocky Intertidal Shore (aka the Tide pools) at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, CA

Rocky Intertidal Shore
Two worlds in one, both to explore

Plants of sea and plants of land
Both live in this narrow band

Of sometimes sea and sometimes air
Opportunities to compare

Be careful when you move that rock
You may give a crustacean quite a shock

Plants’ and animals’ homes are here
So please don’t take a souvenir.

Take only pictures, leave only prints
It’s the only thing that makes good sense.

Mother Ocean is My Cathedral

April 20, 2019 equipsblog11 Comments

Mother ocean is my cathedral

Shore birds are my chorus

Kelp adorns my altar.

Salt air is my incense

Rhythmic waves maintain my chants.

God’s wonder provides my sermon.

Sunset is my Amen.

None of this is really mine,

But any of us may borrow it

If we let our senses believe.

Monarch Butterflies: The Missing Link

April 18, 2019April 21, 2019 equipsblog7 Comments

The Monarch butterflies are not only beautiful and have an incredible migration each year, they are also a key indicator species. Our world would be much less without them.

anima monday

It’s February and the butterflies are getting restless. The earth is warming. Clumped together and clinging to trees they are getting hungry and impatient. They have spent the whole winter in a state of diapause — a kind of suspended animation where body functions slow to a bare minimum. It is fanciful idea but I think of them in the wintertime as being between realms: not quite alive, not quite dead. Which might be a familiar sensation. Each and every one of these butterflies learned about patience and discomfort when they transitioned from caterpillar to imago. Now as the sun begins to warm their bodies as well as the land they are waking up to remember who they are. Groups spontaneously rise up in practice flights only to settle back down again. But there is strength in their wings. They remember what it is to be alive.