Nature – Page 5 – Geeky Girl Engineer

Cueva Ventana

Posted on November 20, 2015 by geek

I got to visit Cueva Ventana (Window Cave) today in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The tour starts by walking by Pee Wee Cave, which only meets the bare minimum requirements of a cave. You don’t go in. There is no point or room really. There is a short walk through the forest, which when I visited meant getting to see among other things a bunch of giant snails on the trees. Then you walk through cave number two, which I don’t think they actually named. The middle portion of this cave is, well, cavernous, with huge ceilings and wide walls. However the walk through it is fairly short. Then you walk down an extremely steep path to get to the actual Cueva Ventana. There are bats living in there among the limestone columns. At the end of the cave is the Ventana. It has amazing views of the Arecibo River valley. The valley is gorgeous, and you can see the mountains beyond. The tour is worth the view alone. However the caves are really neat to see also, and I love bats, so getting to hear and see them was also a highlight. Sadly while there, you can see vandalism from years past, but tourism is now helping to support security and clean up for the site.

Entrance to Cave 2

Entrance to Cave 2, at very lower left side of dark cave area, opening on other side of cave is visible

Cave 2

Opening to Cave 2

Entrance to Cueva Ventana

Columns in Cueva Ventana

Stalagmite in Cueva Ventana

Ceiling of Cueva Ventana

Floor and side of Cueva Ventana

Cueva Ventana’s Window to Arecibo River valley

Arecibo River valley viewed through Cueva Ventana’s Window

Iguana

Posted on November 15, 2015 by geek

While touring El Morro, I discovered that it is guarded by a platoon of iguanas. I will assume that is what they are all doing there. That, and most of them seem to be there because they know that is where there is a lot of tourists, and the iguanas like to have their photos taken. Iguanas are hams. One was posing on the top level. I took a few photos, walked away to take photos of the fort, and walked back. The iguana had moved closer to the edge and where the people were. I kneeled down and got out my macro lens, and the iguana obliged by posing to make sure its best side was shown while I took photos for several minutes. Now, I only do what the iguana clearly wanted and post its photos.

The iguana as I first encountered it, on guard duty at El Morro

“The fort has enough fame, take MY photo”

“Here let me get closer, so you can get a better photo”

“Perhaps you’d like to see my other side”

Very pretty spines

Bumps on the upper torso (I’m sure there is a scientific name)

Beautiful face

Pretty spines

“But really I have no bad side”

Milkweed Beauty

Posted on November 9, 2015 by geek

I went on a road trip with four friends. Three of those friends, like myself, are photography geeks. We had an absurd amount of camera gear with us. As part of our road trip, we went to Fort Necessity National Park. There we are looking at this historic site, and the four photographers become obsessed with some milkweed seed pods. They are so cool though! Without further ado, some of my photos of the milkweed seed pods.

Milkweed

Cape Sounion

Posted on June 27, 2015 by geek

This afternoon, the tour group I am with went to Cape Sounion, which southeast of Athens to see the Sanctuary of Poseidon. The trip was worth it just for the view during the ride and especially at Cape Sounion. The Aegean Sea is so amazingly beautiful and so blue.

Sanctuary of Poseidon

View from Cape Sounion

Cherry Blossoms

Posted on April 20, 2015 by geek

Cherry blossom time is about one of the nicest times of the year in the Washington, DC area. I took two trips to the Tidal Basin to photograph the blossoms during peak bloom. Below are a few of my favorite photos.

Cherry blossoms

Jefferson Memorial and cherry blossoms around Tidal Pool

Cherry blossoms

Cherry blossoms around Tidal Pool

Cherry blossoms

Cherry blossoms around Tidal Pool (MLK monument is on the left)

Cherry blossoms

Cherry blossoms around Tidal Pool

Washington Monument with cherry blossoms

Snow

Posted on March 7, 2015 by geek

When I took Ferdinand out to play in the snow, I also took photographs of the snow. A fresh coating of several inches of snow has an amazing way of making everything look peaceful and beautiful. I like the way it sort of unifies everything. You are not sure where the grass and plants end and the rocks begin.The snow calls attention to the shape of branches and how thick they are or are not.

NMNH Cetacean Collection

Posted on August 25, 2014 by geek

Friday I got the incredible opportunity to take a behind the scenes tour of Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History. They let a small group of people take a tour of the cetacean collection stored in an offsite location. NMNH has the largest marine mammal collection in the world, and it is awesome. [More properly said, the people of the USA have this amazing collection, and NMNH has been endowed to take care of it.] Most of their specimens are not on display to the public but are stored offsite and in a manner where they can easily be studied. Charley Potter and Nick Pyenson, scientists at NMNH, showed us many of the cetacean specimens, talked about what they do, and answered our questions. I want to thank NMNH and their staff, especially Hilary-Morgan Watt, Katie Sabella, and Trish Mace, for letting us take this amazing tour. Also, thank you to Steve Thornton, a visiting researcher, who gave us a detailed description of how dolphins use their nasal passages to make noises, which at least in my humble opinion is fascinatingly and amazingly complicated. Also, I would like to thank them for having their specimen collection online. I missed some of the species names of specimens we looked at, but because the specimen number was visible in some of my photos, I was able to look up information about the specimen through their website. This is an incredible resource.

They had two bottlenose dolphin skulls out sitting side by side. One was from a coastal bottlenose dolphin, and one was from an offshore one. When sitting side by side, it was easy to see how much smaller the coastal one was than the offshore one. The morphological differences relate to their different eating habits, as the offshore ones feed on larger animals.

Bottlenose dolphin skulls, on left is coastal one, on right is offshore one

Coastal bottlenose dolphin skull

They had part of a forelimb bone from a right whale. The fungal like growth on it was bone that had grown around something on which it had been entangled.

Right whale forelimb bone with entanglement growth

Right whale forelimb bone with entanglement growth (zoomed in)

There was a drawer filled with narwhal tusks. Only males have the tusks, and most twist in the same direction. Most have a polished end. Up close they really pretty and have interesting texturing. They are hollow with varying diameters.

Narwhal tusks

Narwhal tusk

In the same cabinet as the narwhal tusks are pieces of baleen. Baleen can be used to distinguish different types of whales and is fast growing like hair. Examining the baleen can give information about the trophic feeding level of the whale and can give up to 40 years worth of information on the whale and water conditions, by analyzing it along different points along its length. Before plastics and fiberglass was invented, baleen was split into rods and used in such things as umbrella skeletons, of which they have one.

Baleen, Charley Potter is holding one piece. In box in drawer is an umbrella skeleton made from baleen.

Baleen

Baleen, zoomed into hairy edge

They have an amazing collection of skulls. There are skulls upon skulls filling up shelves. The skulls are placed side by side by species and thus can compared easily. There were numerous Baird’s beaked whale skulls that had various shades of white and off white depending on the conditions in which they were found.

Baird’s beaked whale skulls

Baird’s beaked whale skull

Baird’s beaked whale skull, zoomed in

The Blainville’s beaked whale skulls were really interesting. The males have two giant, erupted, modified teeth on their jaw, which are used for combat. The beaked whale skulls are the only skulls which can be sexed. The males have very dense skulls and thus are quite heavy when compared to the female skulls that were approximately the same size. They let us life each one by the beak, and the difference was really obvious.

Blainville’s beaked whale skulls, female on left, male on right

Blainville’s beaked whale jaw

Male Blainville’s beaked whale teeth

They were still processing some specimens. There was a pilot whale skull out that had a lot dried soft tissue attached to it.

Pilot whale skull

Pilot whale skull, zoomed in on soft tissue

There was another skull sitting next to the pilot whale skull that was some type of beaked whale. I was completely fascinated by the porousness of the bone.

Beaked whale skull

Beaked whale skull, zoomed in

There was also a bag full of vertebrae. I don’t know what species it was from, but the pattern on the vertebrae was really interesting.

vertebrae

In an adjoining building they had the bones from the really large whales. The building was complete with a giant garage type door through which to bring the specimens. There were shelves filled entire vertebral columns from various whales. On the floor was the skeleton of a right whale.

Right whale bones

All the skulls were propped up on metal carts. They were placed vertical for easy study. Because of the way a Sei whale skull was placed vertical, the radiating lines on the palette could be easily seen. All baleen whales have these lines, and the lines house blood vessels and nerves that feed the baleen.

Sei whale skull

Sei whale skull baleen marks

There were several gray whale skulls all sitting next to each other. The skulls were collected from various years and includes one from pre-1850s. The genetic makeup of the whales before and after the whaling industry can be compared, and it will give information about the genetic bottleneck that occurred due to whaling and the diminished population.

Gray whale skulls

They also had a blue whale jaw bone that is not only the largest blue whale jaw bone ever collected, it is also the largest single bone ever collected from any creature that has lived on Earth.

Blue whale jaw bone

Finally there was a North Atlantic blue whale skull, which was just amazing to view. It completed dwarfed us when we gathered for a group photo in front of it.

North Atlantic blue whale skull

#SIWhales participants with the North Atlantic blue whale skull

Vermont Nature

Posted on July 26, 2014 by geek

After visiting the Green Mountain Audubon Center, we visited the Richmond area and also went north of Burlington to the area where the Winooski River flows into Lake Champlain. The area is really pretty, and of course Lake Champlain is gorgeous.

Sunflower

Coneflowers

Buttonbush

Cute little frog (I think my silhouette is actually reflected in his eye)

Winooski River delta

Lake Champlain marshy area

Lake Champlain

Green Mountain Audubon Center

Posted on July 26, 2014 by geek

I came to Vermont for a conference, but I arrived a day early to do a little sightseeing. One place we visited was the Green Mountain Audubon Center outside Huntington. It is a really lovely place to wander around for several hours. It has a hemlock swamp, a gorgeous river running through it, forests full of ferns, and lots of pretty flowers. We also saw a few nice birds, and I saw some really cool looking insects, which I cannot identify.

Fern forest

Huntington River

Swamp

American red squirrel

Beetle?

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Fern frond

Milkweed

Insect

Flower

Flying Over Greenland

Posted on June 3, 2014 by geek

My flight back home from Iceland flew over the southern tip of Greenland. It was an afternoon flight, and it was an almost cloudless sky. Luckily I had a window seat and my camera at my feet. Actual, it wasn’t luck. I always get a window seat if I can. Also, I trust neither the TSA nor any airline with my camera, so it is always carried on the plane. Greenland is gorgeous from above. Not so sure I want to visit though, maybe, for a short visit sometime. I’ve been to Antarctica, so perhaps I should venture to the arctic also.