Echoes in the Mist

Purple Honeycreeper (male), Trinidad

Trinidad is not the most popular island in the Caribbean. Many people have never even heard of it. But for those of us who embrace the glory of the natural rainforest and all the creatures who live in it, it is a paradise.

Here are some of my favorite winged creatures, found while spending a week on this small island eight miles (12 km) off the Venezuela coast. Trinidad Wikipedia.

A visit to the Caroni Swamp yielded many thousands of scarlet ibis. They flock to this protected swamp at night to roost. We sat in a boat and waited for them as the sun set.

Scarlet Ibis, Caroni Swamp, Trinidad

Caroni Swamp, Trinidad

In the rainforest, nectar-drinking birds like hummingbirds and honeycreepers were plentiful.

Tufted Coquette hummingbird, male, Trinidad

Green Honeycreeper, male, Trinidad

We were fortunate to see the rare oilbirds. There are only a few…

This video from England is called Excerpts from a month in front of a European Nightjar nest in the Forest of Dean in 2018.

From Lund University in Sweden:

The moon determines when migratory birds head south

October 16, 2019

A new study from Lund University in Sweden shows that the presence or absence of moonlight has a considerable bearing on when migratory birds take flight in the autumn.

Together with colleagues at the Department of Biology at Lund University, Gabriel Norevik studied European nightjars (Caprimulgus europaeus) and how the lunar cycle and moonlight affects the departure time when the birds start their three-month-long migration flight to areas south of the Sahara.

Using miniature data loggers, the researchers charted the activity of 39 European nightjars over a one-year period. The results show that the birds are more than twice as active in their hunt for insects during moonlit nights…

This 14 April 2018 video, in English with Greek subtitles, says about itself:

Carter’s Corner #6 – Neanderthals on Naxos!

From McMaster University in Canada:

Scientists find early humans moved through Mediterranean earlier than believed

October 16, 2019

An international research team led by scientists from McMaster University has unearthed new evidence in Greece proving that the island of Naxos was inhabited by Neanderthals and earlier humans at least 200,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously believed.

The findings, published today in the journal Science Advances, are based on years of excavations and challenge current thinking about human movement in the region — long thought to have been inaccessible and uninhabitable to anyone but modern humans. The new evidence is leading researchers to reconsider the routes our early ancestors took as they moved out of Africa into Europe and demonstrates their ability to…

This June 2017 video from the USA says about itself:

Trilobites are famous not just because they were so beautifully functional, or because they happened to preserve so well. They’re known the world over because they were everywhere!

From the CNRS in France:

Arthropods formed orderly lines 480 million years ago

October 17, 2019

Researchers studied fossilized Moroccan Ampyx trilobites, which lived 480 million years ago and showed that the trilobites had probably been buried in their positions — all oriented in the same direction. Scientists deduced that these Ampyx processions may illustrate a kind of collective behavior adopted in response to cyclic environmental disturbances.

Though our understanding of the anatomy of the earliest animals is growing ever more precise, we know next to nothing about their behaviour. Did group behaviour arise recently or is it primeval? To answer this question, researchers from the CNRS, the University of Poitiers…

Not Just a Pretty Tail – New research has revealed that the Lyrebird, Australia’s iconic songbird, with feet like garden rakes, and an appetite for worms and soil-dwelling insects, reduces the risk of bushfire by spreading dry leaf litter and digging safe havens that help other species survive fires.

China will boost efforts this year to rid itself of a strong addiction to coal in a bid to reduce damaging pollution as well as cut the energy intensity of its economy, which is expected to grow at its lowest rate in 25 years. They will raise wind, solar and natural gas capacity, which will also have an effect on commodities markets for crude oil and iron ore.

Moringa are known as ‘miracle’ treesbecause of their many uses as food and as a source of oil. Seeds from the trees are also used to purify water, and recent research has…

Cheeky little chippers,

stand their ground when you come close!

Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba Canada has a ‘Red Chair Program,’ where two red Adirondack chairs are placed at random, often remote locations throughout the park, encouraging you sit for a spell and soak up the scenery.

The park consists of 1,146mi² of mostly remote, scenic forest.

It is filled with pristine lakes,

and endless opportunities to soak up the solitary scenery.

Unfortunately we were a bit too early to see the birch leaves turn.

Cheers to you from Riding Mountain National Park~

Location: Machu Picchu, Peru

The big day has finally arrived. We’ve been discussing going to visit Machu Picchu for years. But we never actually pulled the trigger on the trip for variety of reasons: time off from work, other vacations took priority, concerns about customs regulations, etc. But after years of putting it off, we’ve finally booked everything in February. Eight months later and we are here.

Today was another full day with an o’dark thirty wake up time. We got out of bed at 4:30 AM, got breakfast, and then was picked up by our tour guide at the hotel at 5:40. We joined the rest of our group and walked to the bus station to catch a ride up the mountain to visit Machu Picchu.

Our tour started at the main entrance and long climb up to the observation terraces. Our tour guide made frequent stops to provide…

This 2013 video is about Cladocora caespitosa coral in the Mediterranean.

From the University of Barcelona in Spain:

Survival strategy found in living corals which was only seen in fossil records

October 15, 2019

Some corals can recover after massive mortality episodes caused by the water temperature rise. This survival mechanism in the marine environment -known as rejuvenation- had only been described in some fossil corals so far. A new study published in the journal Science Advances reveals the first scientific evidence of the rejuvenation phenomenon in vivo in Cladocora caespitosa coral colonies, in the marine reserve in Columbrets, in the coast of Castellón (Spain).

The authors of the study are the experts Diego Kersting and Cristina Linares, from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona.

Heatwaves, more and more common in…

This 1 September 2019 video says about itself:

The eerie calls of Common Loons echo across clear lakes of the northern wilderness. Summer adults are regally patterned in black and white. Listen to the calls of the four other types of North American Loons.