Echoes in the Mist

Red Rock Canyon State Park is located in Southern California in the Mojave Desert. The canyon is composed of sandstone cliffs thousand’s of feet high, resting on ancient limestone and topped with volcanic rock. Check out these amazing formations! They reminded me of The Valley of the Kings in Egypt. (Click to enlarge).

The formations are approximately 14 million years old. The park is full of fossilized dinosaurs including elephants, extinct rhinos, three-toed horses, saber-tooth tigers and much more. It contains the richest concentrations of fossilized flora and fauna in Western North America. It is still being excavated by the Museum of Natural History.

Check out the people climbing in one area of the park. I included them so you could how massive these structures are!

The canyon sits on top of what was once an ancient inland lake. It is composed of sedimentary and igneous rock layers.

The vibrant…

This October 2018 video says about itself:

Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to take to the skies. Learn about the anatomical features that made their flight possible, how large some of these creatures grew, and which species was named after a vampire legend.

From the University of Leicester in England:

Baby pterodactyls could fly from birth

Discovery shows extinct flying reptile had the remarkable ability to fly from birth

June 12, 2019

A breakthrough discovery has found that pterodactyls, extinct flying reptiles also known as pterosaurs,

Pterodactylus really is only one pterosaur species among many (the earliest one discovered).

had a remarkable ability — they could fly from birth. This discovery’s importance is highlighted by the fact that no other living vertebrates today, or in the history of life as we know it, have been able to replicate this. This revelation has a profound impact on our understanding…

This video is female and male two-barred crossbills in Sweden, eating coniferous tree cones.

Courtship dance of male great bustards in early spring   © Jiri Bohdal

Great bustards have been already mentioned long time ago in older writings of Pliny the Elder as avis tarda, and in 1758 they were classified with their scientific name Otis tarda by Carl Linnaeus while the description tarda is Latin for slow and deliberate which is apt to describe the typical walking style of these possibly heaviest flying birds in the world who breed in southern and central Europe and across temperate Asia. European population are mainly resident, but Asian birds move further south in winter. Portugal and Spain now contain about 60 % of the world’s population (approx. 50,000 birds in total). The birds are often described as magnificent, stately birds because of the males’ great size, cocked tails and large white whiskers.

In the rural countryside of the great bustards

This species has suffered rapid…

Sometime during the 16^th century CE Salem and its surrounding areas which include Namakkal, Dharmapuri, and Attur, came under the rule of Madurai Nayakar kings. The kingdom of the Madurai Nayakar kings consisted of 72 smaller administrative regions called palayams headed by local chieftains who were called Palayakarars.Salem under the Madurai Nayakars rule came under thePalayakarars known as Gatti Mudali and Nayaks. Besides collecting taxes, they ably administered the regions they ruled, maintained armies, built forts and built or extended temples. The temples they built and those that were extended by them are architectural gems, showcasing their keen interest in art and architecture.

NAYAK TEMPLE ARCHITECTURE

A beautiful damsel and her parrot.Beautiful sculpture in a temple doorway

Nayak temple architecture had a distinct style. It was characterized by enormous multi-storied gateway towers called gopuram, richly decorated with brightly painted stucco figures of gods, goddesses demons…

This 2010 video from the USA says about itself:

Senator Sanders spoke about climate change science and compared critics of climate change [science] to deniers of the Nazi threat in the 1930s.

By Jake Johnson in the USA:

Thursday, May 30, 2019

Sanders Leads Top 2020 Contenders on Greenpeace Climate Scorecard While Biden Places Dead Last

“We are in a climate emergency. In 2020, true climate leadership means nothing less than saying ‘yes’ to a Green New Deal and ‘no’ to fossil fuels.”

Highlighting the chasm between two of the top 2020 presidential contenders when it comes to commitment to bold climate action, a scorecard released by Greenpeace Thursday placed Sen. Bernie Sanders at the front of the list of leading Democratic White House hopefuls and ranked former Vice President Joe Biden dead last.

“Sen. Sanders has championed bold climate action for years,” Greenpeace noted in its assessment…

This is a red-backed shrike video from Belarus.

Translated from the Dutch ornithologists of Stichting Bargerveen:

Friday, August 7th, 2015

Recently the first red-backed shrike which as a young bird had been provided with a data logger was caught again, in the Veluwe region. The data from these loggers provide important knowledge for protecting migratory routes of shrikes. In the search for more loggered shrikes help is welcome. On the northern Veluwe, in the Drents-Friese Wold and in and around the Bargerveen there is the greatest chance of success.

Last year 20 young shrikes in the Netherlands were provided with loggers, called geolocators, recording their migration routes. Two weeks ago the first loggered shrike was caught again, a male. For the first time we will get to know how young and inexperienced shrikes migrate compared to their experienced adult counterparts.

Dutch Bargerveen and Irish…

From PeerJ:

New snake species in Europe named after a long-forgotten Iron Age kingdom

May 28, 2019

An international team of scientists identified the snake and its range, which includes Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, and Russia including a small region extending into the corner of Europe. Based on the genetic and morphological data, the researchers were able to say that the Blotched Rat Snake (Elaphe sauromates) actually comprises two different species and includes a cryptic species — dubbed Elaphe urartica — that has been named after the old kingdom of Urartu.

The kingdom, forgotten for over a thousand years, flourished between the 9th and 6th centuries BCE in the region of today’s Armenian Highlands, centered around Lake Van in Turkey, where this new snake species occurs. The name was chosen out of respect for the original scientific name of the Blotched Rat Snake proposed…

Palaniappar temple on Koovai malai, a hillock in the foothills of Kolli Malai,  in Pallipatti 3kms from Belukurichi near Rasipuram,in Tamil Nadu stands out against the beautiful green backdrop of Kolli hills.

LEGEND

The name Belukurichi is derived from the ancient Tamil words Velavan Kurinji.

Velavan, another name for Murugan is the patron deity of Kurinji which is one of the five different landscapes categorized by the ancient Tamil people. Kurinji is the mountainous and hilly regions of the land. It is inhabited by Veddar, Kuravar and Kanavar tribes who are hunters.

Koovai malai is also called Koogai Malai. Koogai is the ancient Tamil word for the Owl. The Kolli hills as viewed from this hillock does look like a giant bird with outspread wings.

The people of the Kolli hills were hunters in those ancient times and they worshipped Murugan as one of their own, a hunter like themselves.

In…