NATURE: Photos from the James

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Buck

Today, I went on a hike around the James River. It was a beautiful day with just enough clouds in the sky to appreciate the sunshine. The water was warm, and wildflowers are starting to carpet the forest floor along the James. Here are some of my favorite shots:

Cut-Leaf Toothwort (Dentaria sp.) ?

Atamasco Lily (Zephyranthes atamasco)

Some flowers from a pawpaw tree (Asimina triloba). The pawpaw is a native tree that produces an edible fruit. Although the pawpaw is a temperate species, the fruit looks and tastes tropical. Pawpaws grow as understory amongst hardwood trees. I noticed that these flowers were being visited by ants, which are probably their pollinators. Pawpaw trees thrive along the James River and Richmond, Virginia.

Video: Tiny Desk Kitchen: What The Heck Is A Pawpaw?

Virginia Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica)

CAN YOU SEE ME? | ANIMAL CAMOUFLAGE

Posted on November 20, 2011 by Buck

Image via Struggle for life on Flickr

See more animal camouflage here on The Conservation Report.

PHOTO OF THE DAY: Remains of a river delta discovered on Mars

Posted on September 4, 2011 by Buck

More via the European Space Agency:

Eberswalde crater contains a rare case of a martian delta. Channels which fed the lake in the crater are very well preserved. The delta deposits and channels together provide a clear indication of liquid surface water during the early history of Mars.

Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

PHOTO OF THE DAY: Fireflies & star trails

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Buck

Here’s another excellent photo via APOD, and it looks great as computer wallpaper!

More on this image via APOD:

Explanation: Fix your digital camera to a tripod, start a long series of exposures, and you too can record star trails. The concentric arcs traced by the stars as planet Earth rotates on its axis often produce dreamlike scenes in otherwise familiar situations. Fall asleep, though, and the results might surprise you. Setting up on a summer night, photographer Mike Rosinski began his exposures, initially planning to capture about 45-55 minutes worth of star trails from his yard in Hartland, Michigan, USA. But he dozed, only to awaken some 3 hours later to find his camera had continued to run until the battery died. Composing the resulting images, the graceful concentric star trails were expected, along with light from a late rising Moon glinting on windows. Still, as he slept on the warm night a blizzard of yellow streaks flooded the scene, not left by fairies but fireflies.