Birds Over the Bay

A nesting pair of osprey,  reunited after separating for the winter and living it up down ol' South America way.

It's no secret that I love the Chesapeake Bay. And while nothing beats getting out on the water, sometimes there are a lot of exciting things happening right above it as well. Back in March while on an Alternative Break trip with the University of Maryland, I was lucky enough to catch a brief encounter that took place over Parrish Creek in Shady Side, Maryland. The resident osprey (Pandion haliaetus) couple had returned from their winter vacation, and made their way to their regular nesting platform. Lucky for me, they weren't the only raptors around that day.

Wildlife Photography

One of the things I love to do most is get out into nature.  And since you can't (and shouldn't, really) always bring nature home with you, I love to take pictures.  Plants, critters, landscapes; they're all waiting to get captured by the lens.  And with the advent of digital photography, huge memory cards, and the ability to auto-focus, I find myself with lots of photos of wild things and wild places.  They usually get dumped in a folder on my computer, and that's about it.  But recently, I grabbed a few Recoup (like Groupon, but supporting a cause) vouchers for hardcover photo books from a company called PhotoBin, and spent a pretty fair amount of time looking for some of the better shots to print in coffee table style books.  They came out pretty well, and I'm looking forward to sharing them with guests as they drop by the house.  But now that I've gotten some of my photos sorted, I figure the Interwebs would be a pretty good place to share them as well.

A male osprey (Pandion haliaetus carolinensis) faces off against a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus).  More of this story to come.

Summer in the Butterfly Garden

Back in early May, I decided to give myself a birthday present and do something beneficial for my yard and wildlife by planting a butterfly garden.  I spent a large part of the summer tweeting about the Maryland native plants that I chose to attract butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds, but wanted to share a little more of the story here. I took what was the area I had been using as a tree nursery, and cleared a little more space for over two dozen species of native shrubs and flowers.  The plot went from this...

Things I Learned This Semester #30

I'll admit, I'm a bit of a collector.  And when it comes to my passion for natural history, there aren't many exceptions.  Fossils, plant specimens for the garden, even toys (I'm not proud... well, maybe a little); all collected.  And I love wildlife and wild places, so I collect them too.  But bringing home the Great Smokey Mountains or an American alligator is a bit of a stretch.  So I collect things like that in pictures.  I know some really talented photographers, and I'm not one of them. In my experience, I've learned it's not the lens or the camera; heck, with me it's not even the photographer.  It's all luck, in more ways than one. Being in the right place, at the right time. Being able to go to those places at all. Being able to see the things I've seen.  And sometimes, being able to bring them home with me. I'm a very lucky person, indeed.

More wildlife than you can shake a stick at, soaking up the sun on the banks of the St. Johns River in Florida.

Four Critters

A little over a week ago, I posted a ridiculously low quality image of the Spring Run at Florida's Blue Spring State Park, and told you all there were four critters in it.  As ambiguous as it was, I swear, they are actually there.  Take another look. Here is the huge version that hangs off the page.  Click it for a cleaner view.

New at the Zoo: Big cats, little cubs.

Two of the seven African lion cubs, now on exhibit (weather permitting) at the National Zoological Park.

Well, technically speaking this isn't "new" as the two litters of african lion cubs were born at the National Zoo back in August and September. But what is new is that the cubs have finally been introduced to their father, Luke, and that they have been spending a little time in their outdoor yards each day, meaning that you can finally go visit them! Two weekends ago, the Friends of the National Zoo hosted an exhibit debut for FONZ members, and I was lucky enough to get a chance to meet the pride. I thought I'd take the opportunity to share some of my photos from the day.

SVP 2010 (Day 3): Archosaurs All Over

Wow, today was a long one. But certainly a good one. I started out the morning in the vertebrate joint symposium with a squamate mandibular symphysis talk by Dr. Casey Holliday, but with the exception of one hominid hip joint talk, it was all archosaurs of the air after that. I managed to make it to one of the only two pterosaur talks of this years meeting, and spent the rest of the morning in Technical Session X for some bird stuff. I've talked about it before, and read through most of the papers on the subject at this point in time, but hearing the fossil feather color talk blew my mind all over again. It was also interesting to learn that the research that lead to the discovery of fossil melanosomes in dinosaur feathers had started with fossil cephalopod ink. There were several talks on new finds in China, and as always, some talks on WAIR and the origin of flight in dinosaurs.

SVP 2010 (Day 1): A Night at the Museum

And what a night it was! The Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) played host to the SVP's 70th Annual Meeting Welcome Reception, opening its doors and several of its halls for a fantastic evening. Good food, good friends, good times all around. But despite all of that, the real stars of the show were the fossil vertebrates. This post will talk about a few of the dinosaurs (don't worry non-dinosaur folks, I talk about other vrertebrates in future posts, I swear), in their new exhibit "Dinosaurs in their Time". Here for your viewing pleasure, are a few photos of them (obligatory shot of me with Allosaurus fragilis at left).

"Guess the Squamate" Roundup

A month and some change back I posted some of my photos from the "Lizards & Snakes: ALIVE!" exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History and asked you all to to do a little homework. Well, fellow blogger Susan stepped up to the challenge and successfully named each one of the squamates I photographed. As promised, now it's time to briefly talk a little about each of them and their relationships with one another. I'll also be including a ton of Wikipedia links so that those who want to find out more about the species or clade I'm talking about can easily do so (I normally take Wikipedia with a grain of salt, but to be fair, they are starting to cite a lot of references so check those out too).

The first squamate pictured was the serpent Corallus caninus, commonly known as the emerald tree boa. This boid is a arboreal native of the rain forests of South America, and as you can see, is a pretty good looking animal. This specimen in particular is seen in a typical Corallus pose, coiled around the branch of a tree, head in center. It will remain like this for most of the daylight hours, as it is a nocturnal hunter. Staying coiled up as it hunts, it extends the head and neck out, waiting patiently for a small mammal, bird, or frog to pass by before it strikes with atypically large teeth for a non-venomous snake. It then pulls it's prey in, and like other boas, constricts it until it suffocates. And for those who already think snakes are creepy enough, here's a fun fact for you: Corallus is ovoviviparous, meaning that the mother never lays eggs, but rather, retains them inside of her body as the young develop and hatch, until she finally gives birth to live young (Mehrtens 1987). Awesome.

Squamates in art.

No, not paintings of polychrotids nor sculptures of scincids, but plenty of photos of pythonids! Artist Guido Mocafico has two beautiful sets of photos of serpents of all shapes and sizes posted on his website (among other fantastic images). I highly recommend checking out the rest of the photos. If you're not a snake fan now, you will be after you see the grace and elegance of the limbless tetrapods highlighted in these photos. Well maybe not, but enjoy nontheless!

Gonyosoma oxycephalum © Guido Mocafico, 2003 (from his website).

Life.

I love it. All of it. If there's one thing about Earth that I'd say I'm most enamored with, it is Life and the natural world. It's myriad forms are all around us, and on some level, inspire or teach me every day.

But sometimes, my life becomes so full that I find it difficult to really enjoy it. Or blog about it. This saddens me. I haven't' had a very substantial post (let alone a post at all) in quite some time. But that will soon change. I promise I'll be back very soon, finishing up post series that I started long ago, answering questions I posed to readers, and generally doing what I set out to do with this blog in the first place: write about science and life on Earth, and share the wonder of the natural world with anyone who wants to learn about it.

Until next time, enjoy this photo of an eastern chipmunk, Tamias striatus. And while on the subject, I highly suggest checking out powerpig's photoset "Critters". As a science geek and sci-fi nerd, I approve!

Some of the "wildlife" you can find roaming the grounds of the National Zoological Park.

Since I'm really busy, identify these squamates.

A few weeks back, I did a teaser post on my trip to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and promised some meatier posts and pictures. I should apologize. My life has gotten really busy with work, school, and personal matters to attend to. But I also can't stand to let Superoceras sit for over a week with no activity. So here is another quick post, featuring some of my photos from the "Lizards & Snakes: ALIVE!" exhibition.

Squamates and hominids and dinosaurs, oh my!

Me and "the family" in the Spitzer Hall of Human Origins.

I am a lucky, lucky boy. For my birthday, I was gifted (thanks Christina!) an admission ticket to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. This is only the third time I've been able to walk the halls of the AMNH, but it was the first time I was granted an entire day to do so at my leisure. My usual trips up are with groups, and we've have to move quickly to get through things and be back on a bus by a given time. Even with an entire day, the museum is much too vast to cover. I probably managed to get through about one fourth of it, and I was rushing a little to cover as much ground as possible. Regardless, it was a great day, and I came back with lots of photos and information that I look forward to sharing with my readers.

One less tiger in the world.

Rokan

Sad news yesterday from the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. Rokan, the almost 20 year old Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), was euthanized after several years of worsening health conditions. He was an amazing big cat who sired 10 cubs during his lifetime. He should be remembered and celebrated for the contributions he made to tiger conservation efforts. You can read more about the story at the Zoo's Tiger Diary.

Gotta clade 'em all!

My friend Peter has started his own blog (The Nameless Blog) about video games, and has published more posts in his first week than I did in my first month. If you're a gamer I highly recommend you check it out. But his writing has inspired me to write about one of my gaming experiences that, surprisingly, I can tie into the science/nature/education content I like to write about here at Superoceras.

I'm not going to lie to any of you. Back in the fall of 1998, my interests in speculative biology, video games, and collecting things all merged together in what I considered to be the coolest trend of the day: Pokémon. I probably shouldn't admit it, but I spent a great deal of time capturing, training, and battling those little "pocket monsters". I even did a phylogeny of the first 151 creatures as a gag with a friend of mine. I wish I could find it. Don't lie, you want to see it too.