May 27, 2011

Australasian Gannet

The Australasian Gannet (Morus serrator or Sula bassana, also Australian Gannet, Takapu) is a large seabird of the gannet family Sulidae.

Adults are mostly white, with black flight feathers at the wingtips and lining the trailing edge of the wing. The central tail feathers are also black. The head is yellow, with a pale blue-grey bill edged in black, and blue-rimmed eyes.

Young birds have mottled plumage in their first year, dark above and light below. The head is an intermediate mottled grey, with a dark bill. The birds gradually acquire more white in subsequent seasons until they reach maturity after five years.

YOUNG BIRDS

Their breeding habitat is on islands off Victoria, Tasmania and New Zealand. They normally nest in large colonies on coastal islands. A large exception is the protected colony on the mainland at Cape Kidnappers (5000 pairs). There are also mainland colonies at Muriwai and Farewell Spit.

Gannets generally mate for life and the presence of the male on the nest helps him renew contact with the female when she arrives. Young birds arrive last and are forced to establish nests on the colony’s boundary or sometimes on a few inner sites left unoccupied by the death of older birds. Once the pair bond is established, the male begins to gather material for the nest while the female defends the nest itself. Analysis at White Island and Cape Kidnappers has shown the nesting material to be of coarse brown seaweeds. The nest is constructed just beyond the pecking range of neighbours and during incubation the sitting bird’s excreta cements and consolidates the nest structure. A single egg is laid which may be replaced if broken or rolled out of the nest. Both the male and female incubate the egg in turn with the webs of both feet placed over the egg although towards the end of the incubation period of 42–44 days the egg is transferred to the top of the feet. The naked blind and helpless chick is fed by gurgitation by both parents; one guarding the nest while the other is out gathering food.

Gannet pairs may remain together over several seasons. They perform elaborate greeting rituals at the nest, stretching their bills and necks skywards and gently tapping bills together. The adults mainly stay close to colonies, whilst the younger birds disperse.

These birds are plunge divers and spectacular fishers, plunging into the ocean at high speed. They mainly eat squid and forage fish which school near the surface.

Numbers of Australasian Gannet have been increasing since 1950, although some colonies have disappeared and others have decreased in size.

These photos were taken May 19, 2011.  I always think of Lewis and Clark and their journeys on this river.

On the bluff looking northeasterly across the river toward Townsend.

The cottonwoods are finally beginning to leaf out.

The trail along the bluff.

Looking southeasterly upriver.  A few miles from here is the Three Forks of the Missouri that featured prominently in the annals of the Corps of Discovery.

This is not the river; it's a permanent slough fed by a spring.

THE MOUNTAIN BROOK

THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND -- A TROOP TRAIN PASSING THROUGH THE BIG CUT ON THE LOUISVILLE AND NASHVILLE RAILROAD

RED CLIFF

PART THREE

LEWISIA BRACHYCALYX (G. Engelmann ex A. Gray 1868)

This southern lewisia can be found in a variety of habitats.  All are parched but sheltered for half the year or more, well watered during the cool months, and soaked by snowmelt in the growing season.  It has been reported on sandy lakeshores, in rock pavements, and on highly fossilized limestone gravels, usually under high shade of oaks, pines, or junipers, but also on open grassy slopes and swales.

Although it is one of the smaller lewisias, Lewisia brachycalyx is no miniature; in fact, its visual effect is rather bold.  The handsome, usually simple rosette can reach 5 inches across but is usually only two-thirds that.  It rises from a deeply plunging, stout rootstock.  Each lovely goblet-shaped blossom is composed of five to nine petals, opening widely by day but closing at dusk.

LEWISIA REDIVIVA X BRACHYCALYX HYBRIDS

Mont Sainte Victoire

Cezanne planned every detail of each painting and none of his work work was a result of an accident. He painted and repainted, altered brush strokes, arranged and rearranged, made hundreds of sketches and drawings. Every brush stroke was important, none accidental. He wiped his brush clean after each stroke so that the color would be pure.

ONE HUNDRED FAMOUS VIEWS OF EDO (TOKYO) NUMBER FIFTY-SIX

MANNEN BRIDGE, FUKAGAWA

This startling composition is doubtless the most contrived in a series known for its contrivances.  First there is the complex frame, consisting in the foreground of a wooden bucket (which in Japanese style has a handle between vertical supports) and beyond that a section of the railing of Mannen Bridge.  Although neither of these frames makes sense spatially, the juxtaposition of turtle bucket and bridge heightens their geographical relationship, for Mannen Bridge lay at the entrance to the Onagi Canal running through the Fukagawa district, where turtles were bred for sale as pets. Another contrivance is the turtle itself.  It was a common custom in Edo for breeders of eels, carp and turtles to offer their wares near well-traveled bridges, for release into the rivers or canals below in the hopes of building up positive karma. The effect of the composition is to contrast the close, confined world of the turtle with the broader world of the river beyond, into which it will soon be released.

POLKA	POOH

ROYAL WORCESTER VASE

STARRUCA VIADUCT, PENNSYLVANIA

AVIONS Caudron C 460 replica

By the end of Labor Day weekend in 1936, a single blue French racer had the American pilots gnashing their teeth as they competed in the National Air Races in Los Angeles, California. As sleek as a barracuda and blazingly fast, the Avions Caudron C.460 had beaten America’s best aircraft in both the Greve trophy race for inline engine racers (with a speed of 247.3 mph), and the event that culminated the races that weekend, the free-for-all race for the Thompson Trophy. Michel Detroyat beat all comers including Earl Ortman and Harold Neumann with an average speed of 268 mph over the closed-course race. It would be the only time a foreign pilot and aircraft would win the top event at the NAR.

Two of four APPLE TREES we planted that survived the weather, the deer, and the woodpeckers.

CLOSER

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