Category: nature

The Sea Lily Walks

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Hi, Mr. Nature here, with our first video of 2016.

Here is an animal which most people, looking at it, would think was a plant. Scientists call it a crinoid. Some people call it a sea lily. These are very commonly found as fossils, but as you can see, they’re still around today.

This footage was taken by a camera on the deep bottom of the sea. Hey, is that the flower’s stalk dragging after it? Yes, that’s what it is. Imagine seeing that in your garden: a tulip crawling along, dragging its stalk behind it. Except, of course, the crinoid is an animal, related to the starfish. And it can detach its stalk from whatever it’s clinging to.

Doesn’t God make cool stuff? I mean, really, if you were creating the world, would you have ever thought of crinoids?

 

A Most Pettable Pet

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Oh-ho-ho, you and me,/Giant brown rat upon my knee…

Hi, everybody, Mr. Nature here–with the Gambian pouched rat. If you look around youtube, you’ll find a lot of people have these as pets.

Around here we’ve had many regular mice and rats as pets. Their only fault is that they have short life spans. Rats and mice are smart, affectionate, and cuddly. In fact, they’re so smart that, if they lived ten years or so, they’d be winning chess tournaments and giving financial advice.

I don’t know how our cats would like sharing quarters with a Gambian pouched rat or any other kind, and I don’t propose to find out. But it sure looks like this would be a nice pet to have, especially if you don’t have a lot of space.

Yes, I know–some of you just have to see a mouse or a rat, and you’re outta here. But I also know that, when I used to bring one of my rats to see the vet, and had her–the rat, not the vet–sitting patiently on my shoulder, as good as gold, people who were at first quite unhappy even to see the rat wound up petting her and going kitchy-koo.

Praise God, for giving us animals that we can love and that can love us back. If we had been creating the world, we never would have thought of that.

Monarch Butterfly Crosses the Atlantic Ocean

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Here’s another fragile butterfly: this one has survived a cold snap.

Hi, Mr. Nature here, celebrating the wonders of God’s Creation.

What could be more fragile than a butterfly? If you handle one, the wings might crumble in your hand.

But in 2012, crowds of bird-watchers in Dorset, Southwest England, gathered around to see a monarch butterfly with a tattered left wing–a butterfly that could only have gotten there by crossing the Atlantic Ocean ( http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-19557711 ).

Okay, so he had a little help from the wind. Most likely he didn’t have a choice in the matter. Nevertheless, there he was. Scientists reckon he got caught in the wind, swept up into a high altitude, and blown clear across the ocean.

Monarchs don’t take root in England because milkweed doesn’t grow there and that’s what the monarch caterpillars need to eat. (It makes them toxic to predators.) But on the rare occasions when they do make it to England, at least they seem to find the flowers to their liking.

Butterflies on a Butterfly Bush

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Hi! Mr. Nature here, on a cold, rainy, miserable day in New Jersey, our second in a row–and tomorrow isn’t predicted to be any nicer.

If your weather is behaving as badly as mine, I thought you might enjoy this little video of butterflies enjoying a butterfly bush in someone’s garden. Several different kinds of swallowtails show up.

My grandpa always had a butterfly bush in his garden. How I miss it!

Thankfully, there’s always youtube. So let’s flutter back, in our imaginations, to the early summer…

A Hard Day Around the Bird Feeder

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Just to enjoy and relax with something that the bad guys haven’t yet managed to corrupt and destroy… Here’s a cardinal trying to enjoy his lunch at a bird feeder; but sparrows keep trying to horn in on it. The cardinal has some patience with them, but they quickly use it up.

No one gets hurt, though.

Cardinals are not uncommon in my neighborhood. I love their glorious redness and their wide repertory of calls and songs. If you hear it and you don’t know what it is, it’s probably a cardinal.

My Pet Tree Frog

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Hyla versicolor.jpg

Behold the grey tree frog, hyla versicolor. He also comes in bright green, because he has the ability to change colors.

These are about the nicest frogs you can have as pets. They tame fast. Mine would perch on my finger like a canary–their toes can curl, and also stick to slippery surfaces, like glass–and snap up mealworms I offered with the other hand.

I once had three of these; and because it was springtime, mating season, every night they used to line up on a stick and sing. The Tree Frog trio. They would sing all night long. And very loudly. So loudly, my housemates finally forced me to release the frogs back into the wild.

And that’s it for today from Mr. Nature.

The Mystery of the Jersey Devil

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Here is the definitive work on the Jersey Devil. Yes, I know co-author Ray Miller is my brother-in-law. That doesn’t mean there’s no Jersey Devil. Doesn’t mean there is, either.

For those of us who think we know everything, or someday will know everything (thanks to Science), allow me to introduce the Jersey Devil.

Stories of the Jersey Devil have been circulating in New Jersey since the 1730s, and encounters with him, or it, are still being reported today ( http://weirdnj.com/stories/jersey-devil/ ). Normally associated with the Pine Barrens of southern NJ, the Devil has recently–so it seems–expanded his operations to the area of Round Valley Reservoir in the northern part of the state ( .http://thedamienzone.com/2012/06/16/jersey-devil-sightings-in-northern-new-jersey/)  Over the centuries, he’s also popped up in other states.

We are at liberty to say the stories aren’t true. There are an awful lot of stories, though. Thousands of ’em. And why should anyone but a kook want to go around saying he’s seen the Jersey Devil, when he hasn’t? Is everyone a liar? Is everyone a kook?

We don’t have the fire, but we sure do have a lot of smoke.

What is the Jersey Devil? Some say it’s just that–a devil, a demonic entity. Others insist it’s a flesh-and-blood cryptozoological critter, like the Loch Ness Monster. Or a raptor, like in Jurassic Park. The point is, no one knows. No one has ever known.

And, in all probability, never will.

Video Treat: Smart Rats

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Let’s get away from the mess the world is in, and enjoy watching these two pet rats do their stuff–in this case, pulling up a basket on a string to get the snacks inside.

Rats make wonderful pets, very affectionate, very smart. We had two rats, and the only thing they couldn’t learn, apart from figuring out the stock market, was how to get along with each other when we turned out the lights at bedtime. Within seconds of the room going dark, you would hear thump-thump-wack-wack-SQUEEEEAK! But if you turned the light back on, you’d see them just standing around peacefully, maybe whistling, with one of those “Who, me?” looks on their faces.

Mmm, a Nice, Fat Hornworm!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Howdy, Mr. Nature here, with a video treat–a chameleon having his lunch.

For those gardeners out there who have been plagued by tomato hornworms, those big green caterpillars, it may be pleasant to contemplate what a squad of chameleons could do in your garden.

The individually turreted eyes zero in on the target, the prehensile tail and mitten-like paws get a firm grip on the branch, and zap! The chameleon’s amazing tongue bags another bug.

And in addition to all that, they can change color. Very cool animals indeed.

I wonder what it’d be like, if a bunch of chameleons gathered around a table for Thanksgiving dinner.

 

God’s Stuff: Water Striders

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So this time socialists and progressives and the rest are really gonna make us all equal, no shit, this time it’s really gonna work, all we have to do is put them in office and give them tons and tons of power over us, you’ll see, honest, there won’t be any more inequality or poverty…

All right, all right, that’s enough of man’s stuff. What bunk. It’s incredible that anyone can stand to listen to it, let alone believe it.

Let’s turn instead to a bit of God’s stuff, which always works.

Here we have water striders, insects that live on the surface of the water (but they can also fly, if necessary). Yup, they skim around on it like it was a skating rink.

Why don’t they sink? Because God created them with the ability to take advantage of the surface tension of the water. What’s that? Put some water in a clear glass and look closely. You’ll see it sort of curves up around the edges. This is why anything floats. If water didn’t have that property, distinguishing the surface from the rest of it, nothing, absolutely nothing, would ever float.

St. Paul: “[T]hat which may be known of God is manifest in them: for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made…” (Romans 1:19-20)

Yes, even water striders.