[This] image featured in NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day for 25th January 2025. Visit the website and have a browse around, there are so many fine images here!
This might be the most striking photo you’ll ever see of a comet. OK, I dare say there will be better images out there, but this one is still pretty amazing.
The image featured in NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day for 25th January 2025. Visit the website and have a browse around, there are so many fine images here!
If you look closely (click the thumbnail and expand it as far as it will go) you’ll see plenty of stars in the image, too. Of course, they are way, way in the background far beyond the Solar System whereas the comet is right here inside the system along with the Sun, Planets, Moon, me and you.
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Lichens are the main food source for a variety of animal species from small mites and insects to the remarkably large reindeer. They tend to be protein-poor but may be rich in carbohydrates.
Image 130 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.
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Lichens are amazing. They’re always small, they grow in slowly expanding colonies, and they consist of cooperating fungi and algae. A number of different species of fungi can grow like this, combined with various yeasts and bacteria. The assemblage often looks like a simple plant, often almost flat, but sometimes filamentous, branching or in the form of flakes. Circular forms like the one in the image are common. The Wikipedia article listed below has photos of a range of different forms.
The grey colony in the photo has grown out from the centre ‘cleaning’ other life forms from the surface of the underlying limestone and spreading out further around the perimeter. The black lichen was destroyed as the grey lichen crossed over it, but new colonies of the black lichen have established on the clean rock left behind. The situation is dynamic, but very slow. Return for another photo a month later and little will have changed.
Lichens are the main food source for a variety of animal species from small mites and insects to the remarkably large reindeer. They tend to be protein-poor but may be rich in carbohydrates.
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We had the right gear for staying dry in rain, mud and heavily dripping vegetation, so we were warm and comfortable amid the fragrance of wet grass and decaying leaves.
Image 121 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.
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There is a saying amongst the walking fraternity, that ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad kit’. Here are two of my friends, the three of us were out for a lovely walk in wet weather in the Cotswolds. We had the right gear for staying dry in rain, mud and heavily dripping vegetation, so we were warm and comfortable amid the fragrance of wet grass and decaying leaves.
Perhaps this not not everyone’s favourite activity, but we loved it! Damp October days like this one are good for spotting early autumn colour on the trees as well as mushrooms and toadstools amongst the fallen leaves and blades of grass. There is so much to see everywhere you look.
When: 19th October 2023 Where: Near Edgeworth, Cotswolds
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One of the joys of these walks is the sky. Sometimes it’s grey and overcast, sometimes it’s blue from horizon to horizon, but sometimes it’s full of interesting cloud formations at various heights.
Image 103 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.
Larger view
Traditional Cotswold fields were quite small, but as in many parts of the UK, farmers have removed hedgerows to combine small fields into larger ones that can be more efficiently cultivated, planted, and managed. Although this has some deleterious effects on wildlife and biodiversity, it does create some big skies. Here is an example.
This field is an easy walk west from Stratton where I live, along a permitted route along a stony track. I come out this way from time to time to enjoy the wide open spaces, to look at the nearby polo fields, to listen to the larks that nest here in considerable numbers, and to watch them rise higher and higher before plummeting down to land.
And one of the joys of these walks is the sky. Sometimes it’s grey and overcast, sometimes it’s blue from horizon to horizon, but sometimes it’s full of interesting cloud formations at various heights.
This wonderful world is full of beauty in big skies and also in tiny details. And it’s always different, no two days are alike.
When: 19th January 2024 Where: North-west of Cirencester
Favourites
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Image 94 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.
Announcement – I’m making a few more changes, The image number is moving down so the title can be more relevant to the content, and I’m adding date and place for the image source.
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The large white butterfly is the bane of vegetable gardeners. The adult females lay their eggs under the leaves of brassica crops – cabbages, cauliflowers, brussels sprouts and more. The caterpillars that hatch out feed voraciously on the plants, and as they grow larger they consume the leaves faster and faster, sometimes leaving just a stalk and nothing for the gardener to harvest.
The adult in the photo is feeding on nectar from a Buddleia inflorescence. Butterflies and bees home in on these. Although the photo’s one of my favourites, it’s technically poor as it’s enlarged from a small part of a shot taken back in September. Still – I like it and I want to share it.
When: 16th September 2024 Where: Hidcote Garden, Gloucestershire, England
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The worker honeybee in the photo is collecting pollen. Insect-pollinated plants have slightly sticky pollen that lodges on the bee’s hairy body. Bees visit flowers to collect nectar from the base of the petals, but get dusted with sticky pollen in the process.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every two days or so.
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Like all plants and animals, bees are pretty well suited to the actions they need to perform to live and reproduce. That’s what evolution does, it homes in on the best shape and size of wings, the optimum size for flight muscles, best arrangement of hairs on the legs to brush loose pollen towards the pollen sac for collection and transport, the best mouthparts for collecting nectar and so forth.
Quite a challenge, and an astounding achievement, but entirely doable by making small, random changes and selecting the best.
Here’s an example to make that bold claim clearer. If a random change enables the worker bees to carry on just a few days longer in the autumn, the hive will have slightly larger stores of honey for the coming winter. That hive will survive when a hive with less capable workers might not. And that’s enough. The new queens from the surviving hive will carry the altered gene and it’ll be present in the workers of the new colonies those queens create. The altered colonies will also survive in slightly colder places than before so will succeed at slightly higher altitudes and in slightly cooler climates.
The worker honeybee in the photo is collecting pollen. Insect-pollinated plants have slightly sticky pollen that lodges on the bee’s hairy body. Bees visit flowers to collect nectar from the base of the petals, but get dusted with sticky pollen in the process. Bees clean themselves like most insects (you’ve probably seen houseflies doing it, sweeping off particles of dust with one leg while standing on the others). When bees clean themselves, most of the pollen end up stuck together as a lump and lodges on a series of special hairs on the hind legs. Look closely and you can see this bee’s pollen load on its rear leg; an orange/yellow colour. Pollen is protein rich and the bees feed it to the bee pupae in the hive.
The plant feeds the bees nectar for energy and pollen for growing young bees; while the bees move pollen from flower to flower, and often from plant to plant over quite long distances, sometimes a mile or more. So the bees and the plants both benefit, it’s a useful co-operative effort.
Favourites
For convenience, here’s a list of my favourite images:
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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every two days or so.
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Anemones are simple flowers, but beautiful! I have strong childhood memories of the white version of these growing in my grandfather’s garden in Cirencester. They managed to grow in small cracks between the bottom of the house wall and the stone paving. The flowers stood nearly as tall as me so I suppose I might have been between five and seven years old at the time.
The flowers in the photo are at various stages of development:
On the stem just right of the centre you can see a few tiny leaves and a little, pale-green flower bud.
In the centre, near the top, is a much larger bud, about to open.
Right down at the bottom, a flower has opened but the petals are not yet full size and have not developed their final colour.
The flower on the left and just below the centre is fully open. There’s a little insect sitting on its centre.
Below and right of it is a more mature flower, the yellow anthers have shed their pollen and have shrivelled.
A little above and right again is an even older flower, the anthers are in worse condition and some of the petals are damaged around their margins.
The flower in the upper left has lost most of the anthers and the petals look tired and old.
In the upper-right you can see a flower with only two petals remaining.
And just above, the yellow globe is the remains of a flower that has lost all of its petals.
Although they look like pink petals, and I’ve called them that here, botanically speaking these are actually modified sepals. On most flowering plants, the sepals are small and green, normally hidden by the petals.
Patterns of development
The flowers on this Anemone are just one example of the kinds of patterns that come from anything that grows. We’re all familiar with the pattern in humans – fertilised egg, foetus, baby, toddler, pre-teen, young teen, adolescent, young adult, mature adult, early middle age, late middle age, elderly.
And you can trace stages of growth in cities, technology, philosophy, civilisation, language families, culture, stars, wars, galaxies, you name it. Such patterns of development are a fundamental part of the way things are in our universe. Time ticks by relentlessly, and all these patterns are patterns of change, in other words evidence of the passage of time.
If the Universe did not include time, nothing would change and there would be no patterns, no life, just stasis.
Favourites
For convenience, here’s a list of my favourite images:
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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every two days or so.
Announcement – I need to reduce the time I’m spending writing JHM posts. To make this possible I plan to post images more often as they are quick to do, and I’ll put the time saved into fewer but hopefully better posts on other topics.
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This is the view across the valley from Kiftsgate Court that I mentioned yesterday. You can see it from the swimming pool – what an amazing backdrop for a relaxing dip!
Only a minority of people have views from their back garden like this one. But we can all enjoy the photo, or visit Kiftsgate Court Gardens to admire it first hand.
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Hidcote is an informally formal garden, if I can put it that way, while Kiftsgate is not formal at all. Both are full of surprises and delights at almost every turn.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every two days or so.
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Today’s photo was taken at Kiftsgate Court Gardens in the far north of Gloucestershire. The pool was designed for swimming, though today it’s just ornamental. Kiftsgate Court is a large house on the top of a local hill; the pool is below the house and has an amazing view across the valley to further hills beyond.
The people who lived here knew a thing or two about designing a wonderful garden. It’s right next to Hidcote, another marvellous garden and perhaps better known, but if you’re visiting one of them and have the time, try to see them both. They are both great but designed very differently, Hidcote is an informally formal garden, if I can put it that way, while Kiftsgate is not formal at all. Both are full of surprises and delights at almost every turn.
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Quite by chance, as I clicked the exposure, a bird flew out of tree and the shot automagically composed itself! It looks like something from the Jurassic, a flying dinosaur with four wings.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every two days or so.
Click to enlarge
For the next few photos, I’m going to leave the series on our Irish holiday, and the series on Cirencester, and instead just focus on images I love (pun only slightly intended).
Let’s start with this photo of a sunset seen from my study window. Quite by chance, as I clicked the exposure, a bird flew out of a tree and then shot automagically composed itself! It looks like something from the Cretaceous, a flying dinosaur with four wings, or a raptor that’s just snatched some unlucky feathered prey. Anyone have other opinions on ID?
The intended subject was the sunset, it was very spectacular and deserved to be recorded. The clouds were luminous, truly breath-taking and the photo fails to do them justice. In my experience that’s often the case with sunsets, the contrasts are too wide so details are lost both in the brightest and darkest areas; to show those details you have to compromise on the contrast – you really do need both. The Earth’s atmosphere scatters short wavelength blue light and that’s why the sky appears blue and is darker at higher altitudes (most of the air is below). While at sunset or sunrise the light takes a long, grazing path to your eyes and the blue scattering along that path leaves mostly oranges and reds.
Favourites
For convenience, here’s a list of my favourite images:
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Journeys of Heart and Mind 
