During a summer night, molecules of water in the air condense as droplets of water on leaves, we call it dew. But on a cold winter’s night the water condenses as ice and we call it frost.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
It’s a pretty picture, isn’t it? Red berries in wintertime, covered with glistening ice crystals. I used this photo once for a Christmas card. The ice is very decorative, and it’s easy to understand why we talk about icing on a cake (frosting in the USA).
The ice crystals form as the air cools at night. Air can hold significant amounts of water in gaseous form, but the precise amount depends on the temperature of the air; warm air can hold much more water than cold air. That’s why water condenses on cold surfaces. Take something out of the fridge and leave it in a warm room, and five minutes later it will be covered in droplets of water. That water was in the air but you couldn’t see it or feel it because water vapour is a gas.
During a summer night, molecules of water in the air condense as droplets of water on leaves, we call it dew. But on a cold winter’s night the water condenses as ice and we call it frost. Hoar frost, or rime, forms slowly over a number of hours and the kind of ice crystals that form is dependent on humidity, pressure and rate of temperature change. It can be quite subtle (view ‘The snowflake designer’ below for the details).
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There was a pre-decimal British coin carrying a picture of a wren on the reverse, still in use when I was a small child. There were four farthings in a penny … or 960 of them in a British pound sterling.
So, what bird might that be? Why, the Jenny Wren of course. If you live in Britain you’ll probably be familiar with this old term.
My son-in-law, Paz, sent me a link to a wonderful video of a Eurasian wren singing. Because the video has been slowed down, the sound is lower-pitched but also stretched out in time. As a result you can hear far more of the detail in this small bird’s singing performance. It’s truly amazing! But don’t take my word for it, watch and listen for yourself…
Paz is always amusing with his choice of titles; this time his email to me was entitled ‘Trogloclanger’. This is a portmanteau from Troglodytes (the Latin genus and species name of this wren), and The Clangers – fictitious inhabitants of space who made a whistling noise and figured in children’s stories. (You probably don’t want to watch an episode of The Clangers – but just in case, here’s one.)
It’s worth mentioning the Wikipedia article on the Eurasian wren because it provides a lot of detail about this little bird, and was also the source of the photo. Learn more about the ornithology and etymology from Wikipedia. There’s a separate article about the family Troglodytidae in general. Almost all species of wren live in the Americas, or islands in the region.
There was a pre-decimal British coin carrying a picture of a wren on the reverse, still in use when I was a small child. There were four farthings in a penny (‘four’ and the ‘far’ in farthing are cognate) or 960 of them in a British pound sterling. So you’d need just over 9½ farthings to make a decimal penny – that’s inflation for you!
At the time many people supposed that the smallest British bird was chosen for the reverse of the smallest British coin. But that is not the case as the goldcrest is our smallest bird.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
This lovely old aeroplane is a Sopwith Pup, as used by the Royal Flying Corp during the First World War. Sopwith was a major British aircraft manufacturer of the day. This aircraft is still flying from time to time in England where it’s based at Old Warden Airfield, itself a survivor of the First World War. This particular aircraft was built after the war and modified back to the fighter configuration.
In the photo the engine is being tested after maintenance, so a couple of side panels have been removed for inspection. The propeller was spinning, you can see the motion blur in the image.
Here’s the same aircraft in action.
Design and construction
Based on a smaller, earlier aircraft, Sopwith designed the larger Pup as a fighter in 1915 with the first prototype appearing in 1916. Both the navy and the army (the Royal Flying Corp was part of the army) ordered numbers of the planes and they served well until superseded and transferred for training purposes as newer, more effective fighting planes rapidly evolved.
This aircraft was much lighter than its German counterparts. It could take off and land on grass surfaces, in quite short distances. The Pup was very manoeuvrable, had a tight turning circle, and a high service ceiling for those times.
The Pups were replaced with Sopwith Camels during 1917.
Old Warden Aerodrome
Old Warden was a First World War air station, as already mentioned. It lies just north of Shefford and south-east of Bedford. Today it’s the home of the Shuttleworth collection of old aircraft and motor vehicles, a very fine and famous collection with a long history, originally as a private collection, but now open to the public. The old aircraft are frequently rolled out, and often one or more are performing in the air.
Everything that’s not active on a particular day is stored in a series of First World War hangers and those are all open to visit as a museum with informative explanatory material on display as well. There is active maintenance and restoration going on, and some of that may be on display too.
If you’re interested in this sort of thing, and are in the area, I highly recommend popping over for a visit.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Plants are available from garden centres and will grow happily in your garden given the right conditions. These plants belong to the buttercup family and are near relatives of the anemones.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
This makes it three in a row for flower images. The pasqueflower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) grows wild in the Cotswolds on dry grassland areas open to full sunshine. It was once quite common, and although not actually threatened, is something of a rarity these days. There’s a Cotwold dry valley site near Cirencester where there’s a reasonably large colony, but to keep the plants safe, the location is not advertised. However, plants are available from garden centres and will grow happily in your garden given the right conditions. These plants belong to the buttercup family and are near relatives of the anemones.
Protecting endangered or rare species (both plants and animals) is of ever growing importance. There are several ways species come under pressure and we’ll look at those first.
Challenges to survival
Habitat loss is the primary cause of decline for many plants, including the pasqueflower. Land improvement, especially the use of fertilisers to increase crop yields, is an issue for plants adapted to poorer soils.
Physical removal of plants or hunting of animals is an issue too. Most species can cope with limited amounts of removal, but if population levels fall drastically, there are real dangers. The dodo died out on the island of Mauritius following hunting by European sailors. The flightless birds were unafraid as they had no natural predators, so they didn’t run away from their hunters. They were welcome fresh meat after weeks at sea on salt beef.
Ecological damage also causes harm, sometimes unexpectedly. After the dodo became extinct, a tree species mysteriously stopped reproducing. Gradually the population was reduced to only older trees. It turned out that the fruit contained toughly seeds with tough shells that would only germinate after passing through the gut of a dodo. Links like this between organisms can be critical.
Climate change is another danger, especially for plants. If climate change is slow organisms can change the range of places where they grow; if it’s fast, animals might adapt, but some plants may need an entire year to move a few metres.
Pollution is a further serious issue and can exacerbate the other problems already mentioned above.
Diseases of both plants and animals can become pandemic and risk extinction, especially when populations are already stressed by droughts, loss of habitat, or pollution.
Attitudes
Given all of the above, what should our attitude be to the current situation?
Some people will shrug their shoulders. – Perhaps they don’t understand the peril the world faces, or they don’t understand the need to help the natural world recover. Or maybe they just feel there is nothing they can do about it.
Others may understand enough of the science to realise there is a danger, to see that it can be reduced (if not entirely averted), and to take some personal actions to help.
Biologists, ecologists, nature enthusiasts, and climate scientists understand only too well what is happening. Usually, they will be trying to communicate the issues whenever and wherever they can.
Followers of Jesus, and people of other faiths will often understand that we should do all we can to protect this world we live in, and live in ways that will reduce the damage.
All of the groups mentioned here are either responding already, or need help to see and understand that the natural world needs our help and that every single one of us can make a difference. Education and commitment are the way forward, so please share this post with anyone you know who might be influenced by it.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
I have another flower image for you today. This one shows the centre of a tulip flower in more detail than you might normally see. I’ve placed the centre of the flower towards the lower right of the frame so you can see more of the petals towards the upper left. You’ll notice that the petals are yellow near the centre, orange a bit further out, and pink further out again. What a beautiful combination!
The reproductive parts
Tulips are monoecious, a botanical term that means each plant produces both male and female reproductive tissues. The female part of a tulip flower has three stigmas in the centre. Unlike animals and some more primitive plants, the male reproduction process doesn’t involve motile sperm. Instead, pollen is released as a yellow dust, sometimes dry and carried by the wind but in the case of tulips and many other plants, sticky and carried by flying insects.
Flowers work as attractive beacons for pollinating insects, they’re usually brightly coloured, are often fragrant which helps insects detect them from a distance, and provide food – sugary nectar at the base of the petals, and pollen. Bees collect the pollen and carry it back to the hive as a protein rich food for their larvae. Plants produce more pollen than necessary and can spare some in return for the pollen transport provided by the bees. The pollen grains stick to the pollinating insects and as they visit flower after flower, some of the pollen is transferred from the anthers of one plant to the stigmas of another. This cross-pollination is exactly what the plant needs for the female tissues to develop further and produce viable seeds.
Tulips have five of these anthers, and if you enlarge the image and peer closely you can see yellow dust clinging to them. That dust is the pollen.
Intricate
It’s an astonishingly intricate process in which the plants depend on the insects and the insects depend on the plants. I could go into much greater detail; I worked as a professional botanist when I was in my twenties and thirties, studying and publishing scientific papers on pollen and pollination. Maybe some time I’ll write a bit more about that.
Next time you see tulips in the park, at a florist or supermarket, or in your garden – just think about the intricate interactions going on right there!
See also:
Pollen – Wikipedia (contains a more detailed photo of a tulip anther with pollen, about ¼ of the way down the article. Hint: compare the Wikipedia photo with mine.)
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Journeys of Heart and Mind 
