hi!

there’s some new pictures online:

s #220: tropics exhibit
on march 13th, sigrun and i went to see a little tropics exhibit, which was really nice.
i’ve captured some of the things there.

something i’ll keep in mind next time i take pictures of exotic animals: NOTE THE NAME!
it’s taken me some considerable time to find out that #1 was a “coast horned lizard (phrynosoma coronatum)” (although i’m not 100% sure), and the second creature was a “mojave black-collared lizard (crotaphytus bicinctores)”…

[view photos]

 
s #221: spring summoners
i’ve also added a few random “springy images” that i took lately…
something else i noticed: a hazelnut-shrub (corylus avellana) with both pistillate (=female) and staminate (=male) flowers. interesting, in a nerdy way!
oh, and hey: check out the cool background-noise that was everywhere:
[listen to sample]

[view photos]

 
s #222: pasqueflowers
when i went on a dogwalk with maria-magdalena, march 27th, we came to a hill that still has pasqueflowers growing. they’re very endangered and plucking is stricktly forbidden, with penalties of several hundred euros, if i remember correctly.
they’re just beautiful, and all the time there were some people around, watching and taking pictures…

[view photos]

i’ve done a new time-lapse project on frog spawn, because i spotted some in my pond.
the first post about this can be found here.

[skip all of that and download the video]
 

the phase i wanted to capture, was from the egg until slacking.
it would be too hard to record a pollywog’s growth in time-lapse – too much effort and clearly not ethical.
you’d have to give them tiny living space so they wouldn’t jet around all the time, or even slow them down somehow. there would have to be a special (=unnatural) way of feeding. water cleanness and oxygen problems would arise, and of course plants etc. would give them unwanted hiding places…
and i don’t presume to do that. (the environmentalist is shining through again ;-))

anyway, i did some internet research and found out the duration of my project would be about 2 weeks. in springlike-pond-climates, of course. it turns out, at room-temperature those little creatures leave their gelatinous eggs in less than 2 days!

 
the eggs would float around a lot, so i needed to fixate them somehow.
[more...]

i’ve just started a new project.
my pond has been ice-free for about a week, and i’ve already found frog spawn on the ground.

my f717 is still in spain with my older brother, the f505 he gave me in return doesn’t have a socket for the jg-rc2, so i decided to use my old webcam (dlink dsc-350) and a program i just discovered two days ago: ConquerCam.

i’m telling you because there’s a neat-o function in ConquerCam: automatic upload of the latest image.
you can see the current progress, up-to-date and live 24/7, here. [link removed, since project is completed]
(i don’t have time to look for a script that clears the image from the cache every 5 minutes, so i’m linking directly. otherwise there would be some refreshing-problems…)

[more...]

last week, a huge part of my life was made up by …cress. that’s right – lepidium sativum.

when i was talking about recording flowers opening etc., my little brother anton had the idea to record cress growing.
it’s perfect, because it develops from the seed to a 3 cm (~1 inch) high plant within just 4 to 5 days.
on the other hand, that would mean that i had to find a place with a nearby window that is completely unused (by people) over days – and it turned out to be my room.
i’m using my room only in the brief period from 5 to midnight, working 8 to 5 and sleeping 0 to 7…

(skip all of that and proceed to the files)

so i bought a pack of cress seeds on sunday and immediately built up the setting: [more...]

three days ago, there has been a dramatic rise in outdoor temperatures.

and it seems like my general mood just went along.
i’ve come from ssdd to “i can see clearly now” within just one day.

 
on my recent dogwalks (is that a real english word?), i’ve even encountered a very sun-exposed spot in the forest where some meadow saffrons (colchicum autumnale) [at least that's what i think that is] were blooming already, on an area of merely 1 m² (~10 square feet)!
there are some springlike photos waiting to be posted, but it’ll take me another two or three days…

besides, just in case you ever wondered: no, dragonflies can’t sting. they can bite but won’t hurt anybody with skin (as opposed to an exo-sceleton). and they don’t have any toxins either.

 
[lyrics quote of the moment]
i can see clearly now, the rain is gone
i can see all obstacles in my way
gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
it’s gonna be a bright, bright and sunshiny day

i think i can make it now, the pain is gone
all of the bad feelings have disappeared
here is the rainbow i’ve been prayin’ for
it’s gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day
jimmy cliff – i can see clearly now

i’ve started catching up with older pictures… although this is the one and only post for today.

on september 17th i took a closer look at the wild sunflower that grows in our garden.
the weather was nice, by the way – easy to remember if there’s only like 4 nice days in august&september ;-)

and now, guess who’s going to spain :-)

[view photos: bees]

lately i told some of you about the first big and stationary resident of my pond.
today i managed to get a good shot of him:
meet: the male southern hawker dragonfly in action

[view photo]