on my first outdoor bike training unit this year, my mountain route featured an unexpected obstacle: an avalanche that buried about 30 meters of the forest track with several meters high of snow. turns out walking through a snowfield with ordinary sneakers and a bike is not as easy as it sounds.
the following day, i brought my camera and tripod. :)
this animation was done as a request. a friend needed such a file for her presentation, but couldn’t find one on the internets…
venus flytraps belong to the interesting family of droseraceae, which consists of carnivorous plants.
in order to attract prey, the traps are usually of a reddish color and contain nectar producing glands.
as soon as an insect lands on the traps and stimulates a one of the trigger hairs, the lobes are closed. trying to escape, the trapped insect further stimulates the inner surface of the lobes, and the plant starts to produce digestive enzymes.
in their wild habitats (bogs, wet svannahs), venus flytraps and other carnivorous plants find hardly any nutrients (especially nitrogen), so they have evolved to actually catch and digest insects.
here’s a batch of photos dating from last september to mid-april.
it’s a collection of snapshots that remind me how important it is to have a great family and awesome friends. :)
[view photos: family and friends]
i’m beginning to wonder what else is going to show up in my room…
this zebra spider was quickly moving over the inside (!) of my insect screen.
after caroline’s comment on the naming of alfred, i decided to call this one junior.
reading up on zebra spiders, i found out that this is a male (it has strongly elongated chelicerae.1)
this species is part of the salticidae family (jumping spiders), whose jumps are very precise and cover distances up to 20 times their own body size.
most (all?) salticid spiders have 8 eyes, 4 of which are sitting on the front of the head like huge headlights. the central pair of these is bigger and is equivalent to telezoom lenses: the retinas are movable so it is possible to focus on any object, and even change the visual angle without moving the body.
the zebra spider is very common on housefronts, in houses and on rocks or gardenfences. male spiders are usually only seen between may and july.
while i was taking pictures, junior sometimes suddenly disappeared from the viewfinder, and i found him sitting on the outer rim of the camera lense. cool strategy: if something big supposedly wants to eat you, jump right at its eye!
20 minutes at lake resia may have been 15 too many. :)
2.5 years ago, my friend lisa and a few of her friends copied the infamous free-hug-video from australia and offered free hugs in innsbruck.
back then, i had just planned to stop by and take some pictures for her, but ended up joining in when i saw the sincere reactions of the passing pedestrians.
this happened far too long ago, and today, we did a rerun of the project.
lisa and members of her registered club made signs that said “gratis umarmungen” (free hugs), and some of the members came along to hug. barbara and i came along, too, and this year i was both hugging and taking pictures.
just when we came together, the drizzle (that had been going on all day) stopped and the sun came out.
we decided go to maria-theresien-strasse in the center of town, just like last time. unfortunately, this year, more than half of the pedestrian area is one big construction site, but that circumstance also helped “channel” the pedestrians a bit.
about halfway through the event, two friendly punks happened to walk by, and decided to join in, too. :)
as before, the reactions were stunning: cute elderly ladies giving a wholehearted smile, younger folk stopping their bikes fur a hug, and pedestrians walking towards us with open arms from 10 meters away. there was an incredible amount of positive energy..
less than 20 minutes after we stopped, it started to rain again.
[view photos: free hugs in innsbruck]
