Sightings

A bit sparse above ground this week. My tomatoes and peppers are flowering well though. Underwater produced:
2 X Southern Stingray;
2 X honeycomb cowfish (these seem to be becoming more and more common);
2 X Green Turtles;
1 X seahorse (the scruffy one again (not that I have an issue with its scruffiness; its just how we differentiate it from the stripey one and the orange one));

Having typed that I didn't see much above ground I just remembered that I actually added a new bird to my national list this week: Roseate Tern, so I should probably not complain eh?

Welcome blotanists!

So having recently registered this blog on Blotanical, I thought a little welcome was in order to any blotanists who may venture over. So, Welcome! You may be scanning down the rest of the posts and wondering what a blog that features things like shark anatomy, seal birthing, bathroom frogs and pirouetting flamingos is doing on a garden blog aggregation site?

Well plants, and often garden plants, tend to make up rather the bulk of the Earth section of Earth, Wind & Water. In particular I have rather a penchant for the ancient plants; there's an compedium of posts here about my beloved Cycads and you'll see a few ancient tree posts dotted through the archives.

You'll see a few posts about more modern trees and plants here too; both cultivated ornamentals and wild species.

I'm also a fan of growing plants for their culinary potential - both unusual fruiting trees and more common vegetables. My little vegetable garden here on island is growing well so more posts on that soon. Also look out for forthcoming posts on how to grow terrestrial orchids, the most beautiful tree in the world and perhaps an update on my old garden's breeding barn owls.

Nurse shark anatomy

Here's a little anatomy lesson on nurse sharks:

Big flat head: Ideal for ramming into cracks to get lobster lunches;

Tiny eyes: This is not a visual predator;

Barbules: You can just abou make out two small sensitive barbel/barbule type thingys around its mouth ideal for finding prey buried in sand.

Massive pectorals for sleeping on.

Rearloaded fin array: Notice the two dorsals are pushed way back almost into the tail. Ideal for short bursts of speed but not continuous cruising.

Caribbean Herons IIIa - hungover adults

Remember the juvenile little blue heron I posted ages ago? Probably not as it was quite a while back. Anyway here, at last is the adult form:

This chap turned up on our dive boat one day about 350 yards offshore. It immediately made itself welcome by throwing up a partially digested fish onboard and unsurprisingly spent the rest of the time feeling a little sorry for itself.

We don't know what happened or what was wrong with him but he flew off pretty strongly after a little period of recuperation.

Spring has sprung....a month ago. maybe.

So as has been mentioned I went to Ireland about a month ago where it was very springy. It was sunny and cold and there were all manner of signs of spring around. Unfortunately I haven't been able to share them til now not that timeliness and seasonality are particularly important on account of a) the fact I live somewhere permanently sunny and b) wherever you live your probably still getting unseasonal weather like snow according to my friends elsewhere and the tv (bad luck if that's true btw). So anyway onto the spring. Lovely daffodils abounded in an old monastic cemetary. Look closely - there's someone atop that celtic cross

He wasn't moving for anyone so it was extreme spring close up time.

and further on with our walk? The ultimate symbol of spring:

...and yes that is afterbirth in one of my pictures again....no gulls this time though.

Irish monkey madness

As a follow up to the recent post on Monkey Puzzles here's a few more images. I mentioned in that post that Monkey Puzzles often develop a somewhat unsightly leggy appearance and here's an example from an Irish hotel just south of Dublin. I don't suppose one can find too much fault with this habit if you consider the evolutionary pressure they presumably came under from Sauropod dinosaurs early in their history.

You can just about make out the brown male cones at the top of this tree's crown. I don't think I've come across a mature female tree yet (a bit of a shame as I'm intrigued by these supposedly delicious nuts they have). Monkey Puzzles seemed to do well in this corner of Ireland as I found this stunning row of them in a nearby church.

This was a lovely old churchyard (I think I've mentioned the oft-noted relationship between established churchyards and awesome specimen trees before) in which I spotted 3 tit species and then had a bit of a birding progress moment: finding goldcrest on call for the first time. Unfortunately we then realised we were at the wrong church and had to leave sharpish to get to the wedding we were attending (yes, we got to the church on time) so my birding was curtailed.

Transparent Wordless Wednesday

Arboreal tetrapod puzzler

Another ancient tree species: Araucaria araucana, the monkey-puzzle. The name is totally inappropriate as this species' native range is a monkey-free territory in Chile and Argentina.

This specimen at RBG Kew is slightly atypical in that it is mature but has retained branches to ground level. Usually they end up all mop-headed and less attractive in old age as they drop the bottom branches. The only other specimen I've seen do this was one in my Aunt's front garden in suburban England looking both spectacular and hilariously out of place at the same time. This is a big tree btw not suitable for front gardens as a rule.

Its shape allowed a macro close-up of these cones which I think are male.

The nuts are edible and supposedly it was first smuggled out of Chile by Archibald Menzies (I think) stashing some from a state banquet and fleeing the jurisdiction.