Spent some time hanging out with some blue #damselflies at the lake before coming back home 😊
Damselflies have existed since the Late #Jurassic period & found on every continent except Antarctica. Presence of damselflies & the larger dragonflies, indicates a healthy #ecosystem.
How do we live together in #nature? Wood meadows, a managed & productive #ecosystem, can achieve this balance, a model of human activity benefitting #biodiversity.
For research, I’m going to the 14th European Conference on #Ecological Restoration this August in #Estonia, where the wood meadows are the most biodiverse sites in the world.
Old growth high on the Eagle Mt ridge, where you have a nice balance of sparsely spaced trees with a lush and varied undergrowth. It's especially striking as these days you invariably first have to cross tree farm/replanted forests of dense monoculture that tends to be dark and leave little room to create a rich undergrowth, and have a lot of debris from the felling of the original forest, making it vulnerable to fire. Invariably the replanted forest would be almost void of life, whereas the richer yet higher forest would be teeming with douglas squirrel, owls, ravens, eagles, etc. #forest#oldgrowth#ecosystem#pnw
Federal budgets are often centered on discussions of "inflation," the "economy," and "economic growth," but amidst these conversations, the deeper truth about our reliance on #nature often gets sidelined. Economists argue that without valuing the #environment, human activity on earth is unsustainable. While concepts like " #ecosystem services" have gained traction, they still fall short of acknowledging humans as part of a larger system that sustains all life. With climate change and #biodiversity loss worsening, a radical shift in #humanity 's relationship with ecosystems is needed. As we await the budget speech, it's crucial to remember the reality of climate change and its implications for our planet's future. #ClimateChange#EnvironmentalAwareness#BudgetPriorities#auspol
Scientists tracked a young #whale's journey before he vanished. What they learned could help save his species.
#Bishop’s story, from birth to presumed death, shows the extreme danger facing right #whales, which could be extinct in 3 decades if they continue to disappear at the present rate. Bishop’s species is not doomed to #extinction …but time is running out.
In most ways #Bishop was a normal #RightWhale. For the first year of his life, his mother nursed & protected him, & he learned to feed by swimming, mouth agape, through patches of plankton floating near the surface.
But on Jan 20, 2015, Bishop became something more: a precious source of data that would help scientists better understand the dangers afflicting his species.
So far this year, a dead female turned up off Virginia w/ a dislocated spine, a calf was discovered in Georgia w/head lacerations, & a young female was found — again in Georgia — w/ a fractured skull. All the injuries are consistent with #vessel strikes.
(1/2) I bought a teeny tiny watercolor palette & filled it with 6 colors (CMYK + one extra color) from which I can create millions of colors! Here’s my palette in hand. You can read more on my latest blog post
For folks unable to #GetOutside today/this week, please enjoy some vicarious #NatureImmersion via my musical slideshow, from Mom & daughter nature walk, yesterday morning.
I met Robert Bowen, at the nature sanctuary, today. He's owner of - Diversified Scientific Solutions. Mr. Bowen is an environmental sciences engineer & he was doing some water testing at the lake this morning. I had a nice chat with him & he gave me his business card.
Translation:
Hey, duck babes. Did you come to look for something to eat? Yes. You came to look for something to eat. But I can't give you anything to eat because of bird flu.
With all of the horrible things happening in the world, it’s nice to find the wins. Especially in the area of our environment. A group called Coral Guardian is restoring coral reefs, and it’s quite magnificent.
These photos represent 7 years of work on the Indonesia’s Hatamin Island. In this they have increased the fish population by 5x with 53k corals restored.