A cyclical celebration by I heart Guts.
Giant pdf version here.
Category Archives: Nature
Cloud Canyon
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Once or twice a year, but almost never with the clear sky backdrop pictured here (last Friday), a temperature inversion phenomenon appears to fill Arizona’s Grand Canyon to the brim with fog – cool air trapped at the bottom of the canyon, held in place by a layer of warm air above, creating low level clouds.
(Video: Paul Lettieri. Pix: Erin Whittaker, Ben Mayberry)
Associated Press sez:
North Dakota retired engineer George Loegering has found a rare spinning disk of ice in the Sheyenne River, a weather phenomenon experts say likely was caused by cold, dense air, and an eddy in the river.
New Zealand artist Karley Feaver transforms ‘ethically sourced’ birds who have died of natural causes into bling-ass deceased avian fashionistas accessorised with mohawks, ponytails, dreads and gold paint.
Of the 2013 project, entitled Becoming Otherwise, she sez:
“I am interested in the scientific, intellectual and aesthetic reasons behind the re-creation of the animal. I am exploring how each one could exist in a domestic setting by adapting to their surroundings. Through this, my investigations of the animals have developed by morphing animals and other various objects into newly formed creations”.
Full sized map and descriptions of some of the cryptozoological oddities from ‘nessies’ to webbed hominids and a ‘giant eel pig’ at Atlas Obscura.
A 1923 eyewitness account of the monster of Alkali Lake in Nebraska reported that the single-horned alligator-esque creature let out a “dreadful roar” from the water. Described as 40 feet long with a horn like a rhinoceros, as well as an atrocious smell that is near fatal in itself, it’s apparently a very hungry creature and devours anything in its path. Mostly this has been livestock. Sightings peaked in the 1920s, but have since faded, so perhaps Alkali Lake, now called Walgren Lake, is free from its fearsome, smelly unicorn beast.
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Composer Jim Wilson’s recording of the sound of crickets slowed down to reveal what sounds like an angelic choir.
Although it’s not quite as mind-blowing as purported (not every sound you hear is made by the crickets themselves) it’s still pretty impressive and for the most part, absolutely genuine..
You can buy the album here.
(H/T: Joanna)
When robins built a nest in a hanging basket on Fred Margulies’s porch a few years ago, he documented the arrival of four eggs and the subsequent nurturing of the chicks by the parent birds, right up to the rather poignant moment a month later when the entire brood left the nest for the last time.
Sea And Sky
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Kiwi photographer Andrew Smith’s idyllic shots of ocean landscapes around his New Zealand home. As detailed in his Before And After Lightroom Blog, all photos are shot with a NikonD800 and processed in Adobe Lightroom.
Hundreds more sumptuous shots here.
Spectacular portraits of the same lighthouse in the aftermath of winter storms at St. Joseph North Pier on the coast of Lake Michigan.
Photographed over the last three years by Thomas Zakowski and Tom Gill.