Day 177 - Mutant Bird!

Hi all today's Day 177 and I have been up near the North York Moors in a forest where we see incredible amounts of wildlife. Just on the road up to it we saw rabbits, birds, horses (not wild, but they were tiny!) and the bird that I am covering today. This bird was one that we had never seen before (in this form at least). It was an interesting bird to see so I got my camera out straight away and started taking photos.

Blue Pheasant (Phasianus Tenebrosus)

Obviously you can tell that it's a Pheasant but Pheasants aren't blue are they? Well they are if they are mutants! They aren't technically mutants they are just oddly coloured 'Melanistic Morphs'. David Renwick told me this. Thanks for that Dave! They are very interesting birds to see so, even though I have already covered Common/Ring-Necked Pheasants in a previous post, I thought I'd do a post about them today.

So, here are the facts:

• A black/dark blue version of a bird that is not the same colour as the rest of its species actually has Melanism. This is basically the opposite of Albinism. It causes the dark coloured pigment Melanin. The same sort of thing that gives you freckles.

• This doesn't just happen in Pheasants, it happens in all animals. A good example of this is the Black Panther which is a classic case. They have an entire species named after them!

• There has been an extremely rare black Flamingo spotted on Cyprus just recently in April. If anybody is reading this in Cyprus that knows where it was seen, please get me a photo!

• Some people refer to these as both Black Pheasants and Blue Pheasants but they are actually the same thing. They are often mistaken for the Green or Japanese Pheasant which looks like a mixture between the Black/Blue and the Common Pheasant.

• People refer to them as black, as they appear black from a distance but they are actually a dark blue-purple with an iridescent plumage (shiny feathers. Ooh shiny :-)

• Sadly, Black/ Blue Pheasants are often introduced into Pheasant shooting ranges to give a little bit of variety :-(.

• Golden Pheasants (Chinese) are another species of Pheasant like the Common Pheasant that we see daily. Here is a link to a website so you can see this incredible bird.

Here are some facts in general about Pheasants:

• They are the same size as Common Pheasants being 71cm long and having a wingspan of 80cm. Males weigh 1.40 kilograms and Females 980g.

• Pheasants can cope with bad weather by remaining dormant for days on end. This basically means they can sleep/hibernate but slow down their bodily functions so they hardly need to eat.

• Speaking of eating (mmm :-) they like to nom on (nom nom nom :-) seeds, grains and shoots (nom nom nom??).

• Pheasants have strong breast muscles that give powerful bursts to enable the bird to escape harm in a hurry.

• They can take off almost vertically and can reach speeds of nearly 40 miles per hour! You often see them by the sides of roads so this, hopefully, helps them to get out of the way of cars.

Here are some links to some more information:

Wikipedia - Melanism

Gobirding.eu - Blue Pheasants

BTO Birdfacts - Pheasants

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.

Day 44 - Patterns in Nature

Bark on a gnarly old Chestnut at
Fountains Abbey.

Hey everyone, I was out walking at Fountains Abbey at the weekend and I saw lots of patterns that were brought to life in the frost. So today I thought I'd look at patterns in nature

Everywhere we look there are patterns in nature. We can sometimes take them for granted and hardly even acknowledge them, other times they take us by surprise and make us stop in our tracks and take a photo. Natural patterns have fascinated people for centuries. Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras studied them and tried work out order in nature.

 There are absolutely loads of places we can see patterns in nature. Why do we get such patterns? Well in the animal world it could be through natural selection and animals may have evolved this way as survival mechanisms (camouflage) or attracting a mate, mimicry (taking on the appearance of its surroundings for protection) or scaring off predators with bright colours indicating poison. In the natural world think sand dunes, waves, leaves, bark, petals, rocks and crystals.

I`ll run through a few of the more common formations now:

Snowflake - courtesy of
www.snowcrystals.com

• Symmetry: some things are perfectly symmetrical - a tiger`s face (bilateral symmetry), a starfish (fivefold symmetry), a snowflake (sixfold symmetry) or a sea anemone (rotational symmetry)

• In my Fibonacci post I explained that he discovered that there is a natural sequence called the 'Fibonacci Sequence'. This turned out to be the largest example of Patterns in Nature.

• Tessellations: patterns caused by repeating a smaller pattern over and over, such as a honeycomb, fish scales, crystals etc.

• Cracks: hot, dry desert land cracks and splits creating patterns, similar to the leathery hide of an elephant or rhino in a hot climate.

• Waves and dunes:  created by winds blowing over expanses of sand and forming domes, ripples or crescents, rivers meandering through the land, like a snake, taking along the river bed sand and rocks and over time causing erosion.

Poison Dart Frog
(from www.wikipedia.org)

• Spots and stripes are found very often for camouflage reasons - a leopard hiding in grass, a chameleon blending in with its surroundings.  Bright patterns and colour tell predators that they taste bitter or have a secret weapon inside them like poison like the poisoned dart tree frog in the picture.

• Snowflakes: each and every snowflake is different - that never fails to amaze me!  Yet every single snowflake is completely symmetrical.

• Self similar - this means that although the pattern isn`t exactly the same as something else of its type, it is the same as the rest of itself (if that makes sense!) i.e petals.leaves of a fern, coral etc.

Dew on a spider's web

Spider`s webs fascinate me, especially when they are covered with dew or a light frost.  They are so intricately spun, and every thread has a function.  At this time of year when the ground is covered with frost and ice the patterns are amazing, even fallen leaves on the ground and grass takes on a magical appearance when covered in tiny white crystals.

Frost brings out the lines on
fallen leaves

Frost shows up waves in a
fallen tree

Patterns in Nature are found in animals as well like Tigers, Leopards and, of course, Zebras.






Anyway here are some links to some more information:

Wikipedia - Patterns in Nature

35 Examples of Patterns in Nature


Here is the Google Images result for 'Patterns in Nature'

Google Images - Patterns in Nature

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.