Tag Archives: animals

Thoughts

A neat talk by Peter Tyack at TED, entitled “The Intriguing Sound of Marine Mammals“, in which he explains the effect of human noise on the sounds made by marine mammals, and what’s being done to correct the situation. A few tidbits:

  • Better propeller designs decrease propeller noise by up to 90%
  • Insulating the engine chamber from the hull reduces engine noise by up to 99%
  • Slowing down the ships by 50% decreases overall noise and reduces fuel consumption by 30%

There’s also a cool cartoon at the end of the talk, called “Good Vibrations”, made by Jeremy Clapin.

Marine mammals, underwater sounds and shipping noise

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Thoughts

Mitzi and Trixie at play

I don’t think there’s anything more adorable than kittens at play, so I couldn’t resist posting more photos of Mitzi and Trixie today. I found a whole series I took when they were playing one day. And as promised, there are more photos of Trixie in this post.

Since this is a series of photos, it’s probably best to view them via the slideshow which is embedded at the bottom of the post. I’ll post a select few as individual photos, but make sure to see them all in the slideshow, it’ll only take a minute.

After tumbling about for a bit, they both took a break and lay on the ground a few feet apart, staring at each other, before pouncing once more.

Kittens love these hit-and-run encounters. They’d pounce, tumble about for a bit, and dash away. Here Mitzi jumped away from Trixie after she ambushed her, then hid between the bushes while Trixie began to play by herself.

Of course, Mitzi couldn’t stay away for long, and she ambushed Trixie again.

When they had enough play, they went exploring together. Ah, kittens! 🙂

If I seem particularly effusive today, it’s because I’m glad Trixie is still with us. She almost died last night. She apparently ate something poisonous, and was in shock through mid-morning. She’s better now, but not completely out of the woods. You can read the details here.

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Thoughts

Mitzi and Trixie explore the yard

Part of the fun of having kittens is seeing them explore the yard when they finally get the nerve to venture out there. Everything is so brand new to them — every texture, scent, breeze, shape, color, insect, flower, tree, etc. They walk out, slowly, tentatively, sniffing everything, tasting the air, then they get more courage, and soon they’re prancing happily all over the place, tumbling in the grass, falling over things, bumping into plants and trees, pawing flowers, and looking absolutely adorable while doing it.

Here is a series of photos of Mitzi and Trixie exploring the yard on their own. I’ll probably post more photos today, of the two of them at play. They were somewhere between 2½ and 3 months old here.

Mitzi came pretty close to falling into this hole a few times, but her amazing sense of balance (she’s a cat after all) always kept her safe.

The next post will have more photos of Trixie, I promise. 🙂

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Thoughts

Two kittens on a stool

I did promise Sunday would be my cat day, right? I couldn’t keep that promise last week, as I was traveling, but I’m back this week with another post about our kittens.

Here are Mitzi and Trixie, resting on an inverted stool one evening, when they were about two months old. They loved that chair! Even though they had their own box, laid with soft padding, they preferred to sleep in the seat of this stool.

The sequence of photographs you see here is chronological, recorded as they moved about in the chair, reacting to our movements and the sound of the camera’s shutter. Think of it as a very simple moving picture.

Continue reading →

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Video Log

The larva of the asian ladybug

We found this strange-looking bug in our garden in Southern Transilvania, Romania. It’s about 1 cm in length, with small hairs that grow out of bumps on its back. It’s got six legs, and it moves fairly fast.

I found out, thanks to beansmail, that it’s the larva of the asian ladybug, also known as Harmonia axyridis.

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