This post is for all of the New Zealand and global bird-lovers out there. New Zealand has some wonderful and incredibly intelligent birds that also tend to have rambuctious, mischievous and cheeky personalities. Check out this video of a kea being, well… a kea if you don’t believe me… Here are some little known collectiveContinue reading “The ultimate guide to collective nouns for New Zealand birds”
Category Archives: The Natural World
How Long Does It Take to Make a Woods?
“How long does it take to make the woods? As long as it takes to make the world. It is always finished, it is always being made, the act of its making forever greater than the act of its destruction.” (Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir, 1999)
Exquisite Marine Invertebrates of the 19th Century
In this blog in previous years, I’ve talked about how humans and cephalopods are oddly similar, explored the underwater realm of Sydney Harbour in great detail, and the invisible realm of microscopic creatures rendered by Ernest Haeckel. But in terms of delicate creatures, the Blaschkas were the 19th Century heavy-weights. I originally posted this postContinue reading “Exquisite Marine Invertebrates of the 19th Century”
The Strandbeest and its glittering seaside evolution
Theo Jansen’s strandbeests are composed of spindly plastic organs that take elephantine strides. They have guts that store energy and are powered by wind. They are sensitive mechanical beasts that can even detect water. Each of Jansen’s ingenious strandbeests are miracles in motion. They may very well be the next stages of natural selection. JansenContinue reading “The Strandbeest and its glittering seaside evolution”
How slow-growing lichen opens up the vast universe
The Lichenologist from Matthew Killip on Vimeo. Hidden within this remarkable short film The Lichenologist is the slowly-growing story of the unassuming and vividly beautiful botanical wonder of lichen. Kerry Knudsen has the auspicious title of Curator of Lichens at the University of California. He dispels common misconception between lichens and mosses. The latter beingContinue reading “How slow-growing lichen opens up the vast universe”
How animals would look in Minecraft
One clever coconut named Aditya has taken images from Unsplash and pixabay and created blocky, cube-shaped animals in novel art form known as Anicube. She created the images in Photoshop using the Liquify (Shift+Command+X) keys and then uploaded them to instagram. The comical and surreal results won her a lot of fans. See more of herContinue reading “How animals would look in Minecraft”
Hawaii’s volcanic spectacle and Pele the Fire Goddess
This sky-level satellite image above shows how most of Puna is covered in a lush green canopy, with some visible lava flows in the District of Puna. Puna is one of the smaller islands in the American states of Hawaii. At around 1,300km2 Puna is slightly smaller than the island of Kaua. It’s subtropical climate andContinue reading “Hawaii’s volcanic spectacle and Pele the Fire Goddess”
Film Review: Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey (2016) Terrence Malick
The other night Terrence Malick’s new film Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey screened at the New Zealand International Film Festival Autumn events in Auckland. Although I’ve found Malick’s films a little too long and ponderous, this one I enjoyed more than his others because of its sparseness and its lack of human narrative and human characters.Continue reading “Film Review: Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey (2016) Terrence Malick”
A piano reverberates over collapsing glaciers
Earlier this year, renowned Italian composer Ludovico Eindaudi performed his ‘Elegy for the Arctic’ on a small floating platform in Wahlenbergbreen glacier in Svalbard, Norway. Around him glaciers crumbled and collapsed into the pearlescent water and the pristine quiet was pierced with the deafening sound of a fragile environment on the verge of implosion. HisContinue reading “A piano reverberates over collapsing glaciers”
Microscopic treasures: Abstract art discovered under the microscope
Sometimes the most unimaginable beauty comes from the world cannot be seen with the human eye, but yet still exists in the invisible netherworld of the microscope. Here are some artistic treasures, spied on the Reddit Microporn page, have a look and you will become hooked. Crystalline acetylsalicylic acid viewed under polarised light at 10XContinue reading “Microscopic treasures: Abstract art discovered under the microscope”
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