Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Hummingbird Gardens

To learn more about these beautiful birds and how to attract them to your home, click on the following link:

http://www.herbco.com/t-hummingbird-gardens.aspx

Monday, February 27, 2012

Did you know?

We came across a video we thought you might enjoy--like them or not, this is an impressive display of nature at its finest. Take a look!

A mystery of nature:

No one knows why they do it. Yet each fall, thousands of starlings dance in the twilight above England and Scotland. The birds gather in shape-shifting flocks called murmurations, having migrated in the millions from Russia and Scandinavia to escape winter’s frigid bite.
Scientists aren’t sure how they do it, either. The starlings' murmurations are manifestations of swarm intelligence, which in
different contexts is practised by schools of fish, swarms of bees and colonies of ants. As far as I am aware, even complex algorithmic models haven’t yet explained the starlings’ aerobatics, which rely on the tiny birds' quicksilver reaction time of under 100 milliseconds to avoid aerial collisions—and predators—in the giant flock.

Two young ladies were out for a late afternoon canoe ride and fortunately one of them remembered to bring her video camera. What they saw was a wonderful murmuration display, caught in the short video whose URL is below. Watch the variation of colour and intensity of the patterns that the birds make in close proximity to one other.


Click on the following link to watch this phenomenon:
http://vimeo.com/31158841