The Hall of Einar Sunday Recommendation #32
Why Evolution is True – Jerry A Coyne
I’m lichen it
After nearly all life on Earth is extinguished there will still be lichens. Why? Because they’re a composite organism. Lichens are mixture …
Sparkly Puffins, the horizon and evolutionary hairpin bends
The west coast of Westray is by far the most beautiful and magnificent. It’s largely empty of buildings apart from ruins. Here …
Peregrines v Buzzard
A bit of daily exercise means a walk up the hill and back. I’m trying to avoid the Grand Old Duke of …
A Canary Islands Robin deep in the prehistoric Laurel forest
A quick check reveals there’s a stretch of original Laurisilva forest on our route through Gran Canaria. That’s exciting. How often do …
Bempton birds – Cousin Puffin and the Ancestral Auk
Non-scientists often think the mysteries of the living world have been solved. Nothing could be further from the truth. There’s plenty of …
The Upside-Down Bird strikes a pose the Right-Way-Up
There’s a Nuthatch calling like the alarm on an abandoned car, or the insistent signal of a reversing lorry, overhead. Then, with …
There’s a killer on the loose
This domestic cat is a natural born killer. How can I tell? All I have to do is look into its eyes. …
Ultra Violet Tits
There are Blue Tits galore in the trees in this Italian forest. Their Italian name is Cinciarella, pronounced Chin-char-ella. Their beaks are …
A fortress on the stalk of a leaf
It doesn’t look like much. After all, it’s just a bulge on a stalk of a leaf, scattered on the pavement in …
The reason ducks have such brilliant eyes
There’s a female Tufted Duck on the lake at The Regent’s Park in London. Looking at it I marvel at how brilliant …
Four in ten Americans believe God created the Earth and anatomically modern humans, less than 10,000 years ago.
I’m visiting the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC: It’s got everything you would expect of a major national …
Fly
The closer you look, the more there is to see. As a child I had a blue-handled magnifying glass with a pocket …
The tale of the fig and the fig wasp
Every fig has, at its centre, a secret; and that secret had six legs. For figs to grow you need fig wasps …
The Lesser Kestrels of Matera #2
Matera is a city in southern Italy; an ancient city in the heel of Italy’s boot. It has been continuously inhabited since …
I’ve just seen a face
The steady gaze of this half-wild cat faces me. It’s behind a tree in the garden of the stable block of the …
Leap-frogging Blackcaps
There’s a Blackcap in the tree. I can hear its alarm call and then I see it; it’s a female. It looks …