Beauty and Love
Not long ago my wife, Yvonne, and I got up at 4:00 o’clock in the morning to drive out to the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge north of Minneapolis to observe the sandhill cranes.
The Intimate Life of a Hollyhock Flower
The back wall of the house where we spend each summer is lined with plants that have been among my favorites since my childhood—hollyhocks (Alcaea, most often A. rosea, Family Malvaceae). The stems grow tall enough to project above the rain gutters. The buds at the top give way to open flowers below, and then to maturing fruits near the bottom. Every morning bumblebees arrive to frolic in the flowers, flitting from one to another. A garden paradise awaiting a close look!
The Wonder That a Feather Is
Many birds are clad in brilliant plumage, especially in springtime. The color patterns in the plumage are highly specific and are used by the birds as social signals or for camouflage. To a biologist, the feathers themselves raise a host of questions. Read More
A World of Molecules
Both living things and the non-living world consist of molecules. The molecules that make up each one of us are largely the same as those that make up every other person and animal on the planet. Molecules make up everything in the world of our experience.
Personal Roots
A change is coming to Nature’s Depths. I will use today’s post, the first in the site’s fourth year, to explain what this change is and why I am introducing it.
In the Autumn of the Year
“Autumn is a season of great beauty, but it is also a season of decline: the days grow shorter, the light is suffused, and summer’s abundance decays toward winter’s death. Faced with this inevitable winter, what does nature do in autumn? She scatters the seeds that will bring new growth in the spring—she scatters them with amazing abandon.”