Springtime Willow Tree And Eurasian Jays, A View From My Window.

Eurasian Treecreeper (Certhia familiaris)

© Jon Lowes

unflattering paparazzi shot 6/18

Zilpzalp was looking super stressed and frantic (with numerous bugs paying the consequences), and the reason was those little fluffballs. 😍 Unfortunately, they were very hidden, but look at those little faces. 😣

Zilpzalpe (chiffchaffs) auf der Karlshöhe, Stuttgart-Süd.

Martian Chiaroscuro : Deep shadows create dramatic contrasts between light and dark in this high-resolution close-up of the martian surface. Recorded on January 24, 2014 by the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the scene spans about 1.5 kilometers. From 250 kilometers above the Red Planet the camera is looking down at a sand dune field in a southern highlands crater. Captured when the Sun was about 5 degrees above the local horizon, only the dune crests were caught in full sunlight. A long, cold winter was coming to the southern hemisphere and bright ridges of seasonal frost line the martian dunes. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, one of the oldest operating spacecraft at the Red Planet, celebrated the 15th anniversary of its launch from planet Earth on August 12. via NASA

The Roasted Planet

Can you hear this exoplanet screaming? As the exoplanet known as HD 80606 b approaches its star from an extreme, elliptical orbit, it suffers star-grazing torture that causes howling, supersonic winds and shockwave storms across this world beyond our solar system. Its torturous journey boils its atmosphere to a hellish 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit every 111 days, roasting both its light and dark sides. HD 80606b will never escape this scorching nightmare. Download this free poster in English and Spanish and check out the full Galaxy of Horrors.

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Moss Graffiti: A How To Guide

Australian Night Parrot

The night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) is a small parrot endemic to the continent of Australia. It is well known as being one of the most elusive and mysterious birds in the world, with no known sightings of the bird between 1912 and 1979, leading to speculation that it was extinct. The first photographic and video evidence of a live individual was publicly confirmed in July 2013. Another live individual was photographed in March 2017.

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Spectacled Weaver (Ploceus ocularis)

© Justin Goldberg

In Green Company: Aurora over Norway : Raise your arms if you see an aurora. With those instructions, two nights went by with, well, clouds – mostly. On the third night of returning to same peaks, though, the sky not only cleared up but lit up with a spectacular auroral display. Arms went high in the air, patience and experience paid off, and the creative featured image was captured as a composite from three separate exposures. The setting is a summit of the Austnesfjorden fjord close to the town of Svolvear on the Lofoten islands in northern Norway. The time was early 2014. Although our Sun has just passed the solar minimum of its 11-year cycle, surface activity should pick up over the next few years with the promise of triggering more spectacular auroras on Earth. via NASA