Figure 1 – Sanderlings on Plum Island, Newburyport, MA, March 30, 2019. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

Figure 1 shows a pair of sanderlings, Calidris alba, that I took on Saturday during my trip to Plum Island in Newburyport, MA. These are the common sandpipers of the eastern coast of North America. In fact, the Sanderling is one of the world’s most widespread shorebirds. While they nest only in the High Arctic, in fall and winter you can find them on nearly all temperate and tropical sandy beaches throughout the world. Despite this, the sanderling population has decreased by as much as eighty percent since the early 1970’s. They are assaulted by climate change both in their feeding and breeding grounds and by human encroachment.

To watch these little sandpipers pipe in the sand at the water’s edge is truly a gift. The beach is never silent, but it is so easy to become mesmerized by sand and surf and to watch these little birds endlessly, or until something spooks them and the whole flock disappears in an instance. Beaches truly are magical places, where you don’t even have to shut your eyes to be transported back in time to the age of the pterodactyls, the great soaring dinosaurs. Here truly are their descendants.

I spoke yesterday of the magic of Avalon. One of my friends said to me, “Too bad it isn’t true. That the magic isn’t real.” To that the response must be that Avalon is not a physical place, but it is real, it is in your heart. The sandpiper, the beach, and the mist all bring the magic to your heart.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 235 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/4000th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – The Mists of Avalon, Plum Island, Newburyport, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019

Yesterday, I finally made it up for an early spring visit to Plum Island. The trip had the instant vacation, the instant spiritual cleansing, effect of all trips to the sea. This did not disappoint. Massachusetts’s North Shore is a magnificent and magical place, especially this time of year when great expanses of the shoreline are devoid of people, when the sea is cold and green, when you can immerse yourself in the insistent claim to existence of the surf and the wind.

Yesterday was overcast, although there was a cloud-draped sun, and there was a glorious mist. This immediately evoked all the magic of the mists of Avalon and the fact that we, as English speaking people, are spiritually, if we open our minds to it, never too far from that seminal myth of Britain. Mist is hard to photograph, but I am pleased by the image of Figure 1. I took several images but this one, where the woman resembles Vivien, Mallory’s “Lady of  the Lake,” spoke most to. It seems as if the Lady of the Lake lifts up the fog from the sand and the sea.  The mist does not enshroud her, but rather she enshrouds herself with the mist. We have the words of Marion Zimmer Bradley that ultimately describe the critical point of all hero journeys.

Figure 1 – The black hole that is the Axis Mundi, Natick, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

The axis mundi is the tree at the center of the universe. It is everywhere. You just need to tune your mind to its presence. Today I found it in the most mundane of places, in a department store. And this particular tree, I believe, is a wooden log long soaked in water – soaked so long in water that the wood becomes dense and the wood ceases to float. What strikes me here is the way that it evokes the sense of a gravitational black hole – ever distant but compelling. And it is this singularity of space-time that beckons us to the possibilities of an infinity of strange, even frightening, parallel universes that is the multiverse.

“To awaken quite alone in a strange parallel universe is the priceless moment to a time traveler!”
Vishwanath S J

Figure 1 – methane bubbles in the ice in late winter, Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

Yes, it’s time for another reassuring moment in physics. I went with a friend to the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge this morning. It was much rougher that we anticipated due to last week’s foot of snow – but we did reward ourselves with an excellent Makimono Lunch afterwards. That, the good company, and the sunshine made the day!

I did notice these strange bubbles on in the ice, now slowly melting as spring inches in. These are methane bubbles. Methane released by decaying detritus becomes trapped beneath the ice and then trapped within it as winter progresses. Then as the ice begins to melt in the spring these bubbles literally pop releasing the foul smelling gas. Isn’t physics wonderful! And the physics of ice, as we have discussed before, is very complicated.Also it can be very artistic.

Further, these bubbles are very important to climate change naysayers. You see release of greenhouse gases is a natural process of the Earth. Well yes, as are cows passing gas in the breeze. But in the end, we are the arbiters of climate change. Once again, it is all physics, and in that case not so reassuring!

Figure 1 – Floor mirror in the shoe department of a department store, Natick, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019

Figure 1 is a photograph of a floor mirror that I took with my IPhone 6 in the shoe department of a local department store. First of all, I guess it may become one of those images remembering passing things. How long will department stores last, and what will be the re-purposing of local malls? But let’s not go there today. These questions are too profound for the frivolity of the photograph.

First, I tried very hard to keep myself out of the image. The soft shadow of my hands holding the camera just make it in. There were a number of aspects of this image that struck me when I was taking it and after. These are exercises in optics and geometry. First is the illusion that parallel lines meet before infinity. Second is the many and sometimes contradictory parallel planes that the mirror and the photographer’s perspective create. For me that is where a lot of the interest lies. This is because you try to figure out how the peculiar angles of the mirror first to the floor and second relative to the camera fall just the way they fall. Finally, there are the two diamonds which were my point of compositional focus. These diamonds, it seems to me, are what ultimately creates the composition.

Figure 1 -Archaeopteryx natickigensis non-fossil non-discovery, Natick, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

Jurassic Park fans and dinosaur aficionados, in general, are well aware of the theory that today’s birds evolved from dinosaurs. To see the veracity of this theory one has only to observe the jerky lumberings of the wild turkey. Alfred Hitchcock aside, we are surrounded by the descendants of dinosaurs. 

The earliest “proof,” or perhaps tease is a better word,  was a single fossil feather unearthed in 1860 or 1861 and described in 1861 by Hermann von Meyer. It is currently located at the Natural History Museum of Berlin. Then the first fossil skeleton, now known as the London Specimen (BMNH 37001), was unearthed in 1861 near Langenaltheim, Germany, and the story goes that it was given to a local physician, Karl Häberlein, as payment for medical services. He then sold it for £700 to the Natural History Museum in London. Significantly, this fossil was described in 1863 by Richard Owen and given the name Archaeopteryx macrura.

Until recently, twelve specimens have been recovered. An indication of just how rare species specific fossils can be. Significantly, I have discovered a 13th specimen, a new species of Archaeopteryx in the bedrock of the floor tiles of the Natick Mall. This is shown in Figure 1. The species here has been name Archaeopteryx natickigensis for its location. In reality the species A. natickigensis is a new non-species and contributes absolutely nothing to our understanding of the phylogeny of birds. Rather it speaks to the genesis of fissures in the bedrock and the need for improved mall. maintenance.