Over my Spring Break, I joined my roommate at his home in Ithaca, NY. If you didn't know, this also happens to be where Walt is from and throughout the week I began to imagine how difficult it must have been for Walt to leave Ithaca for Burlington. Within the first couple days I was there, we went to Taughannock Falls (pronounced Tuh•ga'•nuck; see following picture) and I instantly thought of Rock Point and how overwhelmed Walt must have been as a young man growing up with such diverse geology as the Ithaca Gorges.
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| Taughannock Falls is the tallest waterfall east of the Mississippi; it is 33 feet higher than Niagara. |
After our geologic adventure to this famous gorge, we ventured over to the Cornell Plantations to explore a variety of tree species and hike around doing some tree ID. Finally, and most relevantly, we went to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to take a look at some birds. Sadly, I didn't bring my camera but we did see a variety of bird species including mallards (
Anas platyrhynchos), Canada geese (
Branta canadensis), crows (
Corvus brachyrhynchos), black-capped chickadees (
Poecile atricapillus), and a couple cedar waxwings (
Bombycilla cedrorum). Additionally, there were a variety of stuffed (anyone know a verb form of "taxidermy"?) hummingbirds on display that had some exquisite feather colorings.
As for my place, today I went out and didn't see much in the way of birds except some more
C. brachyrhynchos and many many gulls (
Larus canus I believe; there are so many gulls, it is hard to find the right one).
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| A flock of L. canus |
On my way back I also saw a very rare bird, one I like to call
Helicopterus medevacus, or the MedEvac helicopter. This got me thinking and I realized that I have no idea what inspired the invention of the helicopter; there is really nothing in nature that spins like that and actually flies — many seed pods can act like parachutes to catch the wind, but nothing really uses a propulsion system like a helicopter's rotor blades. Food for thought.
Cheers!
Wow, breathtaking pictures. This entry is awesome because you stuffed so many different pieces of information into it- the waterfall, birds at the lab, birds at your place, and that "food for thought" about the helicopter. I'd love to hear more about that rare bird.
ReplyDeleteIthaca is a great town. Reminds me alot of Burlington. People there always have those shirts "Ithaca is Gorges"...pretty witty I think. It is interesting to think about flight and the inspiration we must have gotten from watching birds do it for thousands of years.
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