Blog Archives - tropicalbats.com

Would you invite me over?

12/22/2013

My family was recently invited for an overnight stay. It is Christmas time and all that, so such happens and a great time was had. And, holiday pics aren't my usual photographic bits, yet I still wanted to put up a blog post.

So here is a pic of the lit up Santa in the front yard.

Looks like Santa has been down one too many chimneys and his face is full of soot. This is a photo artifact, not what the thing looks like. However, I am actually in favor of a darker skinned Santa, as Saint Nicholas himself, the dude Santa is based on, was from the general area of Turkey and probably had darker skin, but this just looks likes he needs a shower after so many chimneys.

And then I have the audacity to photograph a small spider, about the size of a dime, in the corner of a really clean bathroom. And then post it here! Maybe I can be at your place for New Years, as I might not be invited back here.

And a stat from Google.

http://www.google.com/trends/topcharts?date=2013#vm=trendingchart&cid=zg2640&geo=US&date=2013&cat=

Seems my blog is not in the top ten this year. Surely it was close. Maybe next year.

Nice stal in Terciopelo Cave, Costa Rica

12/20/2013

This cave doesn't go so far, but has lots of interesting stal.

video bits

12/19/2013

It has been a while since I posted any video clips. These aren't mine, and I usually just stick a link in along with my photo post. But I've got a couple of interest and am making a posting just of video links worth a look.

The first is wakeboarding in a cave in Lebanon by Red Bull.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vts9HZsO2OM

I have no idea what they used to pull him through the cave, but it is pretty cool stuff.

And this really isn't a video clip, but a very cool site of the winds of the world.

http://earth.nullschool.net/

And here is a video of a cave dive looking to find a way on

http://vimeo.com/m/82260291

I've got more, just no time to find them all right now..

Enjoy the links.

Feeding pigeons in Dublin, Ireland

12/19/2013

rare tree in Northern Virginia

12/18/2013

Walking through Pimmit Run Stream Park the other day, I spotted one of our rare evergreen trees. Odd looking things, they are in the Genus Microcellus.

Or as commonly known, a cell phone tower. Yes, some of the cell towers have been camoflaged to look like pine trees.

Joyce Lundberg and helicopter

12/16/2013

On the tepui, we were landing helicopters with gear and people. A shot of Joyce Lundberg, a research leader, topside as the helicopters came in.

Water rising, photo trip becomes a race to the entrance

12/16/2013

Set up a photo here, and water was calm. While waiting for my flash holder and model, the water started to rise. Water rising in a cave is not a good thing for those in the cave. We bolted for the entrance and were glad we did, as the water continued to rise and we would have been dead or trapped had we not exited promptly. But I have almost no really good cave photos as this was my one opportunity. You make the call, dead, trapped or some awesome shots of people nearly dead or trapped in a cave flood. I made the call that we get the heck out of there, and the others agreed. So a picture of a stream passage in Charles Brewer Cave as the water was rising. Side note, it rose many feet after we got out of the cave. We made the right decision at the right time.

Formations in Charles Brewer Cave, Venezuela

12/14/2013

This is a bizarre mix of formations coming off a giant breakdown block on the floor. There are formations coming off the breakdown block, with interesting detail, yet there is this large, unexplained white bit with a lot of formation growth on it as well. The ruler in the pic is six inches long for scale, but in general, still notes more research needs done on these caves to figure out the geology. These are silica formations, not calcite like in typical caves.

Tepuis of Venezuela

12/13/2013

view of tepuis from the helicopter.

Tepuis are made from resilient sandstone as the rest of the terrain goes away due to erosion. They often have massive cliffs on their sides. But biologically important is how far apart most of them are geographically as well as how they are separated from the lowland communities by the sheer walls on their sides. That means, the further things are from each other, both by distance and elevation, the further away the biology gets.

Here I show a photo of some tepuis. The photo was taken from a helicopter close to the top of one tepuis, shows a nearby tepui, and also shows one in the distance. Ecologically it is is important to understand the distance between these things, as species on one tepui are likely to be a different species on a different tepui giiven the time they have been geographically separated for many, many years..

Pack being lowered on rope to our base camp at Charles Brewer Cave.

12/12/2013

Packs coming down, this was the final phase of of trip to get to base camp on the tepui. Where, base camp was in the entrance of Charles Brewer Cave, which required a 50 meter rappel.