Posts Tagged: Spider Web
Morning at the Horicon Marsh
Female Belted Kingfisher
This female Belted Kingfisher was loudly and incessantly chattering behind the Horicon Marsh Education and Visitors Center. She has an extra chestnut band that the male Belted Kingfisher does not have. It is one of the few bird species in North America in which the female is more colorful than the male. She is a beautiful blend of slate gray, copper, and chestnut brown. Belted Kingfishers nest by burrowing three to six feet into a bank and making a dome shaped chamber at the end.
Dickcissel
This colorful Dickcissel was flitting among the shrubs by the Education and Visitors Center. This grassland finch will likely soon migrate to Venezuela, the most common spot you might find them in the winter.
Cooler nights and morning dew showcase the intricate work of spiders. It is amazing to see hundreds of webs glistening across a meadow.
Ring-billed Gull
A Ring-billed Gull enjoys the calm, sunny morning near the auto tour off of Highway 49.
Gulls need to stretch in the morning, just like humans.
Cedar Waxwing
The exquisite coloring on the Cedar Waxwing is striking with red tipped wings and yellow tipped tail feathers. Waxy red secretions highlight the wing tips.
This little frog was content to sit under the boardwalk at the Education and Visitors Center. The boardwalk provides easy hiking into the marsh with several benches to sit and enjoy the wildlife.
Utility and Beauty
“Poetry is a fresh morning spider web telling a story of moonlit hours of weaving and waiting during a night.”
Carl Sandburg
“The difference between utility and utility plus beauty is the difference between telephone wires and the spider web.”
Edwin Way Teale
“Just imagine the banner headlines if a marine biologist were to discover a species of dolphin that wove large,
intricately meshed fishing nets, twenty dolphin-lengths in diameter!
Yet we take a spider web for granted, as a nuisance in the house rather than as one of the wonders of the world.”
Richard Dawkins
“Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider’s web?”
“Oh, no,” said Dr. Dorian. “I don’t understand it. But for that matter I don’t understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle.”
“What’s miraculous about a spider’s web?” said Mrs. Arable. “I don’t see why you say a web is a miracle–it’s just a web.”
“Ever try to spin one?” asked Dr. Dorian.
E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web
Recent Comments