Artemis II

 

Artemis II

                                Artemis II official crew portrait

Left to right: NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen, NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Unexpectedly, we watched the launch of Artemis II on Wednesday night. Earlier in the day, we had turned on the television, having misread the expected launch time in minutes rather than hours. We decided we would not stay up to watch it, but somehow we did.

 I remember previous manned launches being extremely exciting. Maybe it was the uncertainty of the process, particularly after the tragedy of the space shuttle failures, ‘Challenger’ in 1986 and ‘Columbia’ in 2003, each resulting in the deaths of their seven crew members.

Artemis II is the first mission to take humans out of low Earth orbit since 1972 and will take them further from Earth than ever before. It is planned to travel beyond the far ‘dark’ side of the moon, then slip back into the gravitational pull that will bring it back to earth, the pleasingly called ‘free-return trajectory.’

Nonetheless, there are many things that could go wrong during the ten-day mission, and no-one associated with it will breathe easily until the four crew members have returned safely.

The launch was impressive, but not nail-biting – perhaps it was the presenters, who seemed to lack enthusiasm. However many rocket launches there are, each one is significant and inspiring. Those who complain that such ventures are vanity projects and the money could be more usefully used on Earth miss the point that we have benefitted from the discoveries developed through space exploration.

We speedily take some such benefits for granted, without realising how they came about. For example, we have GPS navigation, satellite broadcasting, improvements in MRI and CT scanning, lightweight prosthetic limbs, water purification, fire-resistant materials, shock absorption materials used in helmets and car seats, monitoring storms and wildfires.The most obvious one is the space blanket, seen wrapped around the shoulders of every marathon runner at the end of the race, or used in emergencies for accident victims.

 It was developed by NASA in 1964!

Juliasaurus

 

Juliasaurus

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I wondered is this was an April Fool’s joke, but apparently Juliasaurus Paleo was discovered in the Morrison Formation, Wyoming, North America in 2020. The Morrison Formation, an area covering 1-3 million square kilometres, has been a rich source of dinosaur fossils since the late nineteenth century.

It prowled the earth around ninety million years before its infamous, much larger cousin, Tyrannosaurus Rex. Its skull formation and dentition suggest that it slashed its prey rather than crushing it. Juliasaurus is a specimen that is almost three-quarters complete, which is unusual, as most dinosaur discoveries are highly fragmented.

Research continues to determine whether Juliasaurus is an entirely new species.

Meanwhile, on loan from a private collector, it goes on public display at Hollytrees Museum in Colchester on April 3^rd.                                            

 

Ospreys

 

Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus)

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The ospreys are returning to their UK nesting sites.

Rutland, Poole, Dyfi, Loch Doon, Foulshaw Moss, and others have all recorded ospreys arriving. Some still await their mates, while others are already mating. Some nests are currently unoccupied, as in Loch Arkaig, but this might change in the next few days.

For those who follow the birds, it can be an anxious time, wondering if the ones they watched in 2025, and often in years before, will return this year. Then there are the weeks of watching and waiting and hoping that breeding will be successful and the young birds will survive.

Eggs and baby birds are at risk from predators like the white-tailed eagle, large owls and corvids, and pine martens. Older, stronger siblings will often bully younger chicks, not allowing them to feed. The weather can also be a factor. Driving rain and fierce winds can chill eggs or chicks quickly, particularly if both parents are hunting for food. Sometimes, one of the parents dies, and it is extremely difficult for the surviving bird to source enough food for the chicks and itself. Exhaustion can be deadly.

Rutland Water ospreys at Manton Bay have been successful for thirty years, raising multiple broods of three and four. Ospreys in other locations often struggle to bring one chick to maturity.

They are stunning birds and there are a number of videos on YouTube – just make sure you get the birds and not the Welsh rugby team in Swansea!

Historically, ospreys have been known as sea hawks, river hawks, or fish hawks. They became extinct in Britain in 1916, but careful reintroduction has seen them increase from two breeding pairs in 1967 to over three hundred pairs in the twenty-first century.

Ospreys remain rarer than golden eagles in the UK.

Troglodyte

 

Troglodyte

Troglodytes troglodytes

Calling someone a troglodyte is abusive, but it’s not an insult that’s commonly used in the twenty-first century. There are other, far more stinging labels.

A troglodyte is a person who lives in a cave, the word primarily referring to prehistoric cave dwellers. It comes from the Greek trōglē  (hole) and dyein (to enter)

 In biology, the prefix troglo indicates how much a creature depends on caves. For example, bats and some insects can be described as ‘troglophiles,’ meaning that although they appreciate the shelter caves may afford, they can live outside them.

On the other hand, a ‘troglobite’ is an organism that is adapted to and dependent on caves, like the blind cave fish or cave salamander. Troglobites often have pale skin, poor or no eyesight, a slower metabolism, and heightened senses of touch, smell, or vibration awareness.

         The troglodyte I heard and saw in the garden this morning is more correctly Troglodytes troglodytes, the wren. It is the commonest breeding bird in the UK, but surprisingly rarely seen, at least by me! It feeds on spiders and insects, searching among leaves to find them. It can often be seen creeping mouse-like round plant pots, seeking food.

Wrens do not have huge reserves of fat and suffer appreciably in cold weather. They huddle together for warmth, and in the winter of 1969, 61 wrens were found in a nesting box in Norfolk.

They typically nest between March and July, and often produce two broods per season.

 

Invitations

 

Invitations

Increasingly, during news programmes, we are invited to ‘have a listen to’ an item or a speaker. Is it a friendly, informal way of introducing a snippet of news, or are we being patronised, or even infantilised?

It’s not discourteous to say, ‘Listen to the next item.’

Sometimes we are asked to ‘have a read of’ an article. It’s not a slice of cake to be held in the hand. I don’t ‘have a read’ of a book – I just read it.

We have always ‘had a look at’ things, though perhaps we should say, ‘Look at this,’ but asking someone to ‘have a taste of’ a dish would be more easily expressed as, ‘try this,’ or ‘taste this.’

Must we mangle the language so badly that it bears no relation to what we actually mean? Do we have to wrap every sentence in extraneous vocabulary to make them more acceptable? It’s not good to be peremptory, but it makes little sense to add unnecessary words. They don’t clarify matters.

After I had written this moaning, whingeing piece, I read an article by Giles Coren in The Times. He writes so well.

Samba

 

Samba

                                Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris)

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Samba the capybara, who escaped from Marwell Zoo, is still at large, evading capture, and hopefully enjoying her freedom. She and her sister, Tango, both nine months old, were transported from a wildlife park in Suffolk. On March 17^th, the day after they arrived in Hampshire, they both escaped. Tango was caught very quickly, but Samba is proving elusive.

Capybaras are the world’s largest rodents, and are best seen as giant guinea pigs, sharing the same docility and lack of aggression as their much smaller cousins. Adults reach an average length of 1.4 metres and a weight of around 60 kg. They are native to South America, apart from Chile. They are mainly predated on by jaguars, cougars, caimans, and anacondas, none of which they will encounter in UK.

They are semi-aquatic, with webbed feet, and are excellent swimmers, able to swim underwater for minutes at a time. They mate only in water and a female not desirous of a male’s attention, will either leave the water or submerge herself. Presumably, the male would also be able to submerge, so I can’t see how that would help. Maybe they have to keep their heads above water as they copulate.

They can also run at speeds up to thirty-five kilometres per hour for short periods.

However, Samba is one on her own, relishing the peace and tranquillity of the Hampshire countryside. Her putative keepers have used drones, sniffer dogs, and thermal imaging to track her, with limited success. They have subsequently sought and gained permission to bait humane traps with melon and banana for this gentle herbivore, foods which are unlikely to attract badgers or other carnivores.

Local residents have been asked to check their garden ponds, as capybaras are attracted to water. The last time two capybaras escaped from Marwell, around thirty years ago, it was two months before they were captured. They were found in the same area that Samba is in now, near the river Itchen. Staff from the zoo are patrolling the riverbank, but are prepared for a long period of searching.

                                Capybara with young pups

Dancing Queen

 

Dancing Queen

The two ‘Dancing Queen’ amaryllis bulbs that I planted on January 11^th are now opening their flowers. They have been growing for almost eleven weeks , so I was beginning to wonder if they would come up to snuff, but they have, and that is pleasing.The original conservatory bulb was far behind the one in the sitting room, but rapidly caught up after we moved it into the warmth to join its companion. 

Recently, Herschel caught sight of the unfurling frilly flower and leapt up to assail it. Maybe he thought it was an exotic bird set free in the house. We discouraged him, and he hasn’t attempted to attack it since. I was quite expecting to find the stem broken one morning, but that has not happened . . . yet!

I have been delighted with the amaryllis and will certainly grow them again.