teabyrd.com my adventures

nature


Surfing a mountain

Teahupo’o, a reef break, is  world-renowned for it’s consistent ability to deliver glass-smooth barrels.   Click the above photo for a high-resolution version.  Don’t miss this, and other footage, of riders attempting the wave on youtube
More from wikipedia

Pollen blankets the Southeast

Today’s pollen count is 5,937 particles per cubic meter of air, the highest on record in Georgia. Here is a helpful chart to put that absurd number into perspective:

Read more at the Atlanta Allergy & Asthma Clinic.

Birds of paradise

From Papua New Guinea:

The Trees

In preparation for all new landscaping, all of the trees around the apartment have been removed during the past few days.  Though it really changes the local disc golf course dynamic, the lack of trees makes everything appear pretty barren when looking out the front window.

Treevalanche

Wait for it…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsXQBnZ_xjI]

Vespa mandarinia

The world’s largest wasp.
The hornets often attack honeybee hives with the goal of obtaining the honeybee larvae. The hornets can devastate a colony of honeybees: a single hornet can kill as many as 40 honeybees per minute; it takes only a few of these hornets a few hours to exterminate the population of a 30,000-member […]

Salt Flats of Uyini

A few more photos are available on the site. Scroll down to find them.
In this part of the year, the rainy season leaves several inches of perfectly still water on the ground, which reflects the full expanse of the sky as a single, continuous sheet of glass.
From Where the Hell is Matt?

Discovery’s National Parks Tour

 
Overlayed on Google Maps: link

Unbelievable avian vocal mimicry

This video of the Superb Lyrebird is nearly unbelievable: Google Video
from Wikipedia:
A lyrebird's call is a rich mixture of its own song and any number of other sounds it has heard. The lyrebird's syrinx is the most complexly-muscled of the Passerines (songbirds), giving the lyrebird extraordinary ability, unmatched in vocal repertoire and mimicry. Lyrebirds render […]