Tag Archives: observation

City Fox and Urban Owl

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View from the upstairs front windowview from the upstairs back windowI’ve noticed that recently Corvidae Corvus has been dominated by posts about technology and do-it-yourself/maker topics. I guess that’s indicative of where my head has been at lately. But it is Spring (a little early, but nonetheless…), and it’s hard not to notice all the changes budding out–even here in urban DC.

We’re lucky enough to sit on the edge of Rock Creek Park. Across our back alley our neighbors are the fox family, who we occasionally hear and see late at night yapping to each other down the length of the alley. No doubt, out hunting rats and other vermin for their nightly meal. The wild goings on in our alley differ markedly from those in other parts of the District. Last night, I woke to the plaintive questioning of a barred owl, “Who-cooks-for-you? who-cooks-for-you?”

For an urban dweller, I have unusual access to forested tracts. But even in parts of the city without direct access, nature abounds. Recognizing it is a matter of looking with a different kind of gaze. And also, I would argue, recognizing nature when you don’t necessarily think you’re looking at it. The falcon waiting on the ledge of a building to pick off an unsuspecting pigeon, or even the tree sprouting out from the Metro overpass are examples of nature adapting to and reclaiming the urban landscape.

Stories of raccoons and coyotes rummaging through trash cans are not at all uncommon. But the common Norway rat that we city folk see running along a wall or run over by a bus represent a little bit of the wild in our cities. The lessons of nature don’t just occur in the forested rural lands, or even in suburban back yards. Survival, growth and beauty are sometimes all the more evident for the stark contrast of the city. It’s worth taking a walk along the river or through an alley to see some unexpected scenes.

Below, I quote from a piece by Rick Curtis, Director of Princeton University’s Outdoor Action program. Mr. Curtis is writing here specifically about observation in the forest–particularly about tracking. But his advice holds even in the most congested urban area:

The most important part of nature observation is relaxation. Observation and stalking require you to slow down and settle yourself. It is akin to a moving form of meditation. Animals can sense when you are agitated, anxious or fearful and will disappear. When you settle yourself, you can move among animals without them sensing your presence. You must press yourself to use all of your senses all of the time or they will become atrophied.

I. Varied Sensory Awareness

Vary your vision. Pay intermittent attention to your environment. Shift your focus. If you pay rapt attention to one thing, it will dull your senses (“highway hypnosis”). You will learn more if you are paying intermittent attention. Flash back and forth through your various senses, vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.

II. Wide Angle (Splatter) Vision vs. Pinpoint Vision

We tend to use focal vision about 95% of the time and wide-angle vision only 5%. Animals use the reverse (5% and 95%). To use wide-angle vision you want to take in all the information from your peripheral vision constantly then focus down when needed. Concentrate on the entire picture, mentally blocking out information to focus down.

The primary thing that gives you away (or an animal) is movement. Focused vision doesn’t pick up movement whereas wide-angle vision makes the eye reactive to movement. When you notice movement then focus down to that object. And once focused, keep tracking that animal visually very closely so that you don’t loose it. Keep this process in mind! This is how the animals look for you. Anything that is out of the natural order, movement, shadow, or noise attracts their attention and they focus on it.

At night using wide-angle vision utilizes all the peripheral areas of the eye which are more sensitive to low levels of light. This improves night travel and seeing animals. It will allow you to notice nighttime animal movement. Flashlights cause focal vision which restrict your sensitivity to movement. At night a wind will blow things in one rhythm. Anything moving contrary to that rhythm, check it out with focal vision.

III. Automatic Vision

When you are looking at something you scan “take a picture” then scan, “take a picture” etc. as you look across a landscape. When you look across that landscape again you tend to “take the same pictures” or focus on the same spots. The Blind Spots (dead air space) are the ones you miss. Over time the number of automatic snap shots decreases until you only see a few out of the whole scene. Eventually you really don’t see it at all. You must consciously fight dead air space all the time. Each time you look at a scene again look at it as something new. Also, don’t just look at solid objects (e.g. a tree); look through the spaces of the tree, between the branches. There may be a deer behind that tree that you will see if you look through it rather than looking at it.

IV. Focused Hearing

We have tremendous peripheral hearing with our ears on the sides of our heads, but poor focused hearing. Since we can’t move our ears as many animals can, we don’t have directional hearing. But we can increase our hearing by 10x by cupping our hands, thumbs up, behind our ears, with the elbows out. This creates a parabolic reflector which gathers the sound in to our ears. This technique is paramount in locating animals and finding out what lies ahead of you.

 

What Words Can’t Convey: Illustrations Promote Scientific Understanding

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cucumber skinHumankind has long used illustrations to represent complex ideas and concepts. When words just can’t quite convey our meaning images often becomes necessary. From cave paintings to modern-day microscopy our ability to understand and influence our environment has relied on our evolving ability to create read images.

To quote the National Science Foundation (NSF):

Some of science’s most powerful statements are not made in words. From the diagrams of DaVinci to Rosalind Franklin’s X-rays, visualization of research has a long and literally illustrious history. To illustrate is to enlighten.

How many people would have heard of fractal geometry or the double helix or solar flares if they had been described solely in words? In a world where science literacy is dismayingly rare, illustrations provide the most immediate and influential connection between scientists and other citizens, and the best hope for nurturing popular interest. Indeed, they are now a necessity for public understanding of research developments.

cell divisionTo that end the NSF and the journal Science have created the International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. You can see these and other images (as well as some of the winners from previous years) at the website. Categories include, photography, illustration, video and even interactive games. We’ve come a long way from the cave wall. I wish I’d had images like this when I was studying biology in high school. Stained potato cells just don’t give you the whole picture.metabolomic eye

Camouflage: Art Meets Science Again

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The other day I was out with my sons and their friend, walking through Rock Creek Park. When we reached a little grassy field along a hillside trail William, my youngest, decided to test our powers of observation.

It’s a game both my boys love to play, and one that they have raised to the level of performance. The casual passer-by often takes little enough note of the obvious, let alone the animals, objects, and even young boys hidden in plain site. Observation, I think, is the connection between the naturalist and the artist.

William’s game reminded me of an exhibit we saw a while back at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Included in this exhibit of artists sketches and journals were the notebooks of American artist and naturalist Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921).

Working in the late 19th – early 20th century, Thayer has since become known as the father of camouflage for his writings on countershading and high-difference patterning. Ideas that would later be adapted by Norman Wilkinson to provide what still, to the untrained eye, seems like a counterintuitive camouflage patterning for British naval vessels.

What Thayer and his colleague George de Forest Brush noticed was not, as you might expect, that animals that closely mimicked the patterns of nature–the ones that best matched the color and texture of their surroundings–had a distinct camouflaging advantage. Of course, similarity in color and texture does help disguise potential prey, and assists the predator in stealthy attack. But by studying optics and applying the artistic concept of countershading, the two determined that the real secret to camouflage is to break up the patterns in order to confuse the viewer. The way the white belly of a fish or frog for instance serves to break up the hard lines that distinguish its shape. The effect, rather than to completely hide an animal from its predator, or a ship from its enemy, is to confuse the viewer. To break the pattern of recognition.

                

My son’s game works on the same principles. The idea, of course is to hide, to become invisible. But becoming invisible is only really fun if someone sees you doing it.

When we look at the natural world, or at art the disruption of our view often results in misrecognition and at times mild confusion. With art as with nature, close observation is necessary to distinguish the patterns, to see the connections, and eventually for the object to to become recognizable and meaningful–whether it’s food for the belly or the mind.