Label: Cool Photo

March 27, 2012

Today’s "Cool Photo of the Week" is a photograph that I took on Sunday afternoon. We were leaving our house in Columbia County, reluctantly heading back to the city, and decided to drive past Copake Lake.

As we were driving along the shore, I saw a swooping motion out of the corner of my eye, as a large bird dove into the water and came out with a fish in its beak.

I quickly pulled over, because many of my neighbors have told me that they have been seeing bald eagles this winter. Sure enough - my first close-up eagle sighting!

March 13, 2012

Today’s "Cool Photo of the Week" is of a 3-week old baby squirrel, wearing a tiny cast on her arm after falling out of a tree. A couple in England were cutting branches off a tree in their yard, when they realized that one of the branches contained a squirrel’s nest. They saw the injured baby squirrel on the ground and called Animal Rescue.  They took her in, put a cast on her arm, and have been feeding her special milk that is similar to what her mother would have fed her.

Photo: Tim Goode / Solent News & Photo Agency

March 6, 2012

For today’s Cool Photo of the Week, we could not resist posting this adorable photograph of a Eurasian Red Squirrel. If you live in Europe or Asia, this is a common tree squirrel. Those of us who live here in North American are used to seeing its cousin, the Eastern Grey Squirrel. Our grey squirrels are bigger, and they don’t have these very cute ear-tufts!

February 28, 2012

Today’s "Cool Photo of the Week" shows the caretaker at a crocodile breeding center in Nepal brushing the teeth of a narrow snouted crocodile. This endangered species is bred in captivity and released into the wild once they can live on their own.

Photo: Navesh Chitrakar / Reuters

February 21, 2012

Do you remember our story late last year about the rescue effort to save Blue Penguins, who were at risk after an oil spill of New Zealand? They have made great progress cleaning up the spill, but wild life rescuers are still collecting little sweaters, to have on hand for penguins who are rescued in the future. These penguins in their sweaters are so cute that we decided this qualified as our "Cool Photo of the Week"!

When they are soaked in oil, penguins need to be prevented from trying to preen themselves, so that they won’t ingest the toxic oil. And they also need help staying warm. Sweaters are the perfect solution to both of these problems, and knitters all over the world responded by making and sending penguin sweaters.

January 31, 2012

Have you ever seen a living creature that looks like this? This animal, captured and studied by scientists on an oceanlab in the Mid Atlantic Ocean, is a member of a recently discovered family of acorn worms (Torquaratoridae). 

Deep Sea Acorn Worms are delicate animals that have no eyes and no tail. They crawl along the ocean floor, leaving a spiral-shaped trail behind, burrowing into the sediment to find food that has fallen from the surface. Creatures like these used to be thought of as evolutionary "leftovers," because they failed to evolve and develop tails and become competent swimmers, like fish. It turns out, though, that they have evolved in just the right way to live in the distant depths of the ocean. We are discovering that acorn worms are some of the most common animals that live in the deep sea, alongside sea cucumbers, sea stars, shellfish and other fish. They have even been seen making a kind of swimming movement, lifting themselves off the ocean floor so that they can drift into areas where food is more plentiful.

Photo: David Shale

January 17, 2012

The cool photo of the week is….a white penguin! This unusual white Chinstrap penguin was spotted by a naturalist onboard a ship off Antarctica’s Aitcho Islands. This is a leucistic (pronounced lew-SIS-tic) penguin, which means that it has less than the normal amount of pigment, or coloration, in its skin and feathers.

It is a fairly rare sight, since the penguin’s black and white coloring serves as camouflage. When it is fishing, a penguin’s black back makes it blend in with the dark waters below, protecting it from predators avove. Similarly, its white belly makes it blend in with the sky when viewed by predators from below. That is a common survival mechanism among many animals (think about birds in the sky, or fish with light-colored bellies and darker colors on top). And that is why it is so rare to see a leucistic penguin. Since their coloration does not protect them, fewer survive to breed, resulting in very few among the general population. 

Photo: David Stephens / Lindblad Expeditions

January 10, 2012

Are you tired of the unusually warm winter we are having? Do you miss having snow to play in and snowstorms to close schools? If you are, you’re in good company. Most of the U.S. is experiencing warmer-than-average temperatures this winter.

People who live in Cordova are used to snow, of course, but they have never seen anything like this. Most people who live in areas at risk of avalanches have moved in with friends for the time being, and the town is setting up a pet shelter.

Can you imagine 18-feet of snow? Picture four fifth graders, standing on each others’ shoulders, one on top of the other. That is about the height of the snow that has fallen this month in Cordova!

Photo: Kate Herring

December 20, 2011

The Cool Photo of the Week is a reindeer in conversation with a cat. What do you suppose they are talking about?!

For those of you receiving iPads or Nook Color/Tablets this season, Seymour Simon has many quality eBooks available for purchase, some discounted as much as 50% for the holidays. If you are adding reading material to a tablet, please consider making Seymour Simon’s exceptional nonfiction for children part of your collection. Happy holidays to all!

December 13, 2011

Today’s Cool Photo of the week is of Avie, a tiny two-toed sloth. She is being raised at the Aviarios Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica, a place for baby sloths who lost their mothers to power lines or road traffic or other accidents. She is an omnivore, and eats both leaves and fruits. 

Sloths spend most of their time in the rainforest canopies of Americas, sleeping up to eighteen hours a day. Perfectly adapted to living in the trees, sloths are also strong and graceful swimmers. The mother bears one infant at a time, and carries it clinging to her belly for up to a year as they move through the trees, learning the ways of the sloth.

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