Heron & Fox

While walking the trails of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, I came upon this branch, unconnected to any tree but help by a vine's grip. "Air plants," of the genus Tillandsia. This type of air plant grows on tree branches (or anything else) and derives its food from sunlight and water from the air. This framing of the branching hanging down in the center, flanked by a palm tree trunk on the left and Florida scrub palmetto on the right. The top third contains the more dramatic plant, while the lower third contains the larger. The middle third contains nothing. Fox found it interesting.

Another macro shot of amethyst crystal specimen. Amethyst is a type of quartz, crystalline silicon dioxide (SiO2), which contains inclusions of iron on the crystal. This view focuses on a transition from the purple crystal to a yellow-clear crystal, and the greenish rock matrix.

A juvenile Sandhill Crane walks past some decorative grass. Crane usually lay one, two, or sometimes three eggs. The young birds remain with their parents almost a full year, until they are ready to start another brood. But until then, the young birds follow their parents everywhere, and their parents watch for them carefully. A subspecies of Sandhill Cranes are native to Florida, and live in the area year-round. Cranes lay one or two eggs each season, and both parents raise the young cranes until it is time for them to lay eggs again. Immature cranes have sparse, light brown feathers. Cranes eat berries and fruit, as well as insects, small reptiles and lizards, and small fish and crustaceans, depending on what’s available.

An eager Air Force volunteer from German happily displays some of the computer memory used to launch rockets from Cape Canaveral. The tray he’s pulled out represents 5 kilobytes of volatile memory. This was a public tour of CCAFS arranged by the Air Force Space & Missile Museum.