ABCDeology

I stumbled into the image archives of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. Most of the descriptions were in German, some things semi-translated into brief summaries in English. Although I could not fully understand the text, the images are by turns gorgeous, high definition, historic and scientific.

The Witch Tree is over 400 years old (French explorer Sieur de la Verendrye described it in 1731) and perhaps much older – these types of trees can be a very long-lived in certain conditions, with notably old specimens growing on cliffs where they are inaccessible to deer and wildfire; the oldest known living specimen is just over 1,000 years old, but a dead specimen with over 1,500 growth rings has been found. These very old trees are, despite their age, small and stunted due to the difficult growing conditions. Offerings of tobacco are traditionally left there by generations of Ojibwe, French voyageurs and local kayak/canoe paddlers before journeys on the Great Lakes. The tree and land are owned by the Ojibwe tribe of the Grand Portage Reservation and there is no access unless accompanied by a tribal member (you can, however, get close to the base of the cliff by sea on kayak/canoe).

Beautiful photographs of the Eurasian Kingfisher taken by Charlie Hamilton James; some appearing in National Geographic magazine’s November 2009 issue, the Daily Mail and some from his website.