Yellow Weaver Finches: An Overview
Weaver finches, and Yellow weavers in particular, are often known as “weaver birds” because of the extremely complex nests built by the male birds to try and attract females. What is interesting about Yellow weavers is that they tend to live in colonies, unlike many other birds which simply flock together regularly. Instead, the male weavers will build their nests together, working with each other and placing multiple nests on the same branch. This can result in an interesting display when female weavers are around, since they’ll all attempt to compete for the same female’s attention!
There are places where Yellow weavers may be seen in captivity, such as the Paradise Bird Aviary or Paradise Earth, and because the nests aren’t typically built too high off the ground, visitors can see the mass of nests above in the tree branches. Yellow weaver nest materials vary significantly, as they tend to be skilled enough to use whatever is available to build their elaborate homes. Anything from leaf fibers, grass, and twigs are used, and in some cases, weavers will actually create enormous messy-looking stick nests that have smaller, circular woven nests inside. Some varieties of Yellow weaver in Africa will actually build apartment nests, where up to 300 weaver couples will have their own spherical rooms that they enter through the bottom of a massive apartment-building nest.
Weaver finches are typically found in tropical areas of Asia, Australia and sub-Saharan Africa, and Yellow weavers males tend to be polygamous, mating with up to four females during the same breeding season that runs from May to September. Most of the courtship rituals are very elaborate, consisting of repeated loud noises, detailed dances and flight routines, and generally gregarious behavior!
After mating, a female weaver clutch tends to be around 2 to 4 eggs, and unlike many other bird species, the male Yellow weaver doesn’t spend time incubating the eggs. The hatching period should come within 14-15 days after the eggs are laid.
In terms of keeping a Yellow weaver for a pet, they can be kept as cage birds in the home, however their excessive noise and energetic behavior can be distracting for people looking for a quieter and more sedentary pet. They will eat insects and tropical fruit, and they should easily become familiar with their handlers. However, any Yellow weaver that is kept in the home will need to have been bred in captivity, as bringing a wild weaver into your home is both illegal and traumatizing for the bird itself.
Learn about the Saharan African yellow Weaver at http://www.paradiseearthonline.com/
The Rainforest And You: The Benefits We Get From The Rainforest
Rainforests are forest locations that have very high rainfall measurements each year. The most well known rainforests are tropical rainforests found in Central America, Southeast Asia, parts of Australia and the Amazon region in Africa.
Rainforests play a very important role in our daily life whether we are aware of it or not. For example, two thirds of the world’s animal and plant species live in the rainforests. Millions of plants, animals and insects are currently living in the rainforests of the world waiting to be discovered. The majority of natural medicines available on the market today come from tropical rainforests. Between 70 and 80 percent of the world’s population depends on plant medicines. Hundreds of prescription drugs are made in some part from plants found only in the rainforest, also.
More than 20% of the oxygen in the world is produced in the Amazon rainforests alone. The Amazon Basin is also home to at least one fifth of the world’s fresh water resources. There are an estimated 3,000 types of fruit that grow in the rainforests of the world. In the United States, only 200 different types of the available rainforest fruits are used.
As you can see, much of the world’s resources come from our rainforests. Even the U.S. National Cancer Institute confirms that many of the plants in the rainforest are effective in fighting cancer cells. At least one fourth of the active ingredients in cancer fighting drugs can be found exclusively in the rainforests of the world. Several companies and organizations are currently researching plants in the rainforests as possible cures for viruses, cancer and AIDS.
A constant concern revolves around the destruction of the rainforests. Rainforests are destroyed so the trees can be used as timber and the land used for grazing cattle and for farming. However, due to the composition of the soil in a rainforest, the ground is not suitable for farming. Rainforests are much more useful to humans and to the earth if left intact. Valuable resources, such as plants, animals, fresh water and oxygen are destroyed and lost forever by rainforest destruction. The destruction of the rainforest is the leading cause of animal extinction.
The Amazon River alone is home to more species of fish than can be found in the Atlantic Ocean. Our rainforests are vital to every part of our life from the air we breathe to the medicine we use for a headache. The rainforests are one part of the earth that we shouldn’t take for granted or let it be destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Learn about Our Ecosystem & The Rainforest at http://www.paradiseearthonline.com/
UN Appeals For More Trees
The UN has launched a campaign to plant a billion new trees, which is being welcomed by environmentalists, but with a warning by some that in certain regions it could do more harm than good.
While the campaign claims that each tree uses up 26 pounds of co2 emissions and in return produces enough oxygen for a family of four, planting the right trees is important to help the world improve her ecological and environment balance.
In areas that historically have suffered from a lack of rain, and in areas where global warming could potentially produce deserts, new trees that use a lot of water could have a serious affect on their biodiversity.
Eucalyptus trees can consume two thousand litres of water a day, and planting new ones in Africa would be a catalyst to disaster, and local campaigners for planting trees are urged to consider their area needs and decide carefully before deciding on which type of tree to plant.
As well as individuals planting a tree, it is hoped that businesses will do the same and encourage employees to do the same, with government and civil servants also being asked to take active participation to reach the target of a billion trees by the end of this year.
The patron of the campaign is Prince Albert of Monaco. Prince Albert has been campaigning for the environment since becoming Monaco’s Sovereign two years ago, and one of his first acts was to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Previously, along with Australia and the USA, Monaco was one of a handful of countries not to ratify the treaty.
Prince Albert’s father, Prince Rainier, was Europe’s longest reigning Monarch until his death in April 2005. Known affectionately as the ‘builder prince’ he transformed Monaco into the world’s favourite tax haven and ensured the Monaco Grand Prix became one of the best known annual sporting events. The Principality Albert succeeded to was a country known throughout the world for money and glamour, and the Monte Carlo casino only added to its legendary status.
Albert has continued in his father’s footsteps with a plan to develop an island off Monte Carlo, and like his father with the reclaimed land in Fontvieille the map of Monaco will change again.
In keeping with his stance on the environment, it is thought that a successful bid to build the island will need to be seen to be environmentally friendly, with the possibility of lower rise buildings than some parts of Monaco have endured to create more living space.
Monte Carlo has long been associated with glamour, heightened throughout the world in 1956 when Prince Albert’s father married his mother, US actress Grace Kelly.
Speculation was rife earlier this year that Prince Albert would be announcing his own engagement to South African swimmer Charlene Wittstock.
‘Things have gone quiet recently on the Charlene front’, comment a Monaco travel guide, ‘Monaco is all about glitz and glamour and perhaps a surprise announcement will be made soon. But it’s possible that Albert is more interested in environmental affairs than affairs of the heart’.
Monaco has been making the news recently as Monte Carlo real estate prices have escalated, and are on a level with London and New York.
Even the cheapest studios are edging towards the million Euro level according to Monaco property specialists.
‘Increasing taxes elsewhere in Europe, especially in the UK, have seen inquiries increase significantly over the last twelve months,’ they say, ‘and it’s not the weather in Monte Carlo that’s drawing buyers, but the income tax free status of being a resident, and the security that goes with living in Monaco. There’s one policeman for every one hundred residents and has to be the safest country to live in Europe’.
For more information about Monaco including the Columbus Hotel Monaco visit http://www.yourmonaco.com/hotels.
Information about Prince Albert of Monaco is also available at http://www.yourmonaco.com/al
Air - More Than Just A Necessity
No one really thinks about the versatility and usefulness of air until it is really needed. The lack of air can kill; polluted air can cause illness. This necessity of life is free - who could put a price tag on air? However, as technology advances, there are newer and better ways to get cleaner and healthier air. Surprisingly, air is a mixture of mainly two other gases that if breathed alone would kill a human, namely nitrogen and oxygen.
Nitrogen makes up roughly 78% of Earth’s atmosphere. This inert, odorless and tasteless gas is the building blocks of most living beings on the planet. Nitrogen is also a non-metallic gas than is found in amino acids. In addition, nitrogen displaces oxygen. Therefore, asphyxiation and death follow those that breath in too much nitrogen.
Oxygen makes up roughly another 21% of Earth’s atmosphere. In commonality, nitrogen ranks second on the planet and a whopping third in the universe. Through a process called photosynthesis, oxygen is released by flora. Oxygen can actually prove deadly if breathed in its purest form proving that too much of what’s good for us is not always for the best.
Anyone who is a student or a fan of Greek mythology has heard the legend of Icarus. King Minos imprisoned this young man with his father, Daedalus, on the isle of Crete. Daedalus made plans for escape not via the water since the water was patrolled frequently by King Minos’ watchful guard, but instead, made plans to escape via air. Daedalus fashioned two pair of feather wings: one for himself and one for his son. When the time came to escape, Daedalus warned his son not to fly to low because the dampness would clog the wings and flying too high would melt the glue. Upon telling his son to stay close while in the air, they departed their prison. However, the young Icarus did not heed his father’s advice. Icarus flew too high and met with an untimely end. Of course, Icarus has been the subject of many legends and fables that are still in our society today.
This love of mastering the air around us via flight has not stopped since Icarus. In England, George Cayley first flew through the air in his manned glider - the year was 1853. The first highly documented and recorded flight was the Wright Brothers on December 17, 1903. They were not the first, and they would be far from the last.
Our love of adventure and our love of flight has taken us higher than even Icarus could have imagined. Man has been to the moon and sent unmanned space craft to explore distant planets where he could not survive alone due to the lack of air.
It is clear that air has an alluring aspect that draws us to it like a moth to a flame. No doubt that were Icarus alive today, he would be impressed by our accomplishments. I bet Icarus would also warn us that flying to close to the sun has consequences.
Stephen Thomas writes about air and runs an air related resource website at http://www.airi.co.uk .
Predict The Weather From The Comfort Of Your Living Room!
Know your weather seems to be the name of the game. That’s what home weather stations are all about. You sit inside and a display console shows you what the weather is like outside - the humidity, the temperature, the rainfall, air pressure, wind speed, whatever. The more the number of sensors used outside to record this data, the more expensive will be the home weather station. The price actually depends on how complex it is. You could get a simple temperature model for less than $30 and it could go up to $600 for a really good set. Obviously the higher end models would be more reliable.
Are they difficult to set up? Hardly. All you will probably need to do is drill a few holes and screw on a few wires or cables. First, you need to know where you are going to put the sensors and the receiver. Once you’ve sorted that out, it’s just a matter of fixing them in place. Earlier, there were a lot of cables that had to be fixed but now, a lot of the information is transmitted through radio, even beyond 300 feet, so that eliminates the need for wires. That means no holes though your walls or roof.
What exactly do you get from your home weather station? Just the data about the weather conditions outside? Well, actually, it calculates the dew point, the relative humidity, the wind chill factor and the heat index, depending of course what sensors you’ve chosen to install. A lot of them do a kind of a basic forecasting based on the data that is collected and they can be right 75% of the time. Besides which, they also have alarms which can be set to warn of high speed winds and critical temperatures - whether high or low. At a very basic level, it can also double up as an alarm clock and wake you up every morning, with readings of the temperature outside, not your breakfast in bed!
The great thing is the fact that it can also be connected to a computer. So your home weather station can be linked up with your heating and water sprinkling systems. So they do not have to run on timers - they can be programmed to come on when it is a certain temperature or when the humidity has reached a certain level or maybe even when the soil needs water, not otherwise.
Home weather stations can be used in so many ways. The fact that you are always kept informed about the weather helps. You can also check the temperatures and humidity levels in your child’s room, you can check the soil to see if it’s fine to start planting, you can check on the rainfall, the snowfall, the wind and the sun. No, you might not think it’s an absolute necessity but it’s a nice addition to any home. Most of the time, it would probably just be a recorder of the weather but it could also serve to give you a warning just in case there is some approaching calamity.
For more information on weather, visit:
http://www.noaaweatherforecast.com
What We’ve Learned From Birds About Flight - and Why It Took So Long
Eons ago, Zork stood outside his cave and watched a vulture spread his wings and soar off a cliff. Zork decided to try this himself. Too late, he realized that his lift to drag ratio was about zero - no lift and lots of drag - and he had the glide ratio of a brick. Zork’s decedents gave up on aviation for 50,000 years.
Since humans first looked up at birds in flight, we have been trying to fly like them, often with painful or even fatal consequences. Even with the technology available today, we are just beginning to be able to apply some of the technology that has existed in birds for, oh, 150 million years, such as variable geometry wings, vectored thrust, and fly-by-wire.
To accomplish sustained flight, an object must have some means of generating lift. In airplanes, this is done by moving an airfoil shape through the air with some means of propulsion. The amount of lift generated is a function of the airfoil shape, the angle at which the airfoil encounters the air stream, and the speed at which the airfoil moves through the air.
Birds, however, have combined their lift generating and thrust producing functions into one assembly - the wings. Early observers believed that birds simply flapped their wings up and down, and that bird-like flight could be duplicated by simply flapping their arms vigorously - like Zork - or by building some kind of contraption that flapped its wings. They assumed that if a bird flew by flapping its wings, that they could too by duplicating the motion. However, they failed to understand how a bird actually flies and how much energy it would take. So “flapping” never got off the ground. Sorry about that.
Even the great Leonardo DaVinci spent many years working on totally impractical ornithopters (flapping wing) aircraft, in part because he, too, failed to understand how birds flew.
Birds fly by “flapping” their wings, true, but the actual motion and physics are much more complex. As a bird’s wing moves down, the feathers also rotate downward automatically. Air is pushed to the rear (thrust) and lift is generated on the top surface. As the wing transitions to move upward, the feathers rotate in the opposite direction, producing thrust from the top surface of the wing and lift. Think of their wings as a propeller that goes 180 degrees then reverses.
Toward the end of his life, Leonardo did design a device that used a rotating screw-like structure. Igor Sikorsky, it is said, was inspired by Leonardo’s work to become a world leader in helicopter development. It’s worth noting that helicopter blades and propellers are really a form of screw, so Leonardo was not far off on that one. He also designed a glider which could be turned by the pilot shifting his weight, foretelling the hang glider.
Leonardo - and Zork - also failed to understand how much energy is required to take off and sustain flight. Aircraft - and birds - must generate more lift than they weigh just in order to take off. This requires the development of several enabling technologies.
The first is a light flying structure that can support its own weight while in the air. Many early craft could not. Birds have a very light structure (Thanksgiving Turkeys not withstanding) and extremely powerful muscles to power their wings. A voracious appetite for high-energy foods provides the power.
A second enabling technology was the development of an internal combustion engine that was light, yet produced enough power to move the machine fast enough to generate lift greater than weight. And higher performing engines could not be developed until higher octane fuels became available.
To illustrate the problem, the Wright Brothers’ 1903 Flyer weighed 605 pounds without a pilot, and had a 12 horsepower engine. With a pilot, that’s over 60 pounds per horsepower. The Cessna 172, a popular, but hardly spectacular performer, runs about ten pounds per horsepower.
But getting airborne and staying there are two different things. Whether bird or machine, a flying object must be controllable or it simply falls out of the sky. A future article will look at stability and controllability.
Bottom line - we have learned a lot from birds about flying. It just took 150 million years.
Janet Winter is a web designer, owner of three e-commerce sites, and writer on many topics including wild birds, dogs, babies the Internet and travel. Her e-commerce sites are: http://www.wildbirdgoodies.com,
http://www.welcomebabygifts.com, and http://www.apampereddog.com
August 24, 1992: Hurricane Andrew Attacks Florida, Massive Damage Is The Result
On August 24, 1992 hurricane Andrew landed in Homestead, Florida laying a path of destruction as it moved through the state. This was the worst storm to hit the area in over 30 years, and many of the people living in the area were new to the region and never had experienced a storm like this before.
The Category four hurricane hit with winds gusting to speeds of 175 miles per hour, and swells reaching 17 feet in height along the coast. The storm destroyed property and left as many as 250,000 people homeless. Sixty Five people died as a result of the storm, and many more suffered injuries.
The damage left in the wake of the hurricane was devastating. The ferocious storm destroyed or damaged an estimated 600,000 homes and businesses. Water and wind damage were in evidence all over. A great many of the homes located in this area were small mobile homes, and virtually all of them where reduced to rubble. Local roads and highways received damage, and all major utilities experienced major interruptions of service. Local residents of the area were, in some cases, without power, water or, sewage for as much as six months. The Florida coast was also home to many boats and water craft and insurance claims for damage to these craft amounted to millions.
The social impact of this storm was far-reaching. Many families left the area to rebuild their lives in safer and less volatile locations. A huge effort was made by local authorities and emergency service agencies to provide better methods and technology for the detection, and tracking of such storms. The one good thing that happened as a result of this storm was that it motivated the locals to better prepare themselves for the future.
The economic consequences of this hurricane were felt far and wide. After the storm almost one and a half million people where left without power, some for as long as 6 months. Businesses could not operate or had to move to temporary facilities in an effort to rebuild and recover lost revenues. Many businesses lost financial records, and data that were crucial to the company’s operations. The total damage from the storm was estimated at approximately 26 billion dollars.
The residents of the state of Florida where ill prepared for a hurricane of this magnitude. Many were of a generation that had never before experienced such devastation, since the last major storm to hit the area occurred some 30 years before. The need to take precautions in an effort to limit the effects of a natural disaster is essential. Many insurance companies now offer discounted rates to companies that include disaster planning into their standard business plans. It is not possible to be too well prepared.
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Huge Landslide Destroys Ski Resort
On July 30, 1997 a huge landslide rolled over the Thredbo Ski village in Australia causing massive damage and virtually burying the resort; cars, buildings, people and all! The loose earth, rock, and foliage swept down the slope and crashed into the Bimbadeen Lodge, a multi-level building, used to house guests. Eighteen people died as a direct result of the landslide, most were buried alive.
The landslide brought one thousand tones of earth, rock, trees and debris down the slope of the mountain cutting a four hundred meter wide swath. Rescue efforts where made even more difficult due to the occurrence of secondary minor landslides, and unstable soft earth.
The damage to the resort was devastating. Sheared water, gas, and oil lines had to be capped before rescue operations could even begin. It took 55 hours before any survivors could even be located. Many vehicles where destroyed by the flowing earth. The Carinya lodge was swept right off its foundations and hurled into the Bimbadeen Lodge. Both multi-floor buildings where completely crushed as a result of the landslide.
The social impact on the resort was substantial. Tourism to the resort dropped as a result of the landslide. Most people where afraid to return to the area. Many people suffered trauma from the event and still experience nightmares, and other such medical or psychological conditions.
The economic impact to the area was of course very significant. Business to the resort obviously came to a full stop. Millions of dollars had to be spent to repair and rebuild the facility and it took quite a long time to complete the repairs and reopen for business. Lost revenues from the closure and from the reduced level of tourism were enormous.
Landslides are not often considered to be significant issues in so far as natural disasters are concerned. They usually occur in more isolated areas and their effects are only felt by relatively small local populations. One must realize, however, that in the last one hundred and sixty five years over one hundred and fifty landslides have caused an estimated two hundred million dollars in damages. They have damaged hundreds of buildings, both homes and businesses, and destroyed roads, pipelines, crops, and disrupted local utilities. These same landslides have killed at least 73 people and injured many more. Obviously, such a landslide can cause economic loss and hardship for an operating business. Proper planning is essential to reduce the risks associated with any type of natural disaster.
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Some of the Worst Tornados in US History Result in Massive Damage
April 11, 1965 is still remembered by many: that day a brutal string of tornados hit the states of Iowa, Indiana, and Michigan with wind gusts as high as 318 miles per hour, killing 250 people and injuring some 1500 others. The first funnel cloud hit the ground at 1 p.m. with others following at varying intervals, up to 5:30 pm. The storms intensified as they day progressed. An F4 storm hit Koontz Lake, Indiana and 2 other twisters hit Wakarusa, and Goshen, doing massive damage to homes, and local infrastructure.
More storms continued to develop over the course of that same day. The worst of the tornados, an F5 storm with winds reaching speeds of up to 318 miles per hour landed at Elkhart Indiana and destroyed the Sunnyside subdivision killing over 30 people. One of the funnel clouds was a colossal eight hundred yards wide, leaving a trail of devastation in its path. Telephone and electrical lines where knocked out by the high winds. The phone system was down and, as a result, local city officials where unable to warn others in the path of the storm of the severe danger. The day progressed and tornados hit many other counties. The damage from all these rapidly occurring storms was devastating.
The impact that these storms had on the area was huge. The U.S. weather bureau conducted a full investigation after the storm and established the need for better methods to communicate warnings to residents and officials in other areas of approaching storms. It was just a little while after this that the Weather Service started to put out announcements indicating that tornados where likely to form and where they were traveling once they had hit the ground.
The economic consequences of these storms were felt in all three states. Houses where completely destroyed, and all the major utilities took damage. Local businesses had to close and effect repairs and millions of dollars had to be spent to clean up the mess that was left by the roving storms. The loss of business and personal information alone can hardly be calculated.
Once again local residents and business across the three states where caught by surprise and hurt or killed as a result. Tornados by there very natures are extremely hard to forecast. Unlike other storms that can be seen as they approach, a tornado can, in effect, form right on top of you and hit you when you least expect it. The need to take proper precautions is essential to ensuring the safety of local residents and businesses. Yet even that may not be enough. Protecting your own business infrastructure, records and information can be an essential component to your own recovery process in the event a major disaster strikes.
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2003 California Wildfire Worst in Its History to That Time
In late October 2003 the state of California was slammed with the worst wildfire that it had experienced to that date. Twenty people where killed, and damage to local communities and infrastructure was extensive.
The wild fire extended from the Mexican boarder north to the suburbs of Los Angeles. Hundreds of thousands of acres of forest where destroyed. Local vegetation and animal life suffered very large losses and many communities where effected by the disaster. Thousands of different species where decimated by the fire. It is expected that certain of the larger species like elk, and deer, may take several years to repopulate. Even the local salmon stock feeding in the streams running through the burning acreage suffered losses from the fire.
Damage to the area was devastating. 20 people died including one of the fire fighters. Two thousand seven hundred homes and buildings where destroyed and many businesses had to close. This wildfire was to become the most expensive fire to ever hit the United States. Damage to phone lines, and local utilities caused major outages. People were displaced from their homes and many had to leave the state to find accommodation elsewhere during the clean-up period.
The social impact of this wild fire was a bit unexpected. The personal losses incurred by local residences and the tremendous losses to local wildlife resulted in a push by the United States federal government to pass the “Healthy Forests” bill which allocated seven hundred and sixty million dollars to the urban interface between urban cities and forest areas.
The economic impact of this wildfire was catastrophic. One and a quarter to two billion dollars in damages resulted from the fire, making it the most costly wildfire in American history. Losses to businesses and local municipalities amounted to millions of dollars in lost revenues, not to mention the cost of replacing or restoring lost information, and resulted in hardship for many local area residents. The logging industry, of course, took a major financial hit.
Not all natural disasters kill thousands of people, yet most will spread their effects over huge areas and cause massive damage to our fragile and over-used infrastructure. Telephone lines and utilities like electricity, water and even sewage are easily interrupted. Businesses are not able to operate without these simple services. Lost data means lost revenues. Even something as simple as a forest fire can have a huge social and economic influence on our lives. In this case it appears the best offense is a great defense. Always be prepared.
You can never be too prepared when disaster strikes. Protect yourself from data loss with online backup from Global Data Vault. Avoid downtime, revenue loss and angry customers with remote backup services from Global Data Vault - http://www.globaldatavault.com
