As sometimes happens, when I begin to think of something, it shows up in many places.
Last night we watched an episode of Planet Earth on -- trees! I was not surprised. But I was surprised at a lot of the information that was given, as I didn't know it before. It made me wonder if any of this was taught in school back in my time or if I was asleep to most of it as it didn't seem like it had any bearing. I hope it was the former!
Some of the things I remember:
One of the funniest things to me was seeing baby ducks emerge from a hole in a tree, then jump down from an incredible height. In slow motion they looked like they floated, but they hit the leaves with a crash. It's a wonder they survive! I also didn't know they nested in trees. I thought it would be on the ground. Anyway, you simply had to laugh as each one emerged on its flight.
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One segment of the show pictured owls. I enjoyed seeing them fly for the first time, as they dropped bit by bit through the tree, upside down, funnily at all different angles, then walked up the tree to try again until they got the hang (fly) of it. At that point they weren't fully feathered, but still had a lot of down. The narrator said something to the effect, it's a good thing to fall in the trees, at the same moment you saw an owl seemingly held by a single claw upside down, and that likely by fluke! with more branches to break its fall on the way down.
Come to think of it, when we do fall in life, as we all do, it is good to have something to break our fall!
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The forest floors were beautiful in spring as various flowers came to life before new tree foliage blocked the light again. Seen with stop action photography, it was like a ballet in motion.
The Taiga forest, on the edge of the Arctic, is a silent world of stunted conifers. The trees may be small but filming from the air reveals its true scale. A third of all trees on Earth grow here and during the short summer they produce enough oxygen to change the atmosphere.
The taiga or boreal forest exists as a nearly continuous belt of coniferous trees across North America and Eurasia.
They grow for only one month a year, as the rest of the year it is too cold. They supply oxygen enough for the whole earth. It made me think that we are protected from those interests that would timber cut trees to extinction, as access to them is not easy. Life for the animals in this area is difficult as there aren't many.
In California General Sherman, a giant sequoia, is the largest living thing on the planet, ten times the size of a blue whale.
Some Redwoods are 30 stories high. Wowser.
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Some trees were already 1000 years old at the time of Christ. I don't remember which ones these are, perhaps the Taiga. It surprised me to think of trees that have lived that long.
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In one area, all the animals are miniatures which allows them to survive. A fawn is the size of a kitten; a full grown deer is about 1 foot at the shoulder. They don't know why they are so small, except possibly for survival.
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They showed Baobab trees, including their flowers opening at night. I recognized the tree. While they used stop action photography, they said the flowers open up in about a minute. They look a little bit like a banana skin that peels back as it opens. Then lemurs came and licked the nectar, but the real pollinator are large moths, that the lemur eats, gets pollen on its fur and then it ends up pollinating too.
This world is sure interesting!
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They showed cicadas (looking a bit like some kind of hard shell beetle) emerging in one forest, like lemmings marching up the trees, turning into cicadas, being food for every kind of animal you could imagine, tasty morsels, yuck! then dying in piles to become fertilizer. They hatch every 17 years. I thought they might destroy the trees or fly off to destroy farm crops.
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I was surprised that broad leaf trees lose their leaves to conserve water in the heat of the summer in deserts.
I was surprised there were broad leaf trees in a desert.
I think the reason is the same, but I've only seen them lost in autumn.
If you get a chance, see this episode. It's not as grisly as some of them. Have you seen it?
Karin
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