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Experience the best of nature on Heron Island, world famous for its spectacular coral reef and a sanctuary for an extraordinary variety of marine and bird life!

This is a nature experience with a difference – our creative art program with guest artists for both visits! 🪶Bird …illustrator Zoe Lawrence will be teaching bird illustration inspired by the breeding birds on the island, and 🐬 Dr Lindsay Marshall will be teaching illustration of marine species! Heron Island is a National Marine Park in the Great Barrier Reef Protected Zone, and provides important habitat for unique flora and fauna. Our nature activities include exploring the ancient Pisonia Forest surrounding your beachside cabin during the peak breeding season for the Black Noddy Terns and Wedge-Tailed Shearwaters (Mutton Birds). See female turtles laying eggs and turtle hatchlings emerging, making their way to the sea for their epic ocean voyages.

We're offering this tour twice next year.
Find out more and book your place by visiting our website!
https://natureartlab.com.au/collections/field-trips

#ecotourism #natureartlab #environment #environmentalawareness #conservation #marinelife #science #citsci #sustainability #nature #arttherapy #natureart #heronisland #naturetour #naturetourism

On This Day – November 12-13, 1833

The Leonid meteor storm lit up the night sky across the United States, astonishing those awake to witness as between 50,000 and 150,000 meteors fell each hour. Yale professor Denison Olmsted, eager to understand the phenomenon, wrote a letter to the New …Haven Daily Herald, asking the public for any information about what they saw. Responses poured in from across the country, allowing Olmsted to crowdsource eyewitness accounts to study the meteor storm. His findings, published in 1834, marked an early example of citizen science, as Olmsted used everyday descriptions to advance our understanding of meteors.

#OnThisDay #LeonidMeteorStorm #1833 #History #Astronomy #CitizenScience #DenisonOlmsted #Meteors

Green Forester Moth (Adscita statices)

This shot is from way back in July and I honestly have no idea why I haven't posted it until now.. these have got to be some of my favorite native moths, their scales are just gorgeous!

📸: Fujifilm X-H2, Laowa 65mm f/2.8, flash with …#cygnustechdiffuser

#greenforestermoth #forestermoth #moth #lepidoptera #insect #insectphotography #macrophotography #makrofotografie #cupoty #wholelottabugs #insectguru #fujifilmxh2 #fujixh2 #fujifilm #laowa65mm laowa.deutschland venuslaowa #laowa #macro #focusstacking #inaturalist #citizenscience

// Sanctuary Solutions 🪸 🌊
Our team was fortunate to be able to present and participate in the marinesanctuaryfdn’s “Sanctuary Solutions” coral thermal stress design thinking challenge last week in Key Largo, FL! The workshop brought coral restoration practitioners, community …stewards, blue tech engineers, and noaa reef managers to hear ideas from some of the best and brightest students across the United States and brainstorm how to bring their solutions into practice.

A huge congratulations to the univmiami’s team from the umiamiengineering school on their grand prize-winning idea centered around shading critical coral nursery and reef sites with their “HexHive” design! We look forward to continuing these conversations with all of the competing schools and hearing them present at the coralrestorationconsortium’s Reef Futures conference as well as the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s Capitol Hill Ocean Week!

Complex problems require complex solutions so we were excited to see so many different disciplines and stakeholders come together to better protect and conserve our coral reefs!

Any doctor who posts something like this has an Ego / Emotional Intelligence ratio of infinity ♾️. If someone cites a degree for THE reason they’re an authority… back away

P.S. This is no more or less true for the fact that it’s being posted by someone getting his second …doctoral degree from Harvard… but it does make it funny 😆

#citizenscience #futureofmedicine

The ever variable Mottled Umber 🍁 Swipe to the last picture ti see how different they can look. You may think it’s a male/female difference but with this species the females are actually flightless, living on tree trunks/fence posts.
A few species are like this, and can look like two …totally different moths…which makes IDs and absolute BLAST ✨ especially when you’re just starting out moth recording 😅 very beautiful moths though 🍁

Last weekend, 22 citizen scientists paddled along Takayna's rivers, surveying for endangered species like the Tasmanian Azure Kingfisher, that rely on waterways flowing through forests threatened by mining 🚣🏽‍♂️

Unlike its cousin from the mainland, the Tasmanian Azure …Kingfisher is becoming alarmingly rare, with Takayna as one of its last strongholds 📉 The reason behind its population decline remains unknown, and the government is knowingly leaving this species in a blind spot.

By documenting and monitoring threatened species in at-risk areas, we are campaigning for their protection.

🦅 Many eagles were sighted over the weekend, and a new nest was found that will need to be protected.

Get involved! Stay tuned for the dates of our upcoming 'Summer of Swifties' citizen science project to find and record Swift Parrots in forests that are threatened by logging.

📸 2 – 4 by Rob Blakers

#CitizenScience #Takayna #SwiftParrots

Antenna dreaaaams ✨
The last of the thorn moths this year will likely be this lovely Feathered Thorn (doesn’t take much guessing as to why there are called that!).
Just beautiful!