Monday in Nature Weekly Photo Dec. 28, 2015

[Laura Weishaupt]

<blockquote>

<p><strong>Basic Guidelines</strong>: Nature based subject matter. Please, declare captive subjects. Keep your image at/under 700 pixels on the long axis for in-line viewing and try to keep file size under 300kb. Note that this includes photos hosted off-site at Flicker, Photobucket, your own site, etc. Feel free to link your image to a larger version. <strong><em>In the strictest sense, nature photography should not include hand of man elements. Please refrain from images with obvious buildings or large man made structures like roads, fences, walls. Try to minimize man made features and keep the focus on nature. </em></strong><br>

<strong><em> </em></strong><br>

<strong><em>Are you new to this thread? We post one image per week. For more <a href="/nature-photography-forum/00cgtY">details on guidelines</a> please read this helpful information</em></strong>.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Greetings,<br>

There is a child churning things up in nature. Warm water works it's way east in the equatorial Pacific and the effects are felt world wide. It's easy to think of the changes in weather in ways that effect us humans. We're warmer or colder than usual. It's wetter longer, or not. Maybe you're on the dry end of the effect spectrum. Fruits may not get the required number of chill hours, and next years harvest is in jeopardy. Drought dries up the corn or excess rain wipes the soybean crop. Fishermen feel it. All of this is in terms of us.</p>

<p>El Nino and is counterpart La Nina are natural, cyclic phenomenon. Take "us" out of the equation. What happens in nature? Does a rare plant get a boost from extra rain? Is an aquifer recharged? Are there more brine shrimp? Do we see plants flower because they require the extremes that El Nino brings? Will Monarchs get a break and build their numbers? Will a glacier recede more, or less? Will rodent populations explode and fuel the food chain? How are Krill populations effected? What happens to the chain of life dependent on them? Nothing in nature stands alone. Everything is connected. We're out there and probably see local changes in conditions that can be attributed to warm water thousands of miles away.</p>

<p>Here, it's warm, it's record breaking warm and plants are responding. Some plants, like Forsythia, are flowering. This large patch of <em>Lycopodium dendroides</em> is growing and sporulating right now. More food is available for animals, and fungi are flourishing. Do you see effects of El Nino in your environment?</p>

<p>As this year draws to an end, lets send it out, Monday in Nature style.</p><div></div>

[paul_de_ley]

<p>Northern Argentina is in mid-summer and on the receiving end of excessive rain from El Niño. At eagle altitude high up on the sierras the difference with other years is not as pronounced though.</p>

<div></div>

[colin carron]

<p>Here in the UK we have had temperatures at record levels and huge amounts of rainfall leading to widespread floods. Over the past decade it has become clear that past rainfall statistics for the 100 year return periods for these events are no longer valid and the whole of inland flood defence needs to be re-assessed. The average December temperature is normally about 3C or 4C but it is currently about 15C and has been all month. A wasps nest in the back garden has only just stopped showing activity a couple of weeks ago. All pointers to the arrival of the predicted climate change we have been promised.<br>

Here is a winter robin, one of the easiest birds to photograph due to its hopefulness that the human with the camera might also just dig up some worms.</p><div></div>

[johnfarrar]

<p>Yes, El Nino is natural, as is the rain in the UK Colin mentions - but increased frequency of extreme weather events, including El Nino and UK winter rainfall, is one of the predictions from GCMs that incorporate the climate change effects of greenhouse gases. Personally I take some comfort in the longevity of life forms - so here's a picture of Carboniferous life, brachiopods and coral.</p><div></div>

[Bill J Boyd]

<p><strong>American Goldfinch</strong> seen last week at Pedernales Falls SP in central Texas. </p><div></div>

[Rick Bortnick]

<p><em>Betula nigra</em> (River birch) bark</p><div></div>

[gordonjb]

<p>Fungi fruiting on a red oak tree December 23rd. Temperature 12 C. Normal temperature for this time of year, highs - 4 C. lows - 15 C.</p><div></div>

[sallymack]

<p>Not El Nino related but an abstract of a (possible) whale bone I found on San Francisco's Ocean Beach in 1981.</p><div></div>

[lew_carver]

<p><img src="http://i68.servimg.com/u/f68/17/50/72/69/grapev10.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="333" /><br>

Grapevine - Details </p>

[srspeck]

<p>Hardly any migratory ducks at St Marks Wildlife Refuge. I think this tricolor heron is standing watch for their arrival.</p><div></div>

[thadley]

<p><img src="/photo/18146670" alt="" /> Mine was taken in the Caribbean island of St.Kitts early one morning. D300 nikkor 18-70mm f8. I think I underexposed. </p><div></div>

[Jon Eckman]

<p>The average low temperature in December for the town where I live in CT is around 20 degrees F - this past month there were barely a few days where it dipped down below the freezing point.</p><div></div>

[RickDB]

<p>The sea ice surrounding Antarctica continues to grow every winter and paradoxically this may be related to global warming (although the science hasn't yet pieced together all the factors that might explain this phenomenon). There is also evidence that El Nino results in higher sea ice concentrations west of the Antarctic peninsula where this photo of three crab-eater seals resting a small piece of ice was taken.</p><div></div>

[User_6667263]

<p>This doe, like everything else around Tucson, is trying to keep warm. Thanks to El Nino we have been 10 to 12 degrees below normal all month.</p><div></div>

[david_l3]

<p>Thick morning fog in a local forest. </p><div></div>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Common Goldeneye, female, in Santa Cruz, California.</p><div></div>

[bing_huey1]

<p>Christmas Eve on the San Mateo Coast, a storm cell approaches as the sun sets. For scale, the figures at the base of the cliff are human-sized.</p><div></div>

[dcstep]

<p><strong>Kestrel Hovers</strong></p>

<p><a title="The Hover" href=" data-flickr-embed="true"><img src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1482/23906222942_dca88c263f_c.jpg" alt="The Hover" width="800" height="534" /></a></p>

[Laura Weishaupt]

<p>Amazing images, as always.</p>

<p>Lew Carver, welcome to MiN. We love those details.</p>

[User_6502147]

<p>I was sort of la-di-da checking out Ruby Beach (WA) and in the thick, near my feet, was this color fungi peeking from under the stump that felled. The increase in noise (ISO 800) sort of removed my comfort level, but went for it anyway. Ha, because of the topography of the land, some of the shots had to be done upside down. Indeed, we do some strange things, eh ?.....</p>

<p>Les</p><div></div>

[anthea50]

<p>During my daily walk around my garden I spotted this spiderweb wrapped around some tall grass...</p><div></div>

[Mary Doo]

<p>Canadian Rockies sunset.</p><div></div>

[Gup]

<p>I took this one 15 years ago at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. This is the site of an ancient Nordic settlement that was discovered in 1960 by a Norwegian husband and wife team, the explorer Helge Ingstad and the archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad. The artifacts have been carbon dated to between 990 and 1050AD, approximately 500 years before Christopher Columbus 'discovered' North America. After returning year after year for successful annual fishing trips the Nords established a colony here. The level of navigation skills required to return to the same spot over and over, a thousand years ago, is in itself amazing.</p><div></div>

[Andrew Gosden]

<p>Always great shots to see in this thread. I really like the kestrel and the seals.<br>

The warm moist December was just what the Fungi in my front yard needed. Didn't see many this year until now.<br>

<img src="https://akgosdenphotos.smugmug.com/Nature/Mushrooms-and-Fungi/i-XqZWMbR/0/700x700/20151224-IMG_8123-700x700.jpg" alt="" /><br>

<strong>Canon XSi, 18-55 IS with 12mm extension tube</strong></p>

[biomed]

<p>Trees reflected in pond in early morning light.</p>

<center><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18138439-md.jpg" alt="_E6A8776" width="680" height="453" border="0" /></center>