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❄️Midwinter recess is here!❄️

Don’t forget to use your vouchers to visit our institutions for free with your families over the break!

❄️Be sure to stop by @amnh ‘s Family Science Day this Thursday, February 19th from 11 AM - 2PM! Enjoy hands-on activities and crafts celebrating science, black history and lunar new year!

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❄️¡Llegaron las vacaciones de invierno!❄️

¡No olviden usar sus vouchers para visitar nuestras instituciones gratis con sus familias durante las vacaciones!

❄️¡No se pierdan el Día de la Ciencia para Familias de @amnh este jueves 19 de febrero de 11:00 a 14:00! ¡Disfruten de actividades que celebran la ciencia, la historia afroamericana y el Año Nuevo Lunar!

#urbanadvantagenyc ...

Family Science Day is coming up at @amnh this Thursday, February 19th!

🔎Join us From 11 AM - 2 PM for hands-on activities and science discovery for the whole family to enjoy!

🎟️Don’t forget to bring your Family Science Day Flyer for free admission!

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¡El Día de la Ciencia en Familia se acerca este jueves 19 de febrero en @amnh!

🔎 ¡Vienen de 11:00 a 14:00 para disfrutar de actividades prácticas y descubrimientos científicos para toda la familia!

🎟️¡No olvides traer tu flyer del Día de la Ciencia para Familia para entrar gratis!

#urbanadvantagenyc ...

The Finches!!! It was so exciting when I visited the Galapagos and saw these little birds that Darwin had thought about and tried to figure out. He eventually noticed some patterns and thought about what the plants were growing on these different islands, some dry, some wet, and what these little finches had available to eat.

What do you notice about the birds in these photos? Do you see them eating anything?

What did Darwin notice?

Celebrate Darwin’s birthday by looking at some beaks and birds in your neighborhood. And maybe other animals and plants and think about how they survive, what challenges they face and how they cope with those challenges.

Original voyage map:
© Sémhur / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-4.0, or Free Art License. I added the yellow arrows and “Home” and enlarged “Galapagos”

@jholmesjay ...

Happy Darwin’s Birthday! Today, February 12th!

This is our 3rd post about the cool animals, habitats and landscapes that one might see and explore on this little cluster of islands, WAAAY out in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Ecuador. 💚 Darwin spent some time on these islands in 1835, 191 years ago. And many people visit these islands today to observe and learn from the special animals that live on these islands.

Today we will have two posts. First, check out all the different kinds of beaks on so many different kinds of birds! The Blue-footed Booby, Magnificent Frigatebird, Brown Pelican, Flightless Cormorant, penguins and the Brown Noddy are all fish eaters diving from the sky or swimming after their fishy dinner. Some beaks very long, often pointy, some with little hooks on the end to hold on to a squirming fish! I loved the Flightless Cormorants holding their tiny wings out to dry, just like their flying cousins here in New York. 🙂 they also have beautiful blue eyes, like gem

There are wadding birds, like the flamingos and Herons and Stilts with their long legs necks, and special beaks for catching different sorts of food as they wade through the shallow water.

Other birds were in the trees and the shrubs on land. Feeding on plants; their fruits, like the mockingbird here flying off with a fruit. Others, like the Flycatcher and warbler with their tiny pointy beaks, feeding on insects.

These were and are so many different kinds of birds. Different shapes, sizes and special legs or wings or feet helping them survive out here on the island. Darwin became particularly interested in groups of birds that seemed to be closely related, with subtle differences between them. More on that in our next post!

Original voyage map:
© Sémhur / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-4.0, or Free Art License. I added the yellow arrows and “Home” and enlarged “Galapagos”

@jholmesjay ...

Getting closer! We are working our way to Darwin’s Birthday! 🎂 It is coming on February 12th!

We continue on@the Galápagos Islands. Darwin’s observations of plants and animals on the Galápagos Islands contributed some interesting evidence towards his thinking around “transmutation of species” later to become “evolution by natural selection”. Today I’ll share a couple of the non-bird vertebrates that I saw on my Galapagos visit. The first are the iguanas. Darwin described the two types. One very dark (they can warm up much better after a swim in the cold Pacific waters) they wade into the ocean and then swim underwater and nibble on seaweeds growing on the rocks. Then they crawl out of the ocean and warm themselves on the black lava rocks. You can see piles of them enjoying the warm sun. The other iguana lives on land and eats cactus and other plants. It has a pointier snout and is yellow and brown in color, some were hard to see because they blend in so well with the older rusty colored lava.

Another famous Galapagos reptile is the tortoise. The islands are named for them! “Galapagos” is originally from an ancient Iberian word for turtle. We saw tortoises up in higher elevations where there is more rainfall and the environment is very lush. Some were sitting in little streams or ponds drinking water. Darwin heard from the local people that they could tell which island a tortoise was from by the shape of their shell. This was an interesting observation for Darwin to try to figure out. Why would shell shape vary between islands?

I included one photo of an invertebrate today, a Sally Lightfoot Crab because I love the colors, and invertebrates are just so cool!

Next post we get into the birds, and they really had Darwin thinking!!

PS the first image is from Darwin’s book call “Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle around the world “ Some people call it the “Vouyge of the Beagle” for short. 🙂 Or the “Journal of researches” ...

As we approach February 12th, the birthday of Charles Darwin, we thought it might be fun to walking in his footsteps a little, on and around the Galápagos Islands.

A few years ago I was very lucky and had the opportunity to visit the Galapagos, and I find it interesting, and hard, to imagine traveling back in time in someone’s footsteps. It is so hard not to be influenced by my own world. I try to imagine a 22 year old Darwin saying yes to go on a voyage around the world, away from home for what would turn out to be 5 years. No phone, no jet flight back in 24 hours or less. Travel then was on foot, on horse, trains were a newish thing… letters took months to get a reply… and it turned out, his stomach didn’t enjoy being at sea. He didn’t have a cabin, he slept in a hammock hanging above the Captain’s chart table in a room that was about 10 feet by 10 feet (the table took up most of the room). He left home in December of 1831 and arrived in the Galapagos in September 1835, it had been almost 4 years away from home and family.

This first post is just to give you an idea of what the islands look like. They’re a cluster of volcanic peaks sticking up out of the deep Pacific Ocean. Some so young they’re mostly volcanic cinders and ropy lava rock, some cactus and scrubby brush. Others are taller and wetter with green vegetation and some have forest cover.

In posts over the next few days we will step onto some of these islands and think about what we see and what Darwin noticed.

Original voyage map:
© Sémhur / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-4.0, or Free Art License. I added the yellow arrows and “Home” and enlarged “Galapagos” ...