Josh, Anne-Marie, and Aylia Colwell’s Gazette

A pair of mockingbirds built this nest in what appeared to me to be a very precarious position on top of two interleaved palm fronds from neighboring palms in our back yard. But the birds have a much better instinct for nest building than I do. One bird is hanging out there permanently now, so I suspect eggs have been laid.

This bird doesn’t react to our presence and appears to be staying put to take care of eggs.

This shows the rather precarious positioning of the nest on palm fronds. It has survived some pretty vigorous thunderstorms already.

I was in Rome last week for the Cassini Project Science Group meeting. This view is from a new viewing platform at the top of a national monument to modern Italy, built about 100 years ago. Behind me is the Colosseo, named after a long-lost 30-plus-meter statue of Nero. I had some time to visit the colosseum on Friday which is impressively huge but which has such a bloody history that it was also somewhat repulsive to think about what happened there. At least according to the audio guide, the depiction in the movie Gladiator captured the bloodletting there fairly well.

A night shot of the colosseum.

A view from the interior of the Colosseum.

The spot of sunlight is crossing a brass strip that runs diagonally across the floor of this church. The Sun shines through a whole high on the southern wall, and the meridian line shows the location of the Sun at local solar noon. With the seasons, the position of the image of the Sun moves up and down along the strip.

Today’s launch of the space shuttle Discovery was our first attempt to view the ascent literally from our back yard. The shuttle was clearly visible for more than a minute, rising high above the horizon on a column of flame and smoke before disappearing behind a cloud shortly before solid rocket motor separation.