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#NatureTwinning Part 45: Brought to you by shades of purple

Cattle Egret at Expedition Madagascar--Monday, 3/19/18

Black and white plus pretty much any color works just fine, you know?

In a recent discussion about my parents' new place in California, and thoughts on what colors to use in their bathroom, we talked about the black and white plus light green that they used in their old house to great effect.  My mom observed that people like to pair black and white with pink in home decor, but that she preferred the green.

How about purple?  I think that might be overkill for a permanent bathroom decoration scheme, but I like it for a Monday work outfit.

Outfit Cost Per Wear (OCPW): $14.37

It's fun to see common "local" birds as exhibits at the zoo and realize/remember that they are actually wide-spread species.  The cattle egret is an interesting case in point, as it has "undergone one of the most rapid and wide reaching natural expansions of any bird species."  Starting out in Spain, Portugal, tropical and subtropical African and tropic and subtropical Asia, it made its way across the Atlantic Ocean (believed to have flown under its own power?) to the Americas in the late 19th century, Australia in the 1940s, and so on.  As the name suggests, the cattle egret lives among domesticated livestock, and I guess it ended up liking the bugs churned up by the cows of the US as well as anywhere else.

I had not heard these alternative common names: cow crane, cow bird, cow heron, elephant bird, rhinoceros egret, and hippopotamus egret.  The Arabic name means "father of ticks."

I didn't realize until looking at my photos when I got home that I had photographed this egret in the process of scratching himself.

Henry Doorly Zoo

Purple Caterpillar Plants--Tuesday, 3/20/18

I made several last-minute substitutions in this outfit the morning I wore it, and I like the result very much.  Stripes + florals = awesome, and I like the subtle toughening-up effect of a moto vest on an otherwise soft and feminine top half.

OCPW: $10.79

This isn't called the caterpillar plant, but I'm not sure it's buddleja (butterfly bush) either, as Google Images seems to think.  But there are over 140 species of buddleja, so how the hell do I know.  Caterpillar, butterfly, it's all good.

Los Angeles Arboretum

In other news...A recent article in The Atlantic explains "Why American Students Haven't Gotten Better at Reading in 20 Years. Schools generally focus on teaching comprehension skills instead of general knowledge--even though education researchers know better."

Another, more surprising to me, finding--it's also better to provide kids with texts at their grade level (even if they are considered "too difficult" for them) than texts at their supposed individual reading levels.  "What struggling students need is guidance from a teacher in how to make sense of texts designed for kids at their respective grade levels..."  Oh, well that complicates things.  When you have a classroom full of kids reading under grade level, how does the teacher help all these strugglers with their difficult texts?  I can see how pragmatic considerations would stand in the way of this approach.